laptop screen too small

There should be a key on the keyboard that in combination with the function key, toggles back and forth between small and large screen size . . assuming you have the correct video card driver loaded.

You will need the video driver which is in the link below:

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&releaseid=R54236&SystemID=LAT_PNT_P3C_C600&os=WW1&osl=en&deviceid=675&devlib=0&typecnt=1&vercnt=3&formatcnt=1&fileid=64350 

this has happend to my mothers laptop when a new video driver was downloaded to fix it right click on the desktop and click propeties to bring up diplay properties click on settings and advanced and there will be a check box under one of those tabs i belive that says something about using full screen or native resolution.
If you cannot find this check button you can also just roll back the vidoe driver.

Best of luck
Michael

There are 2 ways:

You can set it at it's phisical resolution (most likely the 1024x768 you mentioned), and then adjust the dpi settings to make the text bigger (on the advanced part of the display properties).
That can make some menus look a little strange, but it's won't hurt to try.

The other option depends on your graphic driver, and it should give you an option to either maintain a 1:1 pixel mapping (making your 800x600 look like the "window" in the center of your screen, with black borders around) - or to stretch it to fill the screen (what you want) but it will also introduce some "blurring" because of the stretching. You need to look for such an option on your display properties, either on the graphic card, or on the display properties itself.

If the fixes above still do not set it right then you may want to consider restoring back to a previous time when it was alright and better still you can go for an inplace upgrade or repair installation of your XP
check this links for more info:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q306084
www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm 

AB

speak2ab, this is not an issue to "restore" or "repair" windows... It's just a display setting.

He just want to get the text larger, or to have 800x600 filling the entire screen.

quippee, this is a known "problem" with the older DELL laptops (not too sure about other makes), and as some of the other guys have already stated, it's related to the scaling of the screen-size.
LCDs (laptop ones especially) are designed to run at their native resolution - in this case, the C600's are set to run at a default of 1024x768.

It's possible that different drivers could resolve this for you (although i'm pretty sure you'll find they won't make any difference) - but your best bet is to leave it at the default resolution, and play with the icon sizes, etc. in order to make things larger and therefore easier to read.

One of the main things that people tend to have problems with with this approach is browsing the web - so be aware of things like CTRL + mouse-scroll in Mozilla, or View > Text Size in IE in order to make the text on web-sites larger and easier to read :)

I absolutely agree with grin king above, don't use another resolution than what your display is built for, it's a waste of a good display. Rather adjust your other settings. Right click the desktop, select "Properties", then the "Advanced" tab, and then you have a "DPI Setting". Change this to another value, like "Large Size (120DPI)", and the icons and text will be much larger and you still get the optimal display (I think you need to reboot for the changes to become active).

Video driver problem. i believe the video is a Neomagic???? can't remember. Download correct driver. that should do it.

I have Dell laptop CSx1 here, and anytime I reinstalled windows os, the screen is alway sized like 4x6 photo! reinstall video driver then it fixes the problem.

Pcpaulcomputers! you are correct! it is Neomagic.

According to the question, the display is set correctly if the user has it at 1024x768, like it should be. So this isn't a driver question. His problem is just when he uses a low resolution like 800x600, then it doesn't use the full display. Of course you can set this in the BIOS, there is a "Stretch display to fit screen option", but as I posted earlier, you should use the native resolution of the display which is the only correct resolution for it (1024x768), and rather use larger fonts if things are too small to read, which is the reason he wants to use only 800x600.

I set my screen resolution 1024x768 and it is still fit to screen .... and 800x600 is not a problem! it is still fit in screen. Of course, after correct video driver installed.

With the wrong drivers you won't be able to use resolutions of more than 640x480. You can only go higher with the correct drivers. As I've said your 800x600 fits the screen because you have used the stretch switch in your BIOS.

Yeah, you did say that ... my bad to miss that writing!

Wow. lots of reponses, sorry I couldnt give you the points earlier, work is out of hand, but You guys help a ton. the answer was on FN+f7, I thought I tried all the FNs but I guess I didnt.

Thanks Experts

Just wanted to add that this uses was kinda of blind so I couldnt use the higher resolutions this is why I need to be full screen on 800x600

thanks again