New Monitor unable to show Correct Resolution

Vyom

The Power of x480
Staff member
Admin
My config:

Pentium 4, 2.4 GHz (I know, its a bit old)
Ram: 1 GB DDR1
OS: Win 7 Ultimate

I had this 17" CRT before, on which I had 1280 x 1024 resolution.
Today I upgraded to Dell 1909w, a 19" LCD monitor. The problem is, I am unable to set resolution greater than 1280 x 1024 in this monitor, cause its the max which is showing in "Screen Resolution" dialog box. Due to this, the screen looks stretched.
And when I turn off the Wide mode of the monitor, then screen width reduces to "non stretch mode" BUT an inch from both sides of the monitor remains unused!

Sorry if I havnt been able to explain the problem in decent language. Do I have to install some drivers to solve this problem? Thnx in advance.

Edited: According to website, the native resolution for this monitor is: 1440x900.
So the question is how do I change it to native res?
 
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OP
Vyom

Vyom

The Power of x480
Staff member
Admin
But, I havnt installed any drivers for monitors.
The drivers were probably included in Win 7 by default. :(

Update: This is Weird!
In Safe mode I am able to set res. upto 1600 x 1200. But in normal mode, its not showing higher than 1280 x 1024. Now there are two problems:
1. How can Safe mode looking good than normal mode.
2. How come in safe mode, res. is higher than the native res. of the monitor, which is 1440x900. :aaargh:
 
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OP
Vyom

Vyom

The Power of x480
Staff member
Admin
Currently it is looking like the world's greatest mystery to me !!
Anybody pls help :(
 
OP
Vyom

Vyom

The Power of x480
Staff member
Admin
@asingh: Model (as written on packing) is Mercury PI845Z.

CPU-Z shows this:
View attachment 4132

@ajai5777: How?
I tried to update the drivers using both the options:
1. "Search automatically", and
2. Browsing the CD which came with the mobo,
and both of the time, it shows, that the Best drivers is already installed:
View attachment 4134

Meanwhile I tried something else. I connected this monitor to a Dell Vostro laptop, and the monitor achieved its native resolution! So, it confirmed that its the fault of drivers for this mobo!

And now I am totally confused with what driver to even search! I dont know if the drivers majorly depend on Model of the mobo; the OS; or the model of the monitor; or a combination of all three! And thats why my trusted website driverguide.com is also unable to help me.
 

ajai5777

Youngling
When you open screen resolution page, is there your monitor's name shown in the display tab ?
Try to uninstall your current monitor drivers and try update again via windows update.
 

nims11

BIOS Terminator
i faced this problem in XP and i wasnt able to use 1440x900. Then i had to change a '.inf' file of the driver files to solve the problem.
 

coderunknown

Retired Forum Mod
1 small doubt: does 845 chipset support this resolution? if yes, its a driver problem. OP is on generic drivers. should download drivers from Intel's site & install.
 
OP
Vyom

Vyom

The Power of x480
Staff member
Admin
^^ If 845 Chipset didn't supported the native resolution, then there would have been no way, I would have get higher res. in safe mode!

I will try to search drivers from Intel's website today.
 
OP
Vyom

Vyom

The Power of x480
Staff member
Admin
First thing first. Intel's driver's site is far from user friendliness, or it can be just me, who isn't able to find out the appropriate drivers, which is like a bit in the sea of Tera-bytes! (My interpretation of needle in the haystack.)

BUT, I think I got a little success. Here's what happened.

I completely uninstalled the drivers under two headings from Device Manager, "Display Adapters" & "Generic PnP Monitor". And after a quick reboot, voila, my desktop reached to the res. of 1600 x 1200! (note that, this still isn't the native res., which is 1440 x 900, but ratio's are good, and display doesn't seem stretched.)

All remains well, and I can enjoy the high (non-native) res. until I restart the PC. After a reboot, res. goes back to 1280 x 1024, and which occurs since the drivers of monitor gets auto-installed (I can see the prompt near taskbar, which says, "Installing drivers...")

Is there any way, I can stop this "Auto-Install" of drivers, cause I seem to have a good res. without that fudging driver update!
 

Pratul_09

Journeyman
Get a software www.ma-config.com/ and this will help you in getting the latest drivers for you board and will solve your problem. Its not that user friendly, but is freeware and will require you to install a browser add-in.

If this does not work then try Powerstrip from entech, its userfriendly, but a paidware.

Best of Luck
 

nims11

BIOS Terminator
@vineet Intel® 845 Chipset Family — Chipset information and downloads

@praful when the same problem happened with me, i too tried powerstrip and i wasnt quite happy with it. It doesnt give the desired output
 

thetechfreak

Legend Never Ends
found a website where its given.

Do at OWN risk.
Dont blame me if you do anything wrong. Back up everything.



Tutorial: Forcing Custom Resolution in Windows
 

nims11

BIOS Terminator
^^ agreed
do at your own risk, i too tried forcing custom resolution using powerstrip when i faced the prob and there was no output(my monitor didnt support it) for many settings when i started windows. although the setting are restored after the 2nd reboot(if we dont confirm in the first one), its still dangerous. if anything happens, safe mode is always there...
 
OP
Vyom

Vyom

The Power of x480
Staff member
Admin
@nims11: That link looks promising. Will try to update the drivers from there at evening.

@thetechfreak: Will try that if the drivers from nims11 doesn't work. And thanks for the warnings! :lol:

So, is there no easy way to just disable the Automatic Installation of drivers that occurs when I restart the PC?

BTW, on a side problem, I am searching for Graphics and Sound drivers for my uncle's (ancient :oops:) laptop, the driver CD's for which are long lost. Specifications for the laptop is as follows.

HCL Laptop model L5903.
Intel Celeron M 360 1.40 GHz
448 MB SDRAM
OS: Windows XP Pro, SP3
View attachment 4141


It would be VERY helpful if someone can redirect me to a good source of drivers for this laptop. I found this: *www.hclsupportservice.in/drvr-dwnld.jsp
But, I am unable to figure out which "series" laptop is that. :blink:
 

thetechfreak

Legend Never Ends
Found a site. Don't know how useful its going to be. Its for your Uncles lappy



My laptop model no. is L5903 and serial no.6064ax104295 aND I DONT own SOUND AND DISPLAY DRIVERS.plz help me. | Driver download
 
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