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General discussion

display problems

Mar 10, 2004 10:11AM PST

Let me just start by saying that I know next to nothing about computers.
Now that that's out of the way -- I have a Compaq that's been really messed up lately, I've had it for about three years and left it at school over winter break, came back and the display was only showing the 16-color option, I tried to change it and it wouldn't work, formatted my hard drive and reinstalled windows, didn't work, reinstalled the drivers, didn't work. So now I have no idea what to do. Is it the monitor perhaps? Or the display card? If it's the display card then how do I know what to look for when I buy a new one? Any ideas?

Discussion is locked

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Re:display problems
Mar 10, 2004 10:24AM PST

If it were me I would be looking at the monitor drivers. It will cause such issues. Check the manufacturer website for current drivers for you make and model monitor. Do not accept drivers from the Microsoft Update site. One of their recommended driver caused me the exact problem you have. The Mfg. driver took care of the issue.

Good luck!

Happy

Glenn

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Re:display problems
Mar 10, 2004 11:48AM PST

You need the video drivers, more than likely since Compaq, part of the Compaq restore CD. However, don't restore, find the drivers and install. You may have to navigate to properly point to them once you're in the right CD dir. area. Comapq support website can also provide these, just find your Compaq model and look for them. I *assume* the video card or on-board video is from Compaq. If not, then verify your video card model and proceed to http://www.driverguide.com for drivers. You need to register with them but the d/l is free or any other similar driver website.

I think Glenn got it backwards, it's not the "monitor" drivers but video card(adapter) drivers. Though it helps to have the system acknowledge the monitor being used for best video outputs avaialble. make sense?

good luck -----Willy

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Re:Re:display problems
Mar 11, 2004 2:03AM PST

Well the thing is I already found a disk with all the drivers on it and tried to reinstall them and it didn't help it at all, so I have no idea what to do next.