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General discussion

Laptop Monitor Problems

Feb 20, 2004 4:08AM PST

Please excuse my lack of geek speak......(I'm not a professional)
My Latitude C840 Laptop's resolution settings are 1024 X 768. Everything was fine until last night after I closed my laptop's lid and then opened it again. Suddenly my desktop area was drastically reduced and sent to the middle of the monitor. I checked the settings and even though the text and icons were barely legible the settings were still showing 1024 X 768.
I restarted the computer and my screen went back to normal, but 1 second later the desktop shot back to the middle of the monitor screen leaving a black 3 inch border between my desktop and the edge of my laptop monitor.
I can get my regular desktop back by changing the settings to something else, then changing it back to my default resolution. (Even tried re-booting hoping to save the settings but when windows starts all is normal again but only in that first second.)

Does anyone have any idea what is wrong?

Discussion is locked

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DELL has a fix for it
Feb 20, 2004 4:20AM PST

you get a free tech support through DELL call tech support if you are still in warrenty or not they maybe able to fix it

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Re:Laptop Monitor Problems
Feb 20, 2004 7:24AM PST

Are all the icons still there in the 'reduced' state, or are some icons are 'cut off' ?

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Re:Re:Laptop Monitor Problems
Feb 20, 2004 8:45AM PST

All the icons are still there - the desktop is an exact mini of it's correct size. It's very frustrating to have to tweak the settings back to the right size at evry bootup.

I'm just hoping it's something that can be fixed.

Thanks for your response.

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Re:Re:Re:Laptop Monitor Problems
Feb 20, 2004 9:13AM PST

Can you still work on the computer, although vison will be poor ?

It may take some time to find out the reasons for the problem. For a quick fix, try the boot menu (F8 while booting), then go to safe mode to see whether the desktop is also reduced in size. Use System Restore (while still in safe mode) to roll back to when the display was good. Or you can go back to the boot menu again to select ".....the last good configuration..."

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Re:Re:Re:Re:Laptop Monitor Problems
Feb 20, 2004 12:38PM PST

Yes, I can still work on the computer with the smaller desktop - though it's very hard to see. I did a System Restore almost immediately but it didn't help.
I hadn't thought of trying it in SAFE MODE so I'm off to do that now. Thanks so much!

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Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Laptop Monitor Problems
Feb 21, 2004 2:52AM PST

Not certain if this is your problem if it is great anbd if not sorry fot getting your hopes up. on your desktop right click propertiesand click the settings tabhit the advanced tab at the on display properties and see if you can find your refresh ratesit will be like 8bit 1024x768 or 16bit 1024x768 or 32 bit 1024x768 it sounds as if yours are set at 8 bit if the screen is so small...let me know

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Thanks Caliper
Feb 23, 2004 1:08AM PST

I didn't see anything about a refresh rate.....no values in 8bit, 16bit or 32bit. I looked all over the place.

I hadn't changed anything in my settings before this though.
Thanks for your suggestion.

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Re:Re:Re:Re:Laptop Monitor Problems
Feb 23, 2004 1:05AM PST

Hi....I did as you suggested and restarted in Safe Mode. The screen maintained it's full size!
So I restored to a point that I knew the computer was okay.

When I booted up, the screen once again shot to the centre of the desktop. I have a DELL and used the Fn/F7 keys to get the correct size back.

I have updated my Nvidia drivers, too but nothing seems to be helping!
Thanks for your response.

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Re:Laptop Monitor Problems
Jan 7, 2005 2:08AM PST

I'm having the same problem with a dell latitude csx, that i just installed windows xp on. Did you ever find a solution to this problem? if so please share

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I did.
Jan 7, 2005 2:09AM PST

I installed the drivers for the machine. Microsoft will not do this for us.