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I am trying to install a new 23" widescreen monitor, and have some problems. It is an LG W2343T plugged via DVI into a NVidia GeForce 8800GT card. Win XP. Both card and monitor have latest drivers loaded. If I go into the menu of the monitor (using buttons on the front panel) it has a reference to the resolution and this appears to be stuck on 1024 x 768. I can't change this as it picks it up from somewhere - not sure where - drivers? graphics card?. But it should read 1920 x 1080, the native res of the monitor.

The symptoms of this issue are that if I set the PCs res to match what the monitor says (1024 x 768) I get a normal desktop, although at a crap resolution. If I attempt to set the res to what it should be (1920 x 1080) my desktop expands to be low res but enormous and I actually have to scroll around it to see the whole thing - ie move mouse towards bottom left to scroll to start button, and then move mouse to bottom right to scroll to see clock, etc.

I have seen this monitor working correctly in the shop I got it from and the res shown in the monitors menu should read 1920 x 1080 but I don't know how to make it do this.

Any suggestions? 5 hours and counting to install a monitor must be some kind of record...

Glenn

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After 5 hours of troubleshooting, my guess is a bad monitor. I suggest exchanging it for a new unit. At least then you can rule out the monitor as the culprit if it doesn't fix the problem.

After looking at the comments, I realize I assumed that the graphics card was outputting higher than 1024x768 before you installed the new monitor. If not, my suggestion basically boils down to, "Try replacing each part one at a time until you figure out the culprit". The monitor is the easiest, maybe borrow one from a friend temporarily?

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  • What might the problem indicate is wrong with the monitor, though? It doesn't really sound so much like a monitor problem to me, more like driver. But I've been known to be wrong before.
    – Nathaniel
    Jan 7, 2010 at 3:15
  • @Stephen Jennings I would second that, the graphics card isnt old and therefore the drivers should be fine if downloaded from the nVidia site. I doubt its very common, but its probably a problem with the display. At the very least I would try a moniter on the same PC with a higher native res than 1024 x 768 to prove it the monitor and not the card.
    – Connor W
    Jan 7, 2010 at 8:33
  • I guess I assumed that the question was, "I had a monitor before and it worked fine, now I replaced it with this LG and cannot go higher than 1024x768". Jan 8, 2010 at 3:09
  • Final update. Turned out is was indeed a bad monitor. Took it and my PC back to the shop and we plugged in a replacement and it worked immediately as expected, set itself to correct native resolution, didn't even need any changes to desktop settings, did it all automatically. And it looks great! Also fixed the bizarre thing where it showed nothing during bootup. Bad firmware apparently. Thanks for all your suggestions guys.
    – Glenn M
    Jan 10, 2010 at 20:00
  • What I've learned re monitors: update your graphics driver first, and get the latest driver for the monitor too. If the monitor does not behave as expected after that, I'd be thinking 'faulty monitor' next and get it checked out straight away...
    – Glenn M
    Jan 10, 2010 at 21:25
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Thanks for the suggestions guys. I tend to agree that it is maybe graphics drivers or settings (although I have every intention of taking it back and trying another one if I get nowhere with that :-)). The very latest drivers cause the symptoms above, and 2 earlier drivers I tried simply show no picture at all; the monitor just jumps into powersave mode as it thinks nothing is happeneing. Also annoying is that with latest drivers, boot up causes powersave mode as well and the monitor shows nothing on the screen until you get to the logon, and then only if you move the mouse. Is this a fault?

Also, I can confirm that if I select 800x600 res in control panel this does get updated on the monitor's menu, so this is kind of working as it should. The problem appears to be that the card won't send [edit: as it turned out it was actually that the monitor won't receive] anything higher than 1024x768. Higher res than that just leave 1024x768 showing on the monitor menu and the desktop expands.

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    Please edit your original question. do not post separate answers. Jan 7, 2010 at 9:22
  • From SuperUser FAQ: "It's also perfectly fine to ask and answer your own question" Am I missing something here?
    – Connor W
    Jan 7, 2010 at 11:10
  • Sorry Diago I just sort by oldest, and that way get the question at the top and then the discussion that follows chronologically, including any of my own updates or comments. Would you even notice an edit to the original question?
    – Glenn M
    Jan 7, 2010 at 19:57
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Not the monitor - it's a setting in both Nvidia and ATI control panels. Ran into the same issue. Monitor is fine - with ATI card, right click system icon and select "set desktop resolution" and this solves the troubles. Not sure where it is in the nvidia panel.

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I don't think this isn't a monitor issue, I think it's an NVIDIA issue.

Check your display properties in the NVIDIA control panel and check around to see if desktop scaling is enabled.

Edit: I was just reminded that this option is usually called "Virtual Desktop". I've had this problem before with an older NVIDIA card in a desktop at work. Unfortunately, I'm not there right now, so I can't check the NVIDIA Control Panel to be sure...

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Can't seem to edit anything or comment, have to keep adding new entries. Must not be logged in or something.....

Anyway, Stephen, yes previous flatscreen was a Philips 190B running at 1280 x 1024. And of course the 8800GT can pump out much higher than that...

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