Forums Forums Enthusiast Forums A - Z Gadgets & Tech laptop display

The machine I use most often is a laptop with an 11" screen (Medion MD 96400). The hard disk C: drive was rapidly running out of space ie space left was measured in MB not GB!

There is a D: partition containing all the backup files and with 14GB free but resizing the partitions is not something I have done before (well, not for ages) so rightly or wrongly I decided to accept the Win XP option of "compress the drive to save disk space" and applied that to drive C:

Sure it took some time but it does now give me 6.6GB of free space on C:

Everything else seems to work OK except the screen resolution

Normally I use the Control Panel display function to have the resolution at 1280 x 1024

That option now seems to have "gone". The only resolutions offered by the Display function are 800x600 or 1024 x 768. There USED to be several more resolution options but they have gone.

1024 x 768 does not seem good enough

What have I done?
Who has stolen my "resolutions"

Any advice?
(apart from reverse the disk compress - if that is possible - and change the partitions or add another external disk)

Snod

I'm not a expert like, but i think you might need to install the drivers for the graphics card.

Humm - I have a nasty suspicion you may be correct
However, where I will find those drivers etc is entirely another issue. I GUESS they are on the D: partition but what they are called etc I have no idea at all. Being a small laptop the graphics will almost certainly be part of the motherboard

Snod

If you haven't already done so, go to device manager and see if there's a question mark by Display Adapters!

ATI recommend getting the drivers for the Mobility Radeon series from the partner website.

As such you should be able to find the drivers via your serial number from here: http://www.medion.co.uk/service/?drivers_updates/drivers_updates.htm

I have been there - and it is a pretty yellow asterisk rather than a question mark, but I am SURE it is indicating the same thing.

Snod

Thank you kind Sir.
I will have a go at that tomorrow - I need to be awake/ alert doing things like this.

The hardware identification via System indicates the driver as ati2mtag.sys located in Win/system32/drivers folder - and it is "there" ok. May be corrupted of course

Snod

Oh bugger

I have just spotted another "problem"

When I hit Start - Turn off computer buttons with the intention to close down I notice that the "standby" button on the next screen is greyed out

Hummmm - don't like this

Snod

I would have thought 1024X768 would be the highest realistic resolution (visually) for an 11" display. Have you got large fonts switched on (120dpi) instead of normal fonts (96dpi)?

I know that doesn't fix the underlying problem but just thought I'd mention.

DD, I dunno what size I was using before but certainly the text, icons and some images seem less sharp than in the past - to an extent that what is currently available makes my eyes tired very quickly. I am sure it was better than 1024 x 768.

Drivers I think I can "fix" but the greyed-out standby button bothers me

Snod

The display drivers (or lack of!) can cause your standby problem - as can loads of other things.

Have you tried booting into "safe mode" and then re-booting back to normal - this often clears up some sillies, but generally not display problems - but worth a try other than it might re-arrange your desktop icons.

It certainly sounds like your display settings have taken a hit - the poor fonts may be the "smooth edges of screen fonts" are switched off. 1024X768 is easily sharp up to 14" and beyond.

Overall it looks like you need to install your graphics drivers anyway because something has taken a hit there.

I reloaded the display driver - and all well again

Display as I want it (1280x800) and the Standby button is working again

Thanks folks

Snod

Ah - its widescreen, that's why 1024 would look fuzzy, the up-scaling to 1280 doesn't look very good.