Need help...monitor suddenly goes 4 bit color!

[Guest]

Hello all. New poster here who is desparate for information.

So here's the senario: I was going through the add/remove screen and taking
off old games and programs that I didn't use anymore in an effort to clear up
space on my "C" drive. It seems we really like our iTunes at our house...and
we wanted more room for downloads.

So, after taking off many programs without problems, I began removing an old
Yahoo Messenger installation pack. After clicking "remove," the whole screen
blipped out and went black for a second before comming back up on the blue
welcome screen, and then signing out. The computer then restarted. I
figured it just had a hiccup and decided to restart, so I didn't think much
of it besides how weird it was that it did it on it's own. However, once it
rebooted, it looked like someone had sent my computer back to 1992. All the
colors were low-bit and washed out looking. The computer reccommended to
raise the color of the monitor up to a higher resolution. I thought it would
be a quick fix. However, when I went to the monitor options to change it
back to a higher level, it would only give me the option of 4 bits! Now, I'm
stuck with no idea what to do. I thought about calling support, but I don't
know if they would give me the information without charging me...and around
the holidays, I need to keep all my funds in a row, so to speak.

Any help is much appreciated!

Possible related items: Before removing programs, I did other things to
help get my C drive in order, including Disk Cleanup and Compression and
Indexing.

 

[JS]

Try downloading and installing the latest video driver from the vendor's
site.

JS

 

[Guest]

JS,

Thanks for the information! This seems to have fixed the problem! I was
worried at first when the installation asked me if I wanted to overwrite
newer files for the one I just downloaded, but it ended up bringing my colors
back just fine. I then adjusted the pixel size and got the icons down to
smaller size again.

Just for clarification: Is 32 bits the highest I can set the monitor? It
gave me 16 and 32 as options. Just wanted to make sure this is correct.

- Johnny

 

[JS]

Yep, 32 bits is it for PCs, but there may be some Graphics Workstations that
go higher.
Also there are some PC software packages that manipulate images at 48 bits,
but the display is limited to 32 bits.

JS

 

[SSI]

A friend had a similar problem some time ago with Windows ME and we solved
it by doing a registry restore. I assume you have Windows XP, so have you
tried system restore? Make sure you create a restore point before doing so
however.