Monitor Driver

[Capt K Ripendran]

My son has a Dell Vostro Desktop PC with a CRT Monitor of Screen Resolution
1024 x 724, preloaded with Win XP SP2 Home Edition now upgraded to SP3 &
IE8. Sometime back the monitor went out of order and since it was within
Warranty, Dell
replaced it with a LCD Monitor with Resolution 1280 x 1024. After connecting
it, the display still shows the earlier Resolution!

Dell provided a Driver for E178FP LCD Monitor but this does not open to
install! I succeeded in downloading and installing a Driver from Dell
Drivers & Downloads Webpage, but even this does NOT change the Resolution.
When I manually do it the Font becomes so small, one needs magnifying lens
to see the Icons on the desktop.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance
Capt K Ripendran

 

[R. McCarty]

Does the Monitor driver provide a Setup ? or is it just the .Inf and
other driver components ? Sometimes you have to force/direct XP to
replace the Plug-&-Play driver for the vendor specific one. Basically
you open the existing entry in Device Manger/Monitors and update
to the E178FP monitor definition. Once installed, you should be able
to make adjustments to resolution/color depth...

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

My son has a Dell Vostro Desktop PC with a CRT Monitor of Screen
Resolution
1024 x 724, preloaded with Win XP SP2 Home Edition now upgraded to SP3 &
IE8. Sometime back the monitor went out of order and since it was within
Warranty, Dell
replaced it with a LCD Monitor with Resolution 1280 x 1024. After
connecting it, the display still shows the earlier Resolution!

Dell provided a Driver for E178FP LCD Monitor but this does not open to
install! I succeeded in downloading and installing a Driver from Dell
Drivers & Downloads Webpage, but even this does NOT change the Resolution.
When I manually do it the Font becomes so small, one needs magnifying lens
to see the Icons on the desktop.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance
Capt K Ripendran

Increase the DPI setting to 125% in the advanced display settings window.
That will make all text larger..

 

[JS]

Open the 'Control Panel' then click
on the 'Display' icon. Next click the 'Settings' tab.
Bottom left is a slider to change the resolution.
1024x768 was a common resolution for CRT displays
and I am currently using an 18" Dell Flat Panel at 1024x768.

You should also check your refresh rate as 72Hz was also
common for a CRT display but Flat Panels typical are set to 60Hz.

If still no joy you can also try Mike's suggestion as I use this
technique from time to time on one of my other Flat Screen
LCD displays.

Also you may need to tinker with the Brightness and Contrast
controls until you find something that's comfortable to your
eyes as a number of people experience more eye strain and
headaches with Flat Panel/LCD displays when compared to
CRT displays.

 

[Capt K Ripendran]

As you had suggested, in the Device Manager I opened Monitor and did the
Update Driver using the CD that came with it. Thereafter, I increased the
DPI Setting to 125 as suggested by Mike. I also changed the Refresh Rate to
60Hz as suggested by JS. The Display is now set to 1280x1024 and it looks
good. However, the font appears thin and NOT as good as in my Presario which
has a Resolution of 1024x768 with a Refresh Rate of 85 Hz!

How do I ascertain what is the default font & size, so that I can change it
as we are used to the font size when the Resolution was 1024x768?

Thanking you
Capt K Ripendran

 

[JS]

Use Microsoft's "Clear Type Tuner"
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/Step1.aspx

or Microsoft's PowerToy Version of Clear Type Tuner
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearTypePowerToy.mspx