Problem with video resolution going to 640x480

[mike.martin46]

Hi folks.

Well, I have beat my head against the wall till it is bloodied. I hope
someone has slayed this dragon, and can give me a hint.

I have a Dell Dimension 4550 running XP Pro. This machine has an
Nvidia GeForce4 MX420 integrated video card on the motherboard. I
normally use this at a 1024x768 resolution setting. I have used this
machine with this configuration for several years without any problem,
until about 6 months ago.

It now switches itself to 640x480 4-bit resolution any time it comes
out of sleep mode. When this happens, it is not possible to change the
display resolution with the normal settings controls. The only way to
recover seems to be to reboot the machine. Once the machine is
rebooted, it works reliably until the next time that the system goes
into sleep mode. Then it all starts over again.

I beat on it several times, and finally decided to do a complete fresh
install of XP Pro on a brand new disk. I installed all of the drivers
fresh, and did the setup from the ground up. Painful, but I figured
that this would solve the problem. Unfortunately, the problem is still
there.

I have tried the video drivers from Dell, and I have downloaded and
installed Nvidia's drivers as well. Neither affect the problem.

I suspect that this problem is related to some security patch that MS
has done to Windows, though I don't have any real evidence of that. It
just seems like everything was working fine, and then it wasn't, kind
of like something was added to the OS that doesn't work with my
system. I suggest that it is security related because it seems to be
connected to the user log-in process. I have three accounts on this
machine. One for my wife, one for me, and one for guests. My account
and my wife's accounts are both protected with passwords. The guest
account does not have a password. If I log into the guest account
after coming out of sleep mode, the machine is at the proper video
resolution. However, if I log into either of the password protected
accounts after coming out of sleep mode, it goes to 640x480.

I don't believe that it is a hardware problem, because when it is at
the proper resolution, it works fine. And I can change back and forth
between all accounts without a problem as long as it does not go into
sleep mode.

Anyone have an idea for a fix?

Thanks in advance, and sorry for the long post.

Best regards,
Mike

 

[sandy58]

Hi folks.

Well, I have beat my head against the wall till it is bloodied. I hope
someone has slayed this dragon, and can give me a hint.

I have a Dell Dimension 4550 running XP Pro. This machine has an
Nvidia GeForce4 MX420 integrated video card on the motherboard. I
normally use this at a 1024x768 resolution setting. I have used this
machine with this configuration for several years without any problem,
until about 6 months ago.

It now switches itself to 640x480 4-bit resolution any time it comes
out of sleep mode. When this happens, it is not possible to change the
display resolution with the normal settings controls. The only way to
recover seems to be to reboot the machine. Once the machine is
rebooted, it works reliably until the next time that the system goes
into sleep mode. Then it all starts over again.

I beat on it several times, and finally decided to do a complete fresh
install of XP Pro on a brand new disk. I installed all of the drivers
fresh, and did the setup from the ground up. Painful, but I figured
that this would solve the problem. Unfortunately, the problem is still
there.

I have tried the video drivers from Dell, and I have downloaded and
installed Nvidia's drivers as well. Neither affect the problem.

I suspect that this problem is related to some security patch that MS
has done to Windows, though I don't have any real evidence of that. It
just seems like everything was working fine, and then it wasn't, kind
of like something was added to the OS that doesn't work with my
system. I suggest that it is security related because it seems to be
connected to the user log-in process. I have three accounts on this
machine. One for my wife, one for me, and one for guests. My account
and my wife's accounts are both protected with passwords. The guest
account does not have a password. If I log into the guest account
after coming out of sleep mode, the machine is at the proper video
resolution. However, if I log into either of the password protected
accounts after coming out of sleep mode, it goes to 640x480.

I don't believe that it is a hardware problem, because when it is at
the proper resolution, it works fine. And I can change back and forth
between all accounts without a problem as long as it does not go into
sleep mode.

Anyone have an idea for a fix?

Thanks in advance, and sorry for the long post.

Best regards,
Mike

Have you tried the two accounts without passwords? Just to confirm
your suspicions, Mike? It would seem you are on the right track.

 

[John Wunderlich]

m:

It now switches itself to 640x480 4-bit resolution any time it
comes out of sleep mode. When this happens, it is not possible to
change the display resolution with the normal settings controls.
The only way to recover seems to be to reboot the machine. Once
the machine is rebooted, it works reliably until the next time
that the system goes into sleep mode. Then it all starts over
again.

Are you able to switch to a Lower resolution from 640x480?
Sometimes if you change the resolution to anything else (even smaller)
it will then enable you to change back to a larger resolution.

Good Luck,
John

 

[mike.martin46]

Have you tried the two accounts without passwords? Just to confirm
your suspicions, Mike? It would seem you are on the right track.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Hi again, folks.

Well, I have continued to pound on this problem. I disabled the
passwords on the two accounts that previously had them, and initially
things looked pretty good. Then this morning I sat down at the
computer, and tried to log in (no password required) and got the
640x480. It happened again when I came home from work (although the
computer was used during the day by my wife). So, now I don't think
that my previous assessment of the problem was correct. It still seems
to work fine after a reboot, and I can switch back and forth between
users without a problem if the system hasn't gone into sleep mode. I
guess then next thing is to disable sleep mode, just to verify that I
can still switch back and forth between users without the resolution
getting screwed up. Anyone have any other ideas?

Best regards,
Mike