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Okay, the wife and I are finally stepping into the 21st century, and I recently ordered flat-panel monitors for both her computer and mine.

In fact, here's the one I ordered for her, which incidentally arrived today, and I hooked it up in no time:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824254023

Here's the problem: her video card is just the basic video that came on her motherboard. Truth told, she has little need for more.

The strange thing is this: the monitor specs say that it will do up to 1440x900 resolution.

The thing is, I cannot seem to select 1440x900 (I'm guessing the video "card" doesn't support that exact resolution). And the best resolution I can get is 1024x768 (which for her uses is fine, this is mostly for my curiousity). When I go to any higher resolution (even ones less than 1440x900), everything on screen shows up larger, and I can mouse to the edge of the screen to scroll to the whole thing, rather than showing it all at once.

Any ideas? Is it because the video on the motherboard doesn't support that precise resolution?

And that leads me to my next question: as I said, I ordered one for myself too. The one I ordered was this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001087

My plan, at least at this point, is to connet that one to my DVI out on my video card (an ATI Radeon 9250 one, yeah old, I know) and do dual-monitors with that and my current 20" CRT.

But now I'm starting to worry: will I be able to get decent resolution on it with my card? The max resolution on the specs for that monitor is 1680x1050, but my video card doesn't seem to have a setting for that precise resolution either.

And for me going down to 1024x768 is absolutely unacceptable.

Ideas? Thoughts?

Did I mention that while I'd love to get a new video card for my machine (AGP only, my MB doesn't support PCI Express), I seriously doubt the wife would let me buy MORE computer hardware, especially after just buying these two monitors.

Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 9:02 pm Post subject:

sounds like that on board video doesn't support video modes higher than 1024x768 and when selecting higher res it switches to a virtual mode with the display being 1024x768. prolly due to lack of ram allocated to the vid. if there is a way to allocate more ram to vid in the BIOS, it may enable you to select higher resolutions.

Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 9:09 pm Post subject:

Slymer wrote:
sounds like that on board video doesn't support video modes higher than 1024x768 and when selecting higher res it switches to a virtual mode with the display being 1024x768. prolly due to lack of ram allocated to the vid. if there is a way to allocate more ram to vid in the BIOS, it may enable you to select higher resolutions.

If that's the case, that's just fine. To be honest, she's quite content with that resolution anyways.

My big concern is when my new monitor arrives in the next few days that I'd have similar issues. Of course, I know that I have a 128MB card in my machine, even if it is a little old, and I know it supports higher than 1024x768. The only question is whether it'll let me to dual-monitor (since it has a VGA 15-pin out as well as a DVI out).

Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 9:57 pm Post subject:

Alphi wrote:
Slymer wrote:
sounds like that on board video doesn't support video modes higher than 1024x768 and when selecting higher res it switches to a virtual mode with the display being 1024x768. prolly due to lack of ram allocated to the vid. if there is a way to allocate more ram to vid in the BIOS, it may enable you to select higher resolutions.

If that's the case, that's just fine. To be honest, she's quite content with that resolution anyways.

My big concern is when my new monitor arrives in the next few days that I'd have similar issues. Of course, I know that I have a 128MB card in my machine, even if it is a little old, and I know it supports higher than 1024x768. The only question is whether it'll let me to dual-monitor (since it has a VGA 15-pin out as well as a DVI out).

It should since that setup sounds familair to what I have.

Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 4:49 am Post subject:

I had a similar experience with a relative's PC this summer. I had to update the motherboard BIOS to the latest version in order to get the 1440x900 resolution.
Try these steps:
1) Update BIOS
2) Set video to use 64MB of RAM
3) Install the latest video drivers.

Failing that, Maybe you could talk your wife into spending $35 for a new graphics card.

Stray Dog Joined: 05 Jan 2008 Age: 39 Posts: 1

Powerstrip will allow you to add the resolution you need to your display settings. Once you've added 1440x900 to your settings disable powerstrip starting with windows so you don't get the shareware nag box.

Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 7:16 am Post subject:

Welcome to the forums.

Another option, if one doesn't like nag screens, is to buy the software.

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 9:40 pm Post subject:

T wrote:
Another option, if one doesn't like nag screens, is to buy the software.

does that actually work?!?!