Screen resolution bug

I have run my computer since Sept.2008 with a screen resolution at or below 1280x1024 @ 60Hz >32 bit color. I have a 24” LCD Samsung monitor, core2 Duo E7300 2.66Ghz 1066 fsb w/2Gb fsb1066 Ram on a Asus P5E-VM MB I put together myself. Untill I downloaded two games from MSN Games Partner ‘Oberon’ in June 2010. Some 6 hours after the download of the second game a square box popped up in the center of the screen while uploading an E-mail into hotmail I had composed in MSFT word. The square was immovable and the cusor disapeared behind it, after a few moments it went black screen. I finally figured out that turning off the monitor, pause, and turning it on gave me about 90 seconds to try things until black screen again. The box said; _________________ |Not optimum mode | |Recommend mode: |1920 x 1200 60 Hz | ? |_________________| | analog |_________________| The games; “build-a-lot 3” and then “build-a-lot Elizabethan Era” are not complicated or video intense, and a MS games bar. Oberon support and I traded E-mails for 10 days and they gave up and offered me a free game. Right! Two trips to the computer store service dept. and $154.00 later and the screen res box came up again when played Civilization IV Beyond the Sword from HDD & disc. It has infiltrated other non-game videos like BOINC “Seti@Home” which has a screen saver to show the distributed work. It has infiltrated XP wallpaper & screen savers. When I set everything at 1920x1200, even with MSFT accessibility on, I can’t read the print in Civ IV and must use 150% enlargement for typying in 12 point text, while needing 150-200% on the internet pages that it works I unloaded and re installed Civ 4 to rid it of the black box but when I restarted Seti it re infected Civ 4 After running all my spyware, malware, and security programs it is still there and everything in my computer is up to date. I believe it’s a software bug because MS security, LavaSoft firewall & adaware w/ service contract, MalwareBytes, Spyware Terminator, and Glary Utilities could not detect the problem. I took it in for tech service who uninstalled Oberon games and games bar, and I lost LavaSoft, bootup changed, some system tray icons gone and still have a problem. The techs said it is my monitor, which I didn’t bring in, and told me to change my screen resolution in the monitor and in my games. I might as well throw the computer away. My computer is a stranger to me and I can’t do a few of the things I’ve done for years like Seti@Home and folding@home (both distributed programs). Worried that if I watch a video online if it would spread. Also, with being on social insecurity, I can’t afford another $50-60 at MSFT tech support for another month or so.

Welcome to the forum. Unfortunately, LCD monitors have a "native" resolution that they run at which provides the best clarity on the screen. Typically they will run at lower resolutions and sometimes at higher resolutions, but the screen will not look right. 1920x1200 is a very high resolution, but that is because you have such a large screen. I believe that is a wide screen format, and running your monitor in 1280x1024 will cause it to stretch everything horizonally, making your circles oblong. Basically, that is what your monitor is telling you. However, you should be able to continue to run it in a lower resolution without problems. Another thing to consider is the refresh rate. Certain games take over the video settings and adjust them while the game is in play, and so you may have to adjust resolution and refresh settings in each individual game that is having a problem. Other than that you should make sure that in control panel -> display -> settings -> advanced that your monitor refresh rate is not set higher than 60hz. Finally, it could be that you need to update your video card driver which you did not mention which type of card you have. I would also do that for good measure which may help resolve your video issues. Lastly, if your monitor is giving you this much trouble at what appears to be resolutions that it should handle, then it is probably a bad monitor. P.S. The place you took your computer for service should gladly hook up your monitor and computer and help to diagnose the problem. Especially, if you brought the computer in for that problem and it is still not resolved. For them to do anything less, free of charge, is just pathetic.

Thanks for the reply! I have updated every thing including ATI graphics drivers each week or when alerted Video card is; VisionTek, ATI radeon HD 3650, PCI-E 2.0, 1GB GDDR3. It runs at an HD-DVD videos in full 1080p (native resolution?) In reading the spec sheet again it mentioned its compatibility to AMD-7 chipset MB. My set up is Intel based chipset and CPU MB. Would that matter?