Munney

Ok, this is a problem that has me boggled. I'm running XP Pro. Basically, when I boot the computer the screen looks fine, and everything is centered correctly. It gets to the Windows XP starting screen with the little taskbar going back and forth, and everything is fine. Then, when XP starts up and goes to the user login screen, the screen shifts dramatically to the left and is off-center by well over 50%.
One way I am able to fix this problem is by going to the Display menu and adjusting the screen resolution to something like 1600X1200 and then saying no to "keep current settings". Sometimes, when it "flashes" back to the previous resolution setting it goes into the correct position. However, this is very rare. I usually have to "flash" it like this well over 50 times before I finally get it to come into sync.
Originally, I thought it was a video card problem. I was using a Voodoo 5500 card, and I had problems updating the drivers. I also had alot of problems running several games on that card. So, I got a PNY Verto GEForce 3 Ti500 card in hopes that it would solve the problem. Unfortunately, that didn't do anything.
I also tried going into Safe Mode in hopes that re-installing the video card might solve the problem. However, even in Safe Mode, the screen was again shifted WAY left by over 50%.
Lastly, I tried entirely re-installing XP. This didn't solve the problem either.
I'm really at a loss here. I'm running a 1.0 Gig Hz AMD processor on a ASUS motherboard. Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated. I'm about to dump XP thinking it's a problem with it, or I thought I may have a motherboard issue.
Thanks for your help on the matter.

Qumahlin

Have you tried adjusting your monitor settings using the controls on the front? I know that on my old monitor when it booted it was fine at the boot resolution (which is like 640 by 480), but when it got into windows and went to 1280 by 1024 it was all messed....I just adjusted it using the front controls and the monitor remembers those settings and it never did it since

Munney

Yes, I tried that. Unfortunately, it's so shifted out of whack that it doesn't matter how far over I manually set the monitor. It's still only about 70% in the screen even if I kick the monitor settings as far to the right as I can. I'm about to dropkick this POS out the window. Thanks for the idea though.

Munney

When I do finally get the screen in the correct location by using the manner outlined above, if I run a game such as Return to Caslte Wolfenstein, it will "flash" it and take it back out of frame. So, as you could probably guess, this is very frustrated, and I'm at a loss as to what to try next. Thanks for your help.

AmarSingh

brand and model number for your monitor??

Munney

It's a Korea Data Systesm (KDS) Avitron AV-195T.

You think it's a problem with my monitor? I kind of thought since the video was fine when I wasn't in windows that it was a windows issue.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

avsdotcom

Dunno if this is any help, but have you tried the Nvidia refresh rate fix for XP ? I had a similar problem but nowhere near the extent to which you are suffering. Mine was shifting to the right by about 4 cm. Installed the patch and everything is fine
Hope that helps.

pl-acid

i had a strange problem too on win2k with my voodoo3.
to cure the problem i had to uninstall the drivers then install the default vga driver then install the latest version voodoo driver.
in that order.try that.
also make sure u have the proper monitor driver installed.
most monitors will work with the generic driver but the proper one is best.

gazza

Munney

I'll give those things a try. It's a weird problem especially since I have been running windows XP for about 2 months without any issues, then about 3 weeks ago the shifting left problem arose. That's why I thought it was a motherboard issue, or perhaps due to some hardware compatibility thing that arose after a Windows update or something. It was doing it on my Voodoo 5500 video card as well as this GeForce 3 card. I did try the Nvidia refresh rate fix with no success . Thanks for the input, I'll give those a try.

Munney

anyone else have any ideas?

Lonman

Is your Geforce a PCI card? If it is try plugging it into another expansion slot. You might want to power down, unplug the the monitor cable and inspect it real well to make sure nothing is lose, then seat it firmly again. I don't have a clue whether that will help or not.

Is XP reporting everything correctly for your card? Correct memory size and the like? You might want to play around with a few settings in your bios too, aperature size... switching back and forth from pci to agp, that kind of thing. Only suggestions... I hope you get it working.

mavis

I don't know about Nvidia, but for my Radeon (my old 7200 and new 8500, both), there was a tab in settings that allowed for screen adjustments (software adjustments for size, position, etc)... The problem I had is that even if I adjusted my monitor (hardware) to 100% horizontal stretch, the display still wouldn't reach the edges of my screen. Then I discovered the software adjustment - it allowed for vertical and horizontal stretch, as well as a rough placement (slide the display to the right/left/up/down, etc)... so I turned my monitor's horizontal stretch down to 75% and used the software adjustment to stretch it, then use the harware adjustment again, to tweak it.

Also, your monitor should be able to "remember" settings for each resolution. When you launch a game, for example, it will often start in a very low resolution (for the intro/movies/menus, etc) - then when you actually start playing it will use whatever resolution you picked. So when I launch Halflife, the menus are all 800x600 or something ridiculous like that, but when I actually start playing a game, it goes to 1152x864. This means that I have to adjust each resolution seperately, so that my monitor knows what I want and remembers my settings. So...

Start with your highest resolution. Adjust it so that it's perfect (software adjustments first, then hardware (the controls on your monitor)). Then change resolutions, go to the next smallest one. Repeat. Next smallest one, repeat.

If you size them all independently, it should work for you. In my case, no matter what resolution I'm in, from 640 or 800 or whatever, up to 1152, everything is sized perfectly and looks good (ie fills the screen, etc). Kind of a pain in the a$$ but it's worth it, IMHO.

mavis

ps the most important thing is to look for the Nvidia display settings, which let you adjust your screen position, size, etc. Get it where it needs to be (roughly) using these software settings, and then tweak it with your hardware controls. I don't have an Nvidia card, but I'm going to have to assume they have the same kind of settings tabs as my Radeon, roughly... lemme know if this helps.