Display/Graphics problem with Dell Inspiron 8600--HELP!!!

[quarkdork]

Hey all you potentially useful fish in the sea---I have a problem that's been driving me nuts! I have a Dell Inspiron 8600 and a couple months ago I had to reformat it after getting a nasty virus, and ever since I've had this strange problem with the display/graphics. When I try to play 3D games or use 3D screen savers they appear for a moment and run very choppily for a second or two and then they either close or minimize themselves and a message pops up that says:

"You have selected a non-optimal screen resolution for your LCD display panel. Selecting this resolution may result in fuzzy text and pictures. Unlike external computer monitors, LCD display panels have one particular screen resolution setting that looks best. It is recommended you set your screen resolution to 1920 x 1200."

The thing is, when I go to the display settings it says it already is set at 1920 x 1200, but I am still getting the message and can't use the games/screen savers. I tried downloading new drivers for the video card and new directx software and messing with all the different settings and I still get the same message. I've also spent eons on the phone with Abu or whoever over in India, as it seems the entire Dell support army has been outsourced over there, and dammit I was lucky if we were able to exchange one whole sentence without having to ask the other to repeat it. Anyway, Abu eventually said what I expected he would all along: "You have done everything there is to do." This really means that there is something else I can do but he doesn't know what it is. And I don't either. I found some threads where other people were having this EXACT same problem with other Dell laptop models and they figured it was because the fan wasn't able to cool the cpu enough in order to run their games, and they were able to solve it by raising their laptops off the desk about four inches in order to give the fan/bottom of the laptop some space/air to help cool it, but I've tried doing the same thing and it didn't work for me. And I honestly don't know what else to do. I know there has to be a way to fix this because it used to work fine, there must just be some clever little trick I'm not nerdy enough to know or figure out. So, if anyone has any idea/suggestion of any kind on how to fix this PLEASE tell me about it!

[FatalException]

Hi there! It probably isn't an issue with cooling since usually cooling issues result in the laptop slowing down or shutting off, not simply exiting a program that it doesn't like. Now I'm not sure how your display control panel is setup, so please bear with me through this.

What I suggest doing is popping into the Control Panel and pulling up the "Display" Control Panel. At the top of the window, you'll see some tabs. Click the one marked "Settings." At the bottom of the window, you should see a button marked "Advanced." Click on it. Now is where the investigating begins (and the differences in control panels begins, so my steps won't be exact for what's on your screen anymore.) Click on the tabs that look like they're put there by your video card driver / manufacturer. Usually they'll have little icons on the tabs, not just words. The standard tabs for ALL cards are: General, Adapter, Monitor, Troubleshoot, and Color Management. If you don't see different tabs at the top besides those, you may have ANOTHER "Advanced" button listed under the Adapter tab; go there and click it if you don't see the other tabs from your card manufacturer.

Once you find the tabs from your card maker, look through the setting lists. On almost all modern cards with digital LCD outputs (yours most likely does, it's just internal within the laptop), there is a setting called "Scale Screen at Different Resolution" or something to that effect. See, the problem is your game is loading up at (probably) about 800x600. The graphics card may be trying to "stretch" that across all of its 1900+ by whatever pixels in size and can't do it for some reason. By turning OFF screen scaling, it will only use the middle 800 x 600 pixels of your screen (a tiny little window in the middle of the screen, actually) to show the program. Once this setting is turned off, you should be set to go.

Remember - it won't necessarily be called "Screen Scaling," you have to do some investigating yourself to figure this out and figure out which setting to change. Be reasonable, be patient, and spend some real time on it trying to figure it out and it should come to you. I hope this helps.

[quarkdork]

"Once you find the tabs from your card maker, look through the setting lists. On almost all modern cards with digital LCD outputs (yours most likely does, it's just internal within the laptop), there is a setting called "Scale Screen at Different Resolution" or something to that effect. See, the problem is your game is loading up at (probably) about 800x600. The graphics card may be trying to "stretch" that across all of its 1900+ by whatever pixels in size and can't do it for some reason. By turning OFF screen scaling, it will only use the middle 800 x 600 pixels of your screen (a tiny little window in the middle of the screen, actually) to show the program. Once this setting is turned off, you should be set to go."

Okay, so I did like you said and found the tab for my GeForce FX Go5650 card, and in that tab found a tab called Flat Panel Display Options which had three choices to click: Use Display Adapter Scaling, Use Centered Output, and Use Fixed Aspect Ratio Scaling. Out of all the tabs for the card these are the only things I found that had anything to do with scaling as far as I can tell, and I tried all three of them to see if it made a difference and it didn't. I got the same exact thing. What I don't understand is that it used to work perfectly before I reformatted--and the games filled up the entire screen no problem. So why would it just stop working? As far as I can tell nothing is different from the way it was befor I did the reformat yet something somewhere must be amuck. What I also didn't mention is that when I run this one particular game, I can see it trying to change the resolution from the desktop, for instance, the start toolbar at the bottom of the desktop sort of flickers transparantly, as well as fragments of that same message, over the intro screen of the game like ghosts, and then after a second or two I can click on the screen and they go away and the game plays perfectly from then on. However, with other games the intro screen comes up, is choppy for a moment, then that message pops up and the game closes or minimizes. It's the strangest thing. Also, I had this particular wallpaper that I used before I did the reformat (downloaded with love from startrek.com : p ) and it filled the whole screen flawlessly. After the reformat, I went back and downloaded the exact same wallpaper, same size and everything, and now it looks all chunky/pixilated and ugly. What gives there? This whole thing is so weird, and depressing!

[GiPilot12]

Well if its a dell and the grafics are intergrated then you need to install a driver for the intergrated grafics, i think. My brother has a dell hand i reformatted with a non dell copy of windows and then i had to look on the internet for a driver

[quarkdork]

First of all, this is going to reveal what a technologically inept dork I really am, but what exactly does "integrated" mean? Integrated with what? And also, I went to Dell.com and downloaded the latest drivers for my particular model and graphics card and installed them and it didn't do anything. So unless there's some other kind of download I need I don't think that's the problem, but thanks a bunch for your suggestion. Oh, and that ketchup thing is fascinating.

[GiPilot12]

Quote:

Originally Posted by quarkdork

First of all, this is going to reveal what a technologically inept dork I really am, but what exactly does "integrated" mean? Integrated with what? . Oh, and that ketchup thing is fascinating.

1, intergreated with your mother board, if you bought a sepertate vidio card that fits into the pci-e slot or agp slot then there is a seperate driver for that card, if it is built into your mother board then the driver is usually included and automatically installed with the dell copy of window you might have gotten


'2 yes ketchup is one of my favorite things thank you


Sorry i cant help all that much, good luck with your problem

[quarkdork]

Oh, then yes my card is integrated, but the drivers, included or downloaded, don't seem to be the problem. Thanks for trying though. By the way, do you have any specs on teriyaki sauce? Just one of my favorite things, fyi.