Video Issue on Laptop (XP Home, SP2)

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I am helping a friend with a Dell laptop, inspiron 8200. His window, when set to 1024×768, only covers 1/3 of the center of the screen. In other words, there is a 2.25 inch black band around the Windows OS. My Dell, a different model, when I set the resolution, sill allows Windows to cover the whole screen. I believe he had been using the resolution successfully previously, though I cannot be 100% sure. I do know that he did not intentionally change resolutions and the Icon layout changes at different resolutions.

I know that 1024×768 is not the native resolution, but I have never seen an LCD that did not allow one to use the non native resolution, it simply complains.

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Perhaps the correct video drivers haven’t been installed. Check what kind of video adapter the laptop has, then go to Drivers & Downloads on the Dell site.

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I found it. The key. Hmmm, I have not seen that before. I did hook it up to an external monior and used the to test. Obviously that was not it. I have a wide screen Dell and it has a narrow screen function, generally used when hooked to a projection device.

There is an updated video driver/ video bios flash on the dell site also. Thanks.

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After you get things updated you may want to look at http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/%5B/url%5D for a newer video driver.

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Thanks. I took a quick look. Like I said, this is a friends laptop, so I well get with him in a day or two and we will give it a try. I will let you know.

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