Solved Display Settings Changing

[richc46]

Im here because I enjoy helping. It will be a great feeling if we get your computer the way you want
System Restore and Driver Rollback Instructions

 

[tufa4311]

OK, Device Manager now shows Display Adapter NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS driver date update to 16/10/2010. Have not rebooted yet. Other than this driver, should anything else be checked for updating? (monitors, etc)?

 

[richc46]

Good job. Im proud of you. First finish with the Nvidia reboot etc. Then do the same thing with the monitor.
Im going to make you work for it though.
After your done, in your own words, tell others what you did exactly. Was it hard? Any Problems etc? You will be helping very many the same way that you have been helped.

 

[tufa4311]

Should have just gone to the Dell website, they have the nVida video driver filterted to me by my laptop service tag...Anyway, is it possible that the Video driver and Monitor driver are the same one? Dell doesn't list a "monitor" driver for my laptop and anything I found online for a monitor driver was just the video driver I just installed.

 

[richc46]

Use the tutorial that I sent you. It shows how to get the information.
Its back to device manager for you.

 

[tufa4311]

Ok, after much research and speaking with Dell support I'm told that my Monitor Driver does not have a software update. Support said that they used to do that in the past but once Drivers Cards (Display Adapters, Video Cards. etc) came into effect they stopped updating the Monitor Driver software because the Video Card driver updates did everything that was needed. Does that make sense? (BTW, so far, no more issues with visual settings being reset on their own after reboot/sleep mode)

 

[richc46]

Yes it does make sense. The important thing is that there are no updates, so we have to live with that. It seems that the changes that were made may have solved the problem

 

[tufa4311]

OK, so, to review: my original issue was that the Display Settings were changing automatically (both Resolution and Colors in Control Panel->Personalization->Display Settings).
Steps Taken to resolve:
-determined driver for Video Card (aka Video Adapters/Graphics Card/Display Adapters) via Device Manager (Control Panel->Device Manager). Double-click Device Manager, single-click Display Adapters and note your Video Card AND driver date (right-click on driver, properties, Driver tab, Driver Date) (for ex. NVIDA GeForce 8400M GS) Tutorial for this: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/193584-device-manager-install-driver.html
-Updated Malwarebytes, ran full system scan (nothing found)
-did a Clean Reboot (How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7)
-went to manufacturers website, "Drivers and Downloads", did a search for the Video Card that I noted from Device Manager (also, with Dell, you can input your Service Tag (found on bottom on laptop) and it will list all available updates by section, video card driver update found under Video tab) (also went to Drivers - Download NVIDIA Drivers and was able to confirm video card)
-set System Restore point in case incorrect drivers are loaded (What is System Restore?) or (System Restore and Driver Rollback Instructions)
-downloaded video card driver to desktop, ran exe from desktop, reboot. Confirmed that Driver Date was updated in Device Manager->Display Adapters (noted above)
Note: Don't use Windows Update or the Update Driver function in Device Manager. Also, if unable to find driver on manufacturers website, google search driver name and once confirmed that it is the exact same driver from reputable url then download.)
-Determine if the Monitor has a separate driver that requires updating (follow same instructions for finding video card info via Device Manager, but choose "Monitors" from Device Manager. There will not always be a separate driver update for the monitor that requires updating (also can confirm this with manufacturers website/support). If updated another driver then reboot again.
One additional way I was able to confirm the video card installed on my laptop was through: Belarc Advisor - Free Personal PC Audit This program will spit out a computer profile that pretty much lists all your system spec, including the video card (display adapter) in the Display section. I am unable to speak to the reputation of this website but it worked for me w/o issue

That did it for me. Thus far I have not had any further automatic Display Setting resets.

 

[richc46]

Last thing that you must do
Enjoy
We made changes and they were chosen to solve the problem. If it happens, again, repost. In the meantime, enjoy
If in the USA or Canada
Happy Thanksgiving

 

[tufa4311]

Happy Thanksgiving, thx for your help!

 

[richc46]

Your welcome
Hope to see you again, but not with problems. Take care

 

[tufa4311]

I know it must be right under my nose Rich46, but I can't see were to mark this post as Solved...

 

[richc46]

Very nice of you to be concerned about that
Look at your screen upper right you see three icons
One looks like a triangle
click on that
then type solved.

 

[tufa4311]

Hi all,

Apologies that I'm back, but it's back...it's been a few days now. Specifically, the Colors in my Display Settings are changing from 32 bit to either 16 or 8, most of the time 8 upon booting. When I first started this post my Resolution was also changing from 1920x1200 to a lower one but that no longer occurs. I have updated my NVidia drivers, I've uninstalled/reinstalled them using drivers directly from NVidia's website, clean reboot (although I'm not 100% sure I did the clean reboot properly), etc. Please see a previous post in this thread where I review it all.

So, upon booting the screen looks fine, then some blinking occurs, and then it goes to either 8 or 16 Bit in Colors (I can tell which it's at just by looking at the screen as I've seen it so many times). Another note, sometimes 8 bit isn't even available in the Colors drop down to choose, and it only lists 16 and 32, and sometimes all three are listed.

It's a piece of cake to manually fix, just go into Display Settings and change Colors, but that should not be required.

I'm actually surprised that this issue hasn't been solved because if you go to any vista forum, including this one, there will be tons of posts that deal with this exact issue. Anyway, not sure if there really is anything left to do as I went through the tutorials on the forum and believe I've done everything. Maybe it's just something to be dealt with? I was thinking about doing a System Restore going back a few weeks when this wasn't happening but I'm not sure what else that affects. What do System Restore's undo? Would I loose documents made? Would I loose any applications/software added since then, etc

 

[Patonb]

D/l the memtestg80 program: Folding@home - DownloadUtils and run it. It'll test your gpu for issues.

Your card, and all 8 series cards are known to have heat related issues.

How olds the laptop?

 

[tufa4311]

Dell 1720 laptop about 3 yrs old. The program u posted asks for some things I dk:
-RAM clock speed? (is this my 1.5Ghx cpu in mhz to 1500mhz?)
-GPU Core/ROP (non-shader) click speed:?

Heat related issues eh? That hits close to home as the bottom left side of the laptop is always too warm to even lay my palm on comfortably...

 

[Patonb]

Them settings are your video card speeds, and can be found using gpu-z from Download TechPowerUp GPU-Z v0.4.8 | techPowerUp
You can also check your temperatures on the "sensor" tab.

The 8 series cards can actually heatup and enough times will de solder the components and cause issues. Just google "nvidia oven trick" to see how often this actually is.

 

[tufa4311]

Please see screen shot of the DPU sensor app. Does this give u what i need?

 

[Patonb]

Yup, sorta.. your memory speed is 400 and your core speed is 400 too.

You should run a game while the sensor tabs up, so you can see just how hot it gets... click the bottom box of continue refreshing this screen...... so you can see bit charted/read.

 

[tufa4311]

Well, I don't play games on my laptop so I'm not sure where that will get us. I understand that this may give additional data as to how hot the laptop will get but I would rather just work within my usual boundaries as this is when the Display Settings Colors are changing. That said, I don't have any experience in this so if you feel playing a game will help...please clarify. Also, let's just say it is the heat-what would be the next step? (what exactly is the heat damaging. could those components be easily replaced. would a laptop cooling fan help.)