i have a GEFORCE 7200 GS screen card from NVIDIA which i never had any problems with before. windows (xp) alerted me of an update for it so i installed it but all it did is take out all the settings options from when i first installed the cd drivers. so i reinstalled the original drivers (overwriting the new ones) and now my chosen screen resolution of 1600X900 pixels is displayed "letterboxed" and "shrinked" with black bars from both the sides and top and bottom. as if i'm watching a letterboxed 4:3 video on a 16:9 screen which is not the case. tried adjusting the resolution again to both lower and higher, most do fill the entire screen but not 1600X900. my screen is Philips 228C3LSB (LED). any help will be appreciated.
don't think the restore point is saved... i'm thinking of removing all things nvidia through "add/remove programs" for a clean install of the drivers. but i'm afraid that will also not work or cause even more problems. hoping there's a less "drastic" solution.
attar you were right, a system restore to 2 days ago solved the problem (then i also needed to deny the same update that caused it all but that i already knew how to do). i don't think system restore ever worked for me before but i'm glad this time it did. much obliged
well system restore solved the resolution issue but brought 2 other weird issues that i don't know how to deal with: 1. now screensaver does not function anymore. it's set to start after 15 minutes of inactivity and power off the screen after 20. the preview works fine but it still just won't start. 2. pages scroll up on their own and zoom in randomly. happens in both web pages and documents when i hit ctrl for other purposes. for example i hit ctrl+arrow to advance through words and all of a sudden the page zoomes in to 190% view and i have to manually zoom back out. also the mouse pointer changes positions by itself. needless to say it's also happening right now as i'm typing this message. didn't have any of those issues before that cursed update. and everything else seem to work ok. i don't believe it's malware but rather something got scrambled in some system files. but now what do i do? i really hope i won't have to format and re-install everything over this.
try downloading the latest drivers from nvidia. http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp-307.83-whql-driver.html
i was happy with my current screen settings and never wanted to update the screen card to begin with, just didn't think it would cause any problems. now if i update for all i know it could again screw up the resolution and also won't fix those new issues which i believe are now more windows-related. so thank you but i'm also looking for windows-related suggestions.
i learned not to use windows updates for videocards & sometimes soundcards as it usually screws up the video or is the wrong driver for the sound.
even nvidia's own updates can bork the system i don't find it amusing to say the least,best thing to do at this point assuming you've gone thru both windows display settings & nvidia control panel to reset to how you want it,use add/remove dump the lot but not before creating a backup image(not a hard drive clone)of c with a cloning software as well as creating a boot-able restore disk, i'm pretty sure you can just install the driver from the install disk without the nvidia software control panel crap,try it & set windows display from windows control panel if all goes well you can then install nvidia control panel & tinker some more.
as i said the resolution display is no longer the problem, but now after system restore new weird behavior of random page zoom and scrolling up randomly, and screensaver no longer working at all. i just removed all my nvidia drivers completely (through add/remove) and re-installed them - and those issues are still not solved. i'm on the verge of formatting drive c and re-installing windows which i really do not want to do but i can't seem to find any other solution. appreciate both of you replying though.
**UPDATE** i was getting ready to call a technician to try and fix those issues and reformat if he can't. then there were a few windows automatic updates, after which those issues finally went away (eventhough none were screencard related). no more random zooming and scrolling, and screensaver is back.