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Dell Inspiron 8200 reload problems

post #1 of 11
1/1/10 at 11:43am
Thread Starter 
Reinstalling windows I ended up with a small screen on my laptop. It was just as I had selected center is display/desktop. That was the first place that I checked and I had selected stretch to cover the full laptop screen.

In viewing my screen windows is displayed in the center with about a 2 inch black frame around the windows area. Very small to view.

The steps I took: I went into bios and put the cd as lead to boot up first. I restarted to computer and setup came up. I went thru the steps to format the drive. Then I installed windows on the computer...

The funny thing is I can go into the bios and do nothing and reboot and the screen is as it should be. However, when I shut down the laptop and reboot I get the small screen again. I dont know what else to do...any help would be appreciated. chuck
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post #2 of 11
1/1/10 at 1:43pm
Sounded like the CMOS battery needs replacing.

cheers ...
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post #3 of 11
1/2/10 at 10:51am
Thread Starter 
Didnt think there were any issues related to the CMOS battery because no issues were happening before I reloaded windows. Everything was fine no loss of time/date or no messages related to the cmos. In the event there is a battery issue I have ordered another one. To bad laptops have to be torn apart so much just to replace it. Oh well, everyone that designs stuff dont always have their head on straight....
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post #4 of 11
1/2/10 at 12:28pm
Is your bios screen fine? If the Windows screen why not adjust in Windows? Not sure I get the issue so if I am of base sorry. Are you running at non native resolution?
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post #5 of 11
1/2/10 at 4:03pm
Thread Starter 
The bios screen is fine. To describe the issue in a better way I would say if you would go to display properties and at the desktop tab set the display to center. Now the windows screen is setting in the middle of the display screen with about a 2" mat all around the windows screen this is what I have. Another way of putting it would be to take a piece of solid Black construction paper and cutting a rectangular hole in the center and placing it on the display screen allowing the small windows screen to be seen. There are no handles or anything that I can find to enlarge the viewing area.

I have had sucess in going into the bios and moving the hdd and cd rom place holders up or down in the boot menu and this has given me a full screen but only until I reboot and the mask black screen does come back.

I have 32 bit resolution selected and I dont remember off hand what setting I used I think it was 1024. Thanks for your reply...chuck
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post #6 of 11
1/2/10 at 4:05pm
Thread Starter 
The windows screen that I have will not adjust to the full laptop viewing area. Any changes made only are applied to the small windows screen..
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post #7 of 11
1/2/10 at 7:06pm
Are you running at the LCD's native resolution in Windows? Do you have the correct video card drivers installed? Have you tried pressing Fn+F7 (I think that's the key, been a while since I sold my 8200)?
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post #8 of 11
1/2/10 at 9:25pm
Thread Starter 
Are you running at the LCD's native resolution in Windows? Do you have the correct video card drivers installed? Have you tried pressing Fn+F7 (I think that's the key, been a while since I sold my 8200)?

__________________

I am not sure what you mean by the LCD's native resolution in Windows. I did have 32 bit selected. I was asked by another poster about the video card drivers. I even went to the resource cd and installed the drivers without any change, however, your recommendations about pressing the Fn+ F7 key restored everything the way it should be. I have done multiple reboots and all is good. Thank you so much for helping me solve this problem..chuck
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post #9 of 11
1/2/10 at 11:38pm
Chuck, LCD panels have a fixed number of pixels, no more no less. Most all LCD's have an option to upscale the image being fed to them which is what the Fn+F7 key does. By default your system is going to display the image at native whereby if the desktop area is only going to take up that number of pixels (800x600 by default on Windows XP). The LCD panel on my old Inspiron 8200 was 1600 pixels by 1200 pixels. I can't remember what all resolutions were available on the 8200, possibly 1280x1024 or something like that.

The 32bit you're talking about is color depth. The other option is for screen resolution.
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post #10 of 11
1/3/10 at 12:11am
Thread Starter 
Thanks for that infomation. It is fixed now and I appreciate your help...tnx...chuck
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post #11 of 11
1/3/10 at 5:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrEvil View Post
Chuck, LCD panels have a fixed number of pixels, no more no less. Most all LCD's have an option to upscale the image being fed to them which is what the Fn+F7 key does. By default your system is going to display the image at native whereby if the desktop area is only going to take up that number of pixels (800x600 by default on Windows XP). The LCD panel on my old Inspiron 8200 was 1600 pixels by 1200 pixels. I can't remember what all resolutions were available on the 8200, possibly 1280x1024 or something like that.

The 32bit you're talking about is color depth. The other option is for screen resolution.
Another lesson from Mr Evil

cheers ...
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