8790 - driver for screen - where to find?

Hi all

A long time ago I asked about some weird issue with my 8790: in the System Properties of WinXP it shows five (5!!!) "standard Monitor".

ATI driver can't see that these "standard monitors" are widescreen and consequently they don't show the option "stretch maintaining aspect ratio". I always thought it was a problem with the ATI drivers.

HOWEVER, a few days ago I had the chance to toy with a Sony S-something, which also has Widescreen and also have ATI Mobility Radeon 9700. To my surprise, in the "Display" tab of the video properties, the option "stretch maintaining aspect ratio" WAS THERE... I went to check the System properties and I found that it shows "Sony widescreen monitor" instead of "standard monitor"...

Further, when toying with my own 8790, I tried Windows to force the installation of another driver and I found several "standard VGA 800x600 monitor" (and other definitions as well), but no Widescreen driver.

Now the question is: does anyone know about a driver for the Monitor in 8790? Has anyone tried anything to enable the "stretch maitaining aspect ration" in the ATI drivers?

Thanks for any help

Yes, you didn't fully understand the problem.

About the omega drivers, I have them already, and I tried a lot of different drivers.

Let me try to explain better:
the ATI driver gives me the right definition for windows (1440x900). Newer games have widescreen support (like HL2 that you mentioned and Guild Wars), and Windows is also working perfectly ok.

The problem is with games that don't have widescreen support, mostly older games like Starcraft, Warcraft3, Gunbound and many many others. The problem with them is that if I don't stretch the screen, I get a rather small picture (600x800, 640x480). If I stretch the screen, then I end up with a distorted image. That is what happens in my laptop with its "default monitor" thing.

On the Vaio that I mentioned the problem doesn't exists: If I choose to "stretch to fit" and choose "stretch maintaining aspect ration", I end up with a normal image with black stripes in each side, which is great because I use as much as possible of the screen without having a distorted image.

Before seeing this Vaio, I always thought: "Man, how can it be that a $200 video card cannot do something so simple as stretching an image without distorting it?? There must be something wrong".

What puzzles me even more is that i never heard anyone in this forum complaining about this also, which makes me wonder: well, maybe it is MY laptop, and not the model itself....

Thanks for trying to help.

Another idea that came to my mind is to try to tweak the "default monitor" driver to make ATI driver to see it as widescreen, but that is beyond my computer abilities...

not exactly possible, since I didn't purchase it from Sager. I contacted the suppport from the company I purchased and they said "it is normal to be that way"...

I am actually surprised that I could not find any thread in the forum regarding this, even among the many owners of 8790 models... I wonder if that problem is common to only some of the models or if nobody noticed the shortcoming.

An update: I tried PowerStrip and when I click it to get the information about the monitor from the monitor, I get a "corrupted information, check display drivers" from it.

1. I can't contact sager. I am living in Russia, my laptop was purchased from a russian company called RoverBooks and I am quite sure that they purchase the laptops from Clevo and not from sager. If someone who has a laptop from sager could contact them about it, it would be great.

2. A fresh install doesn't solve the problem: I did it two or three times already and I always get the "default monitor" thing.


I remember finding somewhere in the internet a way to check the manufacturer of your laptop screen by using some kind of Linux boot disk. I remember it was quite a hassle, but it might prove useful: if I could find the model I might be able to find the proper driver from the manufacturer (which makes me wonder why Clevo/sager/roverbook/whateverotherreseller don't do that...)

1. I have an 8790 equivalent, not a sager 8790 exactly.

G-Omaha: do you know where to get the information about it? I tried but somehow I could not find the info to burn the linux CD and get the monitor manufacturer. Also, what do you mean "the clevo designation not the OEM"? How would that be different ?

Thanks