Vista - Dual Monitors Windows Update Mess

Sony laptop VGN-FZ285U
Vista Ultimate
Geforce 8400M GT

The vista dual monitor configuration was a mess before but after an
uninvited windows update today it's royally screwed. I'm not generally a
whiner, I put up with the random badness before but this is simply
unworkable.

First the added monitor will not display at full resolution (I think it
was initially blank after the update) so my gorgeous 26" 1920x1200
monitor is 1280x768. Any other resolution and it goes blank. And it
isn't possible to get vista to show the correct full resolution, it
maxes out at 1600x1200, totally wrong aspect ratio (not that it works at
that res anyways), that problem happened before but reseting, rebooting
& unplugging eventually fixed it.

Second, at some random interval, the displays will flip back & forth 3
or so times out of the blue, landing on the wrong config... it just
happened as I typed that!!! Cripes.

Other things it did before was putting the laptop to sleep, it would
flip the two, landing wrong when re-awakening. Certain ritualistic
sequences of resets, reboots & unplugs got it to where it'd only flip
back & forth disorganizing my icons but at least land on the correct
side. Rebooting or unplugging for an outing could cause me to have to do
that ritual again. And I didn't whine, but now I am whining :-) It also
did a BSD sometimes when being put to sleep.

I downloaded a 'fresh' driver from Sony, then let windows locate the
best driver it could download.

I tried booting with all usb devices unplugged (has been necessary before).

I googled it & saw lots of variations on these issues, none quite
identical and none with a solution.

Motherboard driver, video driver, etc?

Don't. Why would you install what is in all likelihood a properly working drive, and then let Windows "update" it?

stormy13 wrote:Video driver.
I'll try anything, I thought it might be something simpler & Vista
approved for the video, doesn't seem to have mattered, I still get the
nvidea control panel, etc.

Only use the driver from Sony. Also how is the second monitor connected to the laptop?

stormy13 wrote:It is through the old style plug. There is a DVI plug, I just don't have
a cord. Below are a couple 'solutions' I found in this group to some of
the problems like the flipping. The thing that's really killing me now
though is not being able to run my 26" monitor at full resolution.

Paul Furman wrote:Here's the best detailed discussion of the issues:
http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/22072.aspx
I'm going to try some reboots after turning off the Windows Aero scheme.

I'm going to try this driver too:
http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/GRA...Go-15607.shtml
though it doesn't list the precise card I have...

Here's another utility recommended (Power Strip):
http://entechtaiwan.net/util/ps.shtm
-maybe can help me get the correct native resolution

I'm not using the DVI connection which eliminates some possible problems
people describe.

This excerpt explains more or less how I fixed some problems before:
"I had multi monitor working reasonably well - other then I had to swap
the monitors on my desk as every time the machine rebooted it put the
external monitor on the right (I orignally had it on the lef) . After a
windows update the whole graphics system crashed if I even plugged in
the external monitor. I finally fixed the problem by going into the
device manager and disabling the default monitor when I re pluged my
monitor everything came up working in Multi mode again . It re installed
a new default monitor in the device manager & I deleted the old one.
Hope this helps"

I also tried turning off the task manager thing as the other links
suggested & a simple logoff didn't seem to help, well maybe it helped
the flipping thing. I got random flips at 8:08 AM then 8:26 AM, none
since (9:50 AM now).

Paul Furman wrote:These two things (no aero, no task manager thingy) plus uninstall,
disable, reinstall, reboot multiple times (be patient when it comes up
black with just a mouse pointer) fixed most of the problems but not the
native resolution issue.

I installed ultramon 3.0 beta 2.1 for vista 32 and that easily detected
the 1920x1200 resolution so I'm good to go:
http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/
(also recommended in the link above)
That's $40 when the trial expires.

Looks like it has other nice features like controlling wallpapers for
each monitor too.

Paul Furman wrote:Followup, I still had to turn off aero, even with ultramon or it gives a
BSD when putting the laptop to sleep and forgets the screen size.

--
Paul Furman
www.edgehill.net
www.baynatives.com

all google groups messages filtered due to spam