Monitor Upgrade - Poor Resolution

Question

I recently purchased a Dell E198WFP monitor for my HP Compaq d220mt pc running Windows XP Professional.  Previously, I had a cga monitor.  I have downloaded the latest graphics drivers from Dell, HP, and Intel.  The Intel download helped improve the resolution, but the characters are still blurred and stretched horizontally.  The highest I can set the resolution is 1024 by 768 - any higher and the problem gets worse.  A friend told me I need to buy a new graphics driver.  Is that true and is so, which should I buy?   Thanks, Mark

tr4 · Answer

Which video card does yours have? Did you download the monitor inf file from cd or dell's website?

tr4 · Answer

You can tell which card you have by looking in device manager for video adapter or by going into the display settings and looking at your adapter there. If you are using the onboard video, it is an Intel 845 chipset basic video. Check inside your computer for slots, I am guessing you may have an agp slot. I would consider getting a video card designed for the widescreen resolutions. Your monitor max is 1400 X 900 so it should be easy to find. The fact that the monitors limit is 900 is why you cannot go higher resolution. This should get you started

Mark2222 · Answer

Thanks for getting back to me.   Can you tell me how I find out what video card I have?   I installed the monitor using the Dell CD first, then downloaded the latest graphics drivers from the following sources in this order: HP, Intel, Dell

Mark2222 · Answer

tr4:   Thanks, here is what I found under video adapters: Intel 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Controllor Winvnc video hook driver   Unfortunately I do not know what an agp slot is.   If you still think I need a video card, could you specify a recommendation?   Thanks!

tr4 · Answer

Here is a link to a description of cards and resolutions. http://www.cseced.org/AplusCert/Hardware/Video/video.htm You should be able to match up which card will work. As far as resolution, a card doing wxga or better is what you want for max display. I think your card may be comparable to in a Dell Dimension 2400, though not sure. This might help others to chime in. I have improved several lcd displays by changing fonts to improve readability, maybe thats the cheap way out.

Monitors

Monitor Upgrade - Poor Resolution

Was this post helpful?