Been emailing with Dell support and after all the standard "install the driver" requests, they finally came back and said that the onboard Intel 82865G graphics adapter does not support more than 1280x1024 resoluion. Of course, Intel says it does, but after that, what are you going to do?

Anyways, buyers of the 2005FPW be forewarned. Dell will not support this with the Intel onboard graphics.

Now I need to find a graphics card that will support this, but that is left for another thread.

Mea culpa, and Youa culp as well.

I found the problem, but in doing so, I am completely frustrated with the DELL support team and their diagnostic methodology.

In describing the problem to DELL, I have repeatedly asked DELLto confirm the compatibility of the 2005 monitor and the Intel onboard VGA. Instead of doing that their support team insisted on upgrading and downgrading drivers, as if this were the first time I had ever touched a computer. When they finally realized that the drivers were correct, their support technicians could only point the finger at something or someone else:

- The VGA card only supports the higher resolutions on CRTs, not Flat panels (ridiculous)
- the monitor is only supported by by nVidia or ATI cards (when Intel clearly said that they supported the resolution)

At no time did any of your support technicians apply any original thought, insight, or problem-solving skills to the problem.

Finally, I managed to speak with a support manager (my second one) who showed some insight -- this is after 6 hours on the phone and 2 weeks on email and the support forum. That manager said, "the problem is that the monitor and the VGA card are not communicating." Which immediately gave me the idea that perhaps the KVM is blocking the communication. That turned out to be the case.

It turns out that the following is true:

A KVM switch between the monitor and VGA may prevent the VGA from completely identifying the monitor. I say completely because the XP Hardware manager always said that the 2005FPW was operating correctly. However, the additional 1680x1050 resolution was never acessible.

However, if I plug the monitor directly into the VGA card using the analog cable, then the VGA is able to completely recognize the 2005FPW monitor and the 1680x1050 resolution is now accessible. XP Display properties will allow me to set the Intel VGA to this resolution.

Folowing that, I can reconnect the KVM and everything works normally -- even with the KVM between the monitor and the Intel VGA. I now have the full 1680x1050 resolution available from my Intel 82865G onboard video graphics adapter.

In summary, I think that if DELL could have earlier identified that the configuration was supported, then we could have moved on to other possiblities. Instead, all I received for 2 weeks was either the standard response, "update the drivers" or the standard finger-pointing that said this configuration was not supported by the Intel VGA.

I find that all but one of the managers on the DELL support team was completely useless in solving this problem. I wish I could single out the guy who did help me, but after so many calls, I just stopped recording names. But maybe that is why that person is a manager.

DELL, please try to do better next time.

m.