Win2K pro, Dell latitude, video display is wierd

[mucous]

Hi,

I have a user that is using a Dell Latitude C640 notebook. Today, her display decided to get a little funky and I'm not sure what caused it. The screen and fonts appear to be ever so slightly stretched out horizontally. At first, I though maybe she changed the screen resolution or maybe tinkered with the font settings in the display properties but that doesn't seem to be the case. From all intents and purposes, settings-wise, everything looks good, but Some windows seem do be diplaying larger now and she must now scroll accross pages in order to look at the contents, same for documents. Could it be the video is corrupted and a reinstall of the drivers might fix this?

Thanks as always for the best advice in town!

 

[xyrx]

That kinda does sound like a font problem. You could try downloading the TweakUI powertools from Microsoft's website. It has a repair option for the font folder. If that doesn't work, you could go into the font size and change it to large, and then change it back to normal again after a reboot (can't remember where that's located.. advanced options for display properties?). Also try a video driver re-install. Too bad it's not running XP.. a system restore would be perfect right now.

 

[1stITMAN]

R u sure its nothing to do with the screen itself, has it been somewhere magnetic? Or has someone stood on in, sat on it?

 

[bcastner]

1stITMAN,

It is an LCD display. I suppose someone could have sat on it though.

mviker, the Dell Support Forum has several reports of this issue. If in warranty, send it in for repair. If out of warranty, you need to disable the notebook to remove and clean oxidation from the screen connector.

 

[mucous]

Actually a reboot turned out to solve the trouble, but I will look into cleaning the connector also. On my home laptops, I usually take them apart every couple months for cleaning. Haven't done that on the Work laptops. Maybe I need to.

Thanks again.

 

[bcastner]

With a little searching you should find some clear instructions how to disassemble the laptop. See if this helps:

http://qasimtoep.tripod.com/dell/dell3.html