Can't select native resolution

Hello, recently I decided to upgrade to windows 7, everything went smoothly for the first 5-6 days, but when I was asked by my ISP to reboot my pc (to fix a connection problem) by unplugging the power cable and pressing the power button 3-4 times, then to plug it back in after a minute or so, the option to choose my native resolution (1680x1050) dissapeared from windows and also in games. At that time, no drivers, software or updates were downloaded or installed. I read tons of information regarding this issue and to my understanding this "reset" is not very likely to be the reason for the problem. Since then I have tried absolutely everything that I'm capable of doing. I reinstalled the latest drivers for my graphics card more than 10 times now, I even tried 3 or 4 older releases I even reinstalled windows, nothing helped. I searched for drivers for my monitor but unfortunately, such do not exist. Then I took the next step and went to a PC service but to my amazement they could not fix the problem either. I was using a VGA cable (my monitor has only VGA) with a DVI connector on the other side (sorry I don't know the right word) then I bought a new cable (VGA to DVI) but yet again the issue remained. I contacted my monitor manafacturer (ASUS) and they told me the problem was likely my graphics card, but other than that, nothing else to help me with the problem. So you see I'm spent on any ideas how to fix it. Please if someone could explain what exactly I did whit this "reset". I was thinking of updating the bios, is it likely this to be the problem ?

My monitor is: Asus VW223B 22' with native resolution of 1680x1050
Graphics card: Asus GeForce 9800GTX+ DK TOP

Please, any help will be much appreciated, I'm getting quite desperate here.

Sorry if I posted in the wrong forum and excuse my english if there are many mistakes. Thank you.

Actually, this was the first thing I tried, it didn't help

Yes, after trying different drivers and options in windows and the nvidia control panel, I decided to reinstall Windows. The problem persisted, so I suspect it might be more serious

Yes, I can't set it to native in both windows and games. The option is just missing. I figured it might be an aspect ratio problem because it gives me only 1600x1200 as the maximum, but the monitor is set on the correct aspect.

Using some of your instructions, I was able to get the native resolution on my desktop. I unchecked the box 'hide modes that this monitor cannot display', but this on its own did nothing. Then I went to the Adapter tab and clicked on List All Modes and from there I was able to select 1680x1050 at 59Hz. This fixed the problem only for my desktop, I still can't select the native resolution in my games which is bad because I use the pc mostly for gaming. Thank you for your replies, but still if anybody have some other ideas, please share.

richc46 said:

To be honest if they could not fix it in the shop where they could actually see the computer, I have doubts to what we can do.

Yes, I understand it's quite hard to help someone with such a strange problem from a distance, but I still hope that eventually this issue will get resolved somehow, because I don't want to go back to WinXP.

I fixed my problem. For some reason I think Windows could not read my monitor's EDID properly, so I used this Tutorial to create a new driver for the monitor. I did not change anything in the EDID, because the settings inside were correct (I double checked them at the manafacturer's site) I just created the driver. Now Windows 7 recognizes my monitor's brand and model and even sets the native resolution 1680x1050 as recommended.