Screen resolution stuck at maximum 1280x1024 for CRT monitor(s)

I am afraid I am running out of options concerning the CRU, with the kind help of ToastyX.

When I run the CRU.exe (it has been like this from the beginning), all the resolutions appear, right through 1600x1200 up to 1920x1440 so the monitor is clearly recognized and things should work, but whatever I do, I still get back to the 1280x1024 upon restart (whether using restart.exe or restarting the PC after running the CRU.exe).

Throughout the whole process of trying things, Screen resolution shows a very simplified range of resolutions, like a scale from 1280x1024 (High) down to 800x600 (Low).

As mentioned, the driver version shown on Device Manager>Monitor>Philips 109P is still from 2006, just changed to a slightly different version number after choosing the Philips 109S as suggested.

Today I tried to choose a new general one (at the top of the list) called Super VGA 1600x1200, and that name now appears in the Device Manager under Monitor, but when I open Screen Resolution or Graphics Properties, the resolution is still locked, and the monitor still appears as Philips 109P (it also did that after choosing Philips 109S).

As I mentioned in the first post, at computer startup, and at Windows initiation, everything looks fine and normal with a small cursor arrow and spinning wheel, but as soon as Windows starts up properly the arrow/wheel become larger. Also, the Graphics Properties show the 85/75/60Hz refresh rates for the monitor correctly, so somehow somewhere it seems that there is a recognition of the actual properties.

I wonder whether any/all of this gives any (new) clues to the actual issue.

And I wonder whether/why not there is a viable and directly downloadable later version of the generic PnP monitor driver, than the one(s) from 2006, namely the 6.1.7600.16385 from 21/06/2006, since the attempt with 109S it became 6.1.7601.23403, still from 21/06/2006.

John,

Are you saying you do can get obtain a proper resolution using cru and its only upon restart that it goes back? If so, you could probably force cru to autorun at startup every time you boot.

No, but when running CRU.exe, all the right resolutions turn up.

The cable is identical to this one, except black and with a thick thingie labelled SC-B110 at either end:
https://www.amazon.com/computer-Coax.../dp/B0038P4YKQ

Even before starting this thread (as mentioned in the first post), I did try to roll back the graphics driver to the version (4170 from March 2015) that was included on the CD that came with the motherboard, from the latest available (4578 from January 2017).

Should I try to go even further back?

I am considering the purchase of this cable, just to make sure, in case the cable above has failed in some way:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/hvm/Techl...link+vga+cable

If you want to try a different cable, try and find a thick one that is only 1M in length. Signal loss is proportional to length.

I'd try the oldest driver that works

Another thought is to open your intel graphics control panel thing (if that is your graphics gpu) and set color depth to the minimum, refresh rate to the minimum, also turn off any advanced features I like mentioned above, also reduce graphics clock speed to the minimum (if it allows you to change it at all), then reboot, and see if cru will work then. If so, you can work the setting back upward to something you can live with.

If none of this works, chances are your monitor's circuitry has degraded slightly over time so now it requires a stronger signal than normal. Not much you can do if that's the case other than use it on another computer. Or replace it

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John,

Setting the refresh rate to 60Hz and the colour depth to 16 bit (minimum values) made no difference.

I am expecting to receive a few cables (including one thick High Quality 1 m with magnets and the Techlink triple shield) on Tuesday.

I have also bought a used EIZO S2110W (14-bit graphics processor and 10-bit LUT, with 1680x1050 resolution), which may more or less match the image quality of the CRTs we have; I will also try that one when the cables arrive (DVI - VGA, no display cable with the monitor).

One of the graphics drivers I have tried is the oldest one available for Windows 7 on the Intel website.

I am still wondering about the ancient monitor drivers by Microsoft which nothing seems to change.

There was a (right or wrong) statement elsewhere that the monitor driver does no longer matters.


Apart from everything else, I am still wondering why the other CRT I tried also failed to work (I may try it again with the new cables and reductions), which was part of my reasons to believe the issue must be on the part of the PC, along with the change after almost a year of everything working fine. Coincidence may occur, of course.

I missed the part about the other CRT not working. I would not put too much significance into the timing of the problem, hardware failures seem random but usually occur because some straw breaks the camel's back. This issue is looking to me like a vga output voltage issue with your pc, assuming its not the cable.

The reason monitor drivers are not likely the problem is because with a PNP driver (which you are using) windows interrogates the monitor at boot up and determines what resolutions and refresh rates it can handle - and it keeps finding that yours can only handle the lower ones. cru is confirming this because it is not working. You should still try minimizing other graphics settings, as you did not mention trying disabling aa/af. Also, you can find much older drivers at 3dguru.com.

John,

I tried with a thick 1 m VGA cable along with setting the colour depth and refresh rate to minimum (16 bits and 60Hz) and disabling any anti aliasing and setting the 3D options to the bare minimum; I could find no mentioning of anisotropic filtering.

Still no change from the low 1280x1024 resolution.

By the way, as a strangeness, when I was in the process of resetting the colour depth to 32 bit, the screen showed everything upside down (180 degrees rotation, not mirroring) so I cancelled and tried again, and then everything stayed upside up.

Is it thinkable that there is something wrong with the motherboard or or the onboard graphics driver (the PC is just over a year old) which has lowered the VGA output voltage?

I consider getting a(nother) graphics card and trying to see whether the CRT monitor(s) may work with that. Might there be any point in that?


For the time being I have applied the EIZO monitor; it shows its native resolution, and good colours.

Thank you very much for all your time and for your sharing your insight.

I haven't seen anything like your situation to date. Yes it could be a motherboard voltage problem and if so, getting a PCI-e graphics card should fix it, unless the motherboard voltage is gonna just underpower the pci-e slot too (I would not anticipate that but have to mention it). Be best to see if you can borrow one first though since it would be a bummer if you got one only to have it not fix the issue. Again if it is a voltage issue, a better power supply might also fix it, but again you might just be throwing money away if you go down that road. A couple things to try next are to minimize your system voltage burden by unplugging those two extra non-boot hard-drives and rebooting to see what happens. Also, you could try booting from a linux standlone-bootable usb drive to see what resolutions it can do. If the problem persists with linux then at least you know its a hardware issue and is not windows fault.

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Another thing, try running start > run > dxdiag and see if that tells you anything.

btw in my area a crt monitor goes for about $15, perhaps cheaper than a video card. Although since you have Intel 4400 graphics, any pci-e video card no matter how cheap will be more powerful than what you have.

Your motherboard came out in 2013 so there is a 4-year old vga driver on the asus site, if you want to give that a try.

Assuming the oldest driver does not fix this, it would not hurt to update every driver on your system to the newest, expecially the bios. I think asus live update can do all of that automatically

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