Why is my laptop display tiled?

May 15, 2009 5:55 AM

Why is my laptop display tiled and how can I fix it?

When I booted up my laptop this morning, the entire display (including during POST) was tiled on the screen 4 times, with a broad black vertical line in-between the right and left sides of the screen. (Actually I can see the very top portion of two more tiles at the very bottom of the screen, so maybe I should say 6 tiles.)

I've rebooted a couple of times, and the problem remains. I would search around in my control panel for some sort of display setting which might cause this, but the tiling makes the fonts so small as to be just about completely illegible. If I knew exactly where to find the setting, I might be able to navigate to it, but there's no way I can just browse around to find it.

I've googled and found a couple of other people on tech forums with the exact same problem, but neither of them had found any answers yet.

My laptop is a Compaq Presario V6444US running Windows XP with all the latest updates.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

posted by tdismukes to computers & internet (11 comments total)

Okay, I just hooked my laptop up to use my television as an external monitor and the display on the tv is normal. That should make it easier to see what I'm doing once I get some suggestions on how to fix the problem.
posted by tdismukes at 6:03 AM on May 15

If it's doing it on the POST screen, then the setting is not in Windows. Go to your BIOS and see if there's anything in there about how it handles monitors. Second, plug in an external monitor and see if it does the same thing on it.
posted by JuiceBoxHero at 6:03 AM on May 15

Look in your laptop documentation. Do you have a hotkey or key combination that does things the display?
posted by devnull at 6:21 AM on May 15

Long shot: Try right clicking on the taskbar. If "Tile Windows ..." is checked, uncheck it.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 6:50 AM on May 15

I'm not finding anything in the BIOS menu which seems related. (Note - the display is tiled even in the BIOS menu)

As previously noted, the external display on my tv is normal.
posted by tdismukes at 7:10 AM on May 15

I'm not finding anything in the laptop documentation either.
posted by tdismukes at 7:21 AM on May 15

No "Tile Windows" option either.
posted by tdismukes at 7:37 AM on May 15

This may very well be a hardware issue. You wouldn't happen to be under warranty, would you?
posted by JuiceBoxHero at 7:55 AM on May 15

It's six months out of warranty, unfortunately. :(
posted by tdismukes at 8:00 AM on May 15

Assuming it is a hardware issue, does anyone have a clue whether it's the sort of thing that would likely be repairable for a reasonable price, or am I looking at needing to buy a new laptop?
posted by tdismukes at 8:20 AM on May 15

Try one more thing: yank out the power cord and the battery. Wait a bit, put it back in. Any difference?
posted by devnull at 1:49 AM on May 22