Dell notebook, Vista, and Screen Resolution

November 16, 2007 2:31 PM

Dell notebook with Vista screen resolution keeps changing itself upon "waking up"- why?

I have a Dell Inspiron E1405 notebook and use Windows Vista 32-bit Home Premium. When I close my computer or it goes to sleep, when I open it or "wake it up," the screen resolution changes from my setting of 1280 x 768 to 1024 x 768. It doesn't happen every single time, but probably 90% of the time.

I've tried looking at pretty much all the settings I could find in the area of the monitor and screen resolution and nothing I've done fixes it. The drivers are all up to date.
I've searched Dell support and Google for this and I haven't seen anyone else talking about having this problem.
Could it be a different program I'm running that causes the issue? It didn't always do this. I mostly just use Firefox, Word, Picasa, and Gaim.

Thanks!

posted by fructose to computers & internet (10 comments total)

What is the native resolution of your screen?
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 2:45 PM on November 16, 2007

It is 1280 x 800 when in set to widescreen/maintain aspect ratio. That's a fine setting for me, but I usually keep it at 1280 x 768.
However, even when I change it to the native resolution, upon waking up it goes back to that 1024 x 768 always. I've even tried updating the BIOS and everything. After realizing my laptop has 2 names and searching again by the other (640M), I did find someone with a similar problem who was told by Dell to run a total System Restore. That seems a little extreme.
posted by fructose at 3:15 PM on November 16, 2007

I don't have an answer, but it happens to my computer too. I'm on a Dell XPS laptop with the same version of Vista and the same problem.
I find that the screen turns on when I open the computer, then turns off briefly, then back on normally. In that in-between phase when the screen turns on for just a second, that's when the resolution is changed. It usually, but not always, changes back to the native resolution when the screen turns back on the second time. Sometimes an error message pops up that says that my resolution isn't optimal.
So... it's weird, but you're not alone. And it doesn't appear to cause any functional issues with the computer, but it is annoying.
posted by k8lin at 3:16 PM on November 16, 2007

I had the same problem, and according to my googling, so have many, many others. Dell tech support was sure that installing new drivers would fix it (it didn't), others have suggested switching the resolution of your wallpaper image to match the screen's native resolution. That doesn't work either. Nor does switching to a blank screensaver (another web suggestion).

The actual culprit is TMM, Vista's process that looks for multiple monitors and attempts to intelligently modify resolution. If you aren't using multiple monitors, you can disable TMM:

1. right-click on 'computer' and select 'manage'
2. on the left pane, expand 'task scheduler' then ' task scheduler library' then 'Microsoft' then 'Windows' then 'MobilePC'
3. select TMM in the center pane, then on the right pane, choose 'disable'

Now you should be able to close your laptop, let it go to sleep and when it wakes up it will still be in your preferred resolution (also, the screen won't go blank for a second right after waking up)

I'm not sure if you will have to also disable it for future windows sessions (maybe in the 'triggers' tab on the bottom of the center pane).

It really is shocking that this problem hasn't been fixed by Microsoft.
posted by i love cheese at 3:49 PM on November 16, 2007 [5 favorites]

This happened to me about 6 months ago when I got a new Gateway laptop with Vista. A bunch of updates later and it has stopped. Make sure you DL every update and driver available, I guess.
posted by infinityjinx at 4:10 PM on November 16, 2007

I had the same problem as above, tried some of the workarounds to no avail, Dell Vostro 1500 with Vista. i love cheese's workaround seems to have done the trick though, cheers.
posted by anifinder at 5:00 PM on November 16, 2007

Thanks all! It looks like i love cheese's solution has worked! I don't restart that often, so having to change that each time I restart wouldn't be that big of a deal.
posted by fructose at 2:50 PM on November 17, 2007

Just as a follow-up-
For some reason, despite following the steps, it did it again a few "wake-ups" later. I've managed to keep it from doing it since by following all of i love cheese's steps but after step 3:

-choose "properties" from the right bar (2 below enable/disable), so that the TMM Properties box comes up
-go to the "triggers" tab
-choose "edit" from the bottom buttons
-uncheck "enabled" (it's the last checkbox in that window). For some reason, "enabled" was still checked in mine even though it was disabled on the main window from disabling it in step 3.

-I'm not sure if this is necessary or not, but I went through all the tabs in TMM Properties and unchecked every box.

Sorry if this is a little scatterbrained, it's a bit past my bedtime.
posted by fructose at 10:03 PM on November 17, 2007

An update- it started acting up again. I'm not sure what to do for a permanent solution at this point. Any ideas?
posted by fructose at 7:37 PM on November 20, 2007

How do I get TMM Back? Turning it off has cause more problems that it solved. Now the only evidence of TMM I can find is in Task Status when I extend the time period back 7 days or more. I cannot seem to get TMM's enable button back.
posted by dgennetten at 8:20 AM on December 6, 2007