Thinkpad refuses to obey my wishes for higher resolution!

September 19, 2009 7:52 AM

My new-ish laptop running Vista keeps resetting to 800 x 600 resolution on restarts (from crashing) and restarts from intentional shutdowns. How do I prevent this from happening in the future?

Among other woes with Vista on my relatively new Lenovo Thinkpad T400 (purchased from the Lenovo outlet three months ago), it seems to crash frequently. When restarting from those crashes, it often resets to an 800 x 600 resolution from its default resolution of 1280 x 800. Also, when I intentionally shut down the computer, it will sometimes then start up in the 800 x 600 resolution.

I have seen some mention of this issue elsewhere (namely, here and here). The second link recommends setting the monitor to be the primary monitor and have it extended across the desktop, which I have already done. Otherwise, some of the solutions don't seem to apply (i.e. my "base video" item is unchecked on the boot tab of MSConfig).

The monitor on the laptop is a Thinkpad MaxBright Display 1280 x 800 ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3400 Series.

Any wisdom from the generally-more-informed hive mind would be much appreciated!

posted by midatlanticwanderer to Computers & Internet (1 answer total)

800x600 is Vista's standard resolution, which it usually applies when it could not work with the display driver used (or after a real blue screen). So maybe this might cause the problem. Try uninstalling, rebooting, and reinstalling the drivers. They might be available in different version from Lenovo as well as the graphics adapter's manufacturer.
posted by oxit at 12:59 PM on September 19, 2009