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Taskbar cannot be seen in high resolution LCD monitor

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Beyond X

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Jul 11, 2010, 2:07:38 AM7/11/10
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As known by many, LCD wide screen monitors show horizontally distorted
images (a circle appears as an ellipse). I got Samsung SyncMaster 2333
(23"diagonal) in my WinXP computer mainly used for photo editing.
Annoyed with horrible pictures, I had to raise its resolution to the
highest, 1920x1440, which is beyond my eyes' comfort but improves the
aspect ratio significantly. The problem that I now face is disappearance
of the Window's taskbar. I raised the screen's vertical position as high
as possible, but it does not make the taskbar reappear.
(If I lower the monitor's resolution to or below 1600x1200, the taskbar
reappears, but the images are distorted.)
Can anyone help me?

Robert Kochem

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Jul 11, 2010, 7:54:53 AM7/11/10
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Beyond X schrieb:

> As known by many, LCD wide screen monitors show horizontally distorted
> images (a circle appears as an ellipse). I got Samsung SyncMaster 2333
> (23"diagonal) in my WinXP computer mainly used for photo editing.
> Annoyed with horrible pictures, I had to raise its resolution to the
> highest, 1920x1440, which is beyond my eyes' comfort but improves the
> aspect ratio significantly. The problem that I now face is disappearance
> of the Window's taskbar. I raised the screen's vertical position as high
> as possible, but it does not make the taskbar reappear.

Sounds like you are using a VGA cable if you can change the vertical
position. Using a VGA cable is a bad idea, especially on the high
resolutions. Connect the monitor with you PC using a DVI-D or HDMI cable -
everything else will just look terrible.

Win-J

Beyond X

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Jul 11, 2010, 10:29:20 AM7/11/10
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Thanks for suggestion. This brings up another problem I have to ask for
a solution about. For unknown reason(s) the DVI-I or DVI-D connection
does not work in my system, that is, when connection to the monitor is
switched to DVI, the monitor shows blank/black screen as if a monitor is
not connected to the computer (WinXP Home SP2). My video card is
PCI-express Diamond Radeon HD4350 with both VGA and DVI connector.

Elmo

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Jul 11, 2010, 11:01:10 AM7/11/10
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Beyond X wrote:
> As known by many, LCD wide screen monitors show horizontally distorted
> images (a circle appears as an ellipse). I got Samsung SyncMaster 2333
> (23" diagonal) in my WinXP computer mainly used for photo editing.
> Annoyed with horrible pictures, I had to raise its resolution to the
> highest, 1920x1440, which is beyond my eyes' comfort but improves the
> aspect ratio significantly. The problem that I now face is disappearance
> of the Windows taskbar. I raised the screen's vertical position as high

> as possible, but it does not make the taskbar reappear.
> (If I lower the monitor's resolution to or below 1600x1200, the taskbar
> reappears, but the images are distorted.)
> Can anyone help me?

That monitor has a 16:9 aspect ratio.
http://www.samsung.com/au/consumer/pc-peripherals/monitor/lcd-monitor/LS23CMZKFV/XY/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail

Some resolutions with that ratio would be 1920 x 1080, as mentioned on
the support page, 1600 x 900, 1280 x 720, and maybe others. If your
graphics card doesn't have any of these resolutions, try updating the
drivers for the card. If the needed resolutions still aren't available,
you need a better graphics card taht supports these screen
resolutions/ratios.

--

Joe =o)

Ken Blake, MVP

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Jul 11, 2010, 4:43:38 PM7/11/10
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On Sun, 11 Jul 2010 00:07:38 -0600, Beyond X <dono...@nomail.com>
wrote:

> As known by many, LCD wide screen monitors show horizontally distorted
> images (a circle appears as an ellipse).


No. They only do that if you run at a resolution with the incorrect
aspect ratio.


> I got Samsung SyncMaster 2333
> (23"diagonal) in my WinXP computer mainly used for photo editing.
> Annoyed with horrible pictures, I had to raise its resolution to the
> highest, 1920x1440, which is beyond my eyes' comfort but improves the
> aspect ratio significantly.


That's the wrong aspect ratio. It's 4:3. You should run your
wide-screen monitor at a 16:9 aspect ratio.

I also have (two) 23" monitors on this computer, and they both run at
1920x1080, a 16:9 aspect ratio. Nothing is distorted and circles do
not appear as ellipses.

Perhaps you have an older video card that does not support 16:9 aspect
ratio resolutions.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

Spamlet

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Jul 12, 2010, 1:36:05 PM7/12/10
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"Beyond X" <dono...@nomail.com> wrote in message
news:4C395FAA...@nomail.com...

I have a similar problem on our Dell desktop system (XPPro SP3).
With the screen comfortable, photos appear too tall, but if this is
corrected by setting the screen to Dell's 'optimum', all the Windows
features are too small to use. Numerous goes at finding better fits always
had some drawback - like there not being options for some of the features in
the desktop display settings: so I just got used to the taller appearance of
my pics in the end, and held back on the resizes.

S


Robert Kochem

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Jul 12, 2010, 2:09:39 PM7/12/10
to

Beyond X wrote:

> Thanks for suggestion. This brings up another problem I have to ask for
> a solution about. For unknown reason(s) the DVI-I or DVI-D connection
> does not work in my system, that is, when connection to the monitor is
> switched to DVI, the monitor shows blank/black screen as if a monitor is
> not connected to the computer (WinXP Home SP2).

May be the DVI cable is defect or your Monitor misinterprets the signal. My
old graphics card used to send a signal with a refresh rate of ~59.9999Hz.
If screws on the DVI connectors were not 100% tighten the Monitor did not
display anything because the minimum refresh rate supported is 60Hz...

Robert

Beyond X

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Jul 12, 2010, 4:38:23 PM7/12/10
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Thanks a lot for information.
My video card is Diamond Radeon HD4350 PCIe (512MB) which I purchased
very recently and which offers several resolutions but the aspect ratio
is all 4:3.
I ended up to install a fresh copy of XP in a new partition. For the
videocard, I downloaded newer drivers, which indeed offered several
resolutions corresponding to aspect ratio 16:9. Also I have the taskbar
at its normal position (bottom of the screen) even with the highest
resolution.
Only problem I still have is this: My XP is SP2 and I am unable to
upgrade to SP3 even though automatic update has been on. What am I missing?
Thanks again to all folks from the bottom of my heart.
BeyondX


I thought that the aspect ratios were a design character of individual
cards (hardware) and that the design of such a new card must have
considered wide screen monitors like mine until I learned from you that
it is changeable by drivers (software). So I was encouraged and visited
Diamond's website and attempted to update drivers for this
particular card.

Unknown

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Jul 12, 2010, 3:41:19 PM7/12/10
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What happens when you manually try to update?

"Beyond X" <dono...@nomail.com> wrote in message
news:4C3B7D3F...@nomail.com...

Paul

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Jul 12, 2010, 5:38:50 PM7/12/10
to
Beyond X wrote:
> Thanks a lot for information.
> My video card is Diamond Radeon HD4350 PCIe (512MB) which I purchased
> very recently and which offers several resolutions but the aspect ratio
> is all 4:3.
> I ended up to install a fresh copy of XP in a new partition. For the
> videocard, I downloaded newer drivers, which indeed offered several
> resolutions corresponding to aspect ratio 16:9. Also I have the taskbar
> at its normal position (bottom of the screen) even with the highest
> resolution.
> Only problem I still have is this: My XP is SP2 and I am unable to
> upgrade to SP3 even though automatic update has been on. What am I missing?
> Thanks again to all folks from the bottom of my heart.
> BeyondX
>
>
> I thought that the aspect ratios were a design character of individual
> cards (hardware) and that the design of such a new card must have
> considered wide screen monitors like mine until I learned from you that
> it is changeable by drivers (software). So I was encouraged and visited
> Diamond's website and attempted to update drivers for this
> particular card.
>

The video resolution is fully programmable, to arbitrary X and Y.
Typical rules are, the X value must be divisible by 8, and the
Y value must be divisible by 2. The driver normally does the programming
of this, but there are other options.

If the driver does not support the correct resolution, you have two
options.

1) Sometimes, the display control panel has a "custom resolution" box,
where you can add a new value.

2) You can use Powerstrip from entechtaiwan.com .

http://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/ps.shtm

3) Using a new driver (which worked for you).

If the monitor is 16:9, then for a circle to be a circle,
the video card resolution choice must also be in a ratio of
16:9.

In some cases, the X_offset and Y_offset values for
the video image, need to be adjusted, for the image to be
centered on the monitor screen. As an example, if I boot
a Linux CD, the image is offset a bit from the proper
position. The clock in the corner of the screen, isn't fully
visible, because of the offset error. If I install the
Nvidia Linux (tainted) driver, the offsets to the edges
of the screen are perfect. The display control panel
of an OS, may also offer adjustments for positional offset.

For weird resolution choices, sometimes the video card
will fill unused regions with "black bars", and there
may be an option such as "preserve aspect ratio" or the like.
I don't recommend such a setting - on my computer here,
that resulted in the LCD monitor on-screen display reporting
"out of range" for the video output, so no image at all was
rendered. YMMV.

Paul

Beyond X

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Jul 12, 2010, 10:57:46 PM7/12/10
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If you meant to tinker settings in device manager, I don't know how I
can change the resolution numbers (aspect ratio). I just had believed
that resolution numbers were predetermined at the hardware desin stage,
that is, I did not know they can be changed by software (drivers) that
can be downloaded afterwards.
Beyond X

Beyond X

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Jul 12, 2010, 11:20:42 PM7/12/10
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Thanks for detailed explanation and educational instruction. Although I
solved my problem by downloading updated drivers, your response
enlightened my understanding how display works.
Beyond X

Beyond X

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Jul 13, 2010, 12:58:33 AM7/13/10
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Thank you very much for advice.
This problem of mine automatically solved when I installed a fresh copy
of WinXP followed by downloading updated video drivers. I do not know
and cannot say what was wrong in the previous settings. But I tried
three different DVI cables in vain, so I do not think it was defective
cables.
I still am unable to upgrade from SP2 to SP3 despite repeated reboots
with automatic update turned on.

Bob I

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Jul 13, 2010, 8:21:32 AM7/13/10
to

Beyond X wrote:
> Thank you very much for advice.
> This problem of mine automatically solved when I installed a fresh copy
> of WinXP followed by downloading updated video drivers. I do not know
> and cannot say what was wrong in the previous settings. But I tried
> three different DVI cables in vain, so I do not think it was defective
> cables.
> I still am unable to upgrade from SP2 to SP3 despite repeated reboots
> with automatic update turned on.
>

How to obtain the latest Windows XP service pack
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322389

Unknown

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Jul 13, 2010, 9:43:33 AM7/13/10
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What I meant by manually updating is:
Go to www.microsoft.com search for SP3 and download and install it.

"Beyond X" <dono...@nomail.com> wrote in message
news:4C3BD62A...@nomail.com...

Beyond X

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Jul 15, 2010, 1:54:34 AM7/15/10
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I already visited MS download site for XP SP3. At the end it only tells
that the best way is to turn on Automatic Update, which I already stated
gave rise to nothing (invoked no action). When I turned to "Manually set
up SP3", downloaded a file named WindowsXP-KB936929-SP3-x86-ENU.exe and
proceeded for setting up, I ended up an error message
: An internal error occurred. Service Pack 3 Installation did not
complete. No explanation about what the internal error is. This is my
situation. Is this the same reason why Automatic update does not work?
Incidentally I have no security software installed that might interfere
with updating. This computer has not been used for anything that might
invite malwares infection.
Any advice or suggestion?

Unknown

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Jul 15, 2010, 11:00:45 AM7/15/10
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I had a similar experience. I simply tried again and it was successful.

"Beyond X" <dono...@nomail.com> wrote in message
news:4C3EA29A...@nomail.com...

Unknown

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Jul 15, 2010, 11:15:44 AM7/15/10
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You may want to download and SAVE. Then at a later time click on the
download and install.
In event of an error you won't have to download again.

"Beyond X" <dono...@nomail.com> wrote in message
news:4C3EA29A...@nomail.com...

Robert Kochem

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Jul 16, 2010, 2:30:46 PM7/16/10
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Beyond X wrote:

> complete. No explanation about what the internal error is. This is my
> situation. Is this the same reason why Automatic update does not work?
> Incidentally I have no security software installed that might interfere
> with updating. This computer has not been used for anything that might
> invite malwares infection.
> Any advice or suggestion?

If you already performed a fresh installation I would recommend to create a
WinXP installation with SP3 included (Slipsteaming the service pack). If
you don't want to do it manuelly you can use a tool such a nLite to
slipstream the SP and create the new install CD.
Using the new CD you can set-up a fresh installation.

Robert

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