Through a mirror, darkly (computer question!)

Factual Questions
1

Sigh. Was flipping between users last night using <win-key>-L. When I switched to my son’s user, it came up mirrored. As in, left is right, right is left. It’s correct vertically.

It was amusing, briefly, as I remembered there’s a key combination that allows you to rotate your display - ctrl-alt-uparrow etc. However, no combination of that (right, left, up, down) did anything.

I’m running Windows XP Home, with an Intel Extreme graphics controller - 82845G. on a 3.5 year old IBM-brand PC. I’ve gone into the controller and, per some screen shots I’ve found, there should be a rotation tab. There is not. All I see is Devices, Color, Schemas, Hot Keys (which include ctrl-alt-F1 to enable the monitor, and ctrl-alt-F12 to invoke Graphics properties, OpenGL, and Information (nothing there seems to handle rotation / flipping).

I 've found references online which mentioned unintended rotation and my specific controller, but again they referenced the ctrl-alt-uparrow trick, or the rotation properties. No joy there.

I went to the Intel support page and the message there was basically “we don’t support that any longer, here’s some info for archival purposes”. No discussion of screen flipping whatsoever.

I did try deinstalling the graphics driver and monitor. That made the display fuzzy, poor color, and huge icons (low screen res). But they were all still reversed. Somehow finally managed to get the driver to reinstall itself, and update the drivers to the latest available. Still reversed.

Additional info that may or not be relevant: In the past few days, the computer has been making random clunkCLUNK sounds - the same sound it makes when I’m attaching new hardware such as my external drive, a thumb drive, or the iPod. Never a “hardware removed” (CLUNKclunk) sound though, and of course the sound occurs when I haven’t added anything to the machine. Dunno if this is connected, as it was doing it well before this problem occurred and is still doing it now.

Naturally, I have a headache from trying to read all the properties windows backward. Back in college I had a hobby of mirror-writing but it’s not nearly so fun when you have to read the stuff.

Anyway - any suggestions would be gratefully received!

Sheesh. I could see how rotating the display might useful in some situations, but mirroring it??? :confused:

2

I’d start off by using the display through a mirror so that it’s readable. :slight_smile:

I suspect that capability was in there for kiosk or projection displays, where the display was mirrored internally with an actual piece of glass, so it had to be backwards to start out with. Probably some obscure thing that was used once in 1998 and was then forgotten about.

As for how to fix it, I’m not sure. One possibility… you didn’t change a setting on your monitor inadvertently, instead of the computer, did you?

3

When you reboot, is the image reversed throughout the boot-up process? Including the very first part where the computer’s logo is displayed, and it goes through the memory check, etc.?

4

I don’t think so as my hands were nowhere near the monitor at the time, but I’ll definitely check that tonight (I’m at work - despite rumors, I’m not quite mad enough to try to post to the Dope, backwards).

There’s something that flashes up very briefly, perhaps about the BIOS, that is forward. I’ll reboot and watch very carefully tonight to see what that is. Everything else is in reverse.

5

Try holding down CTRL+ALT and hitting the arrow keys one by one. Some on board drivers use this sequence to change the screen orientation

6

That was the first thing I tried (once I googled it); I knew of the sequence but couldn’t remember what keys.

Other stuff: There’s definitely nothing in the main monitor settings (on the monitor itsel, that is); I pressed the menu buttons there and nothing remotely like orientation. Also - when I shut down the computer but leave the monitor powered up, I get “cable disconnected” and that’s forward. So my gut feeling is it’s on a driver or something.

Of additional note: I’ve been getting Zonealarm popups asking if I want various programs to access the internet. All of them are legit programs (e.g. my AVG virus updater) that have already been granted permission. I wonder if my driver-updates yesterday (in my attempt to fix the problem) may have reset that somehow.

7

Curiouser and curiouser.

I knew the monitor was not the problem: when it’s not connected to anything, there’s a display box that pops up saying “cable disconnected”. It’s not reversed. Ditto when I use the menu buttons on the monitor itself (to change horizontal/vertical positioning etc.).

A long phone call with the tech support folks at Lenovo (who bought the computer manufacturing business from IBM), trying everything I’d tried the day before, yielded no results.

In desperation, I hooked the monitor up to my laptop.

The display was backwards.

Anyone have any clue about Sony LCD monitors and backwards displays? Google is not my friend so far.

I’ll see if we can borrow a monitor from somewhere and give that a try to confirm.

I’d hate to have to replace the monitor - it’s 6 years old, true, but it’s working beautifully. Well, aside from this little problem, that is!

8

You’d have to call SONY’s tech support and ask. But it could be as simple as hitting a secret combination of buttons to reset the monitor. I once had an LCD display that was misbehaving, and tech support told me which buttons to push to fix it. (Definitely NOT in the user’s manual - the monitor had gone into some type of diagnostics mode).

9

Yeah - I did email them this morning and they pointed me to the online manual (the server with such documents wasn’t available earlier) and it had instructions on how to reset the monitor. Haven’t had a chance to try the steps yet, but they look a lot like what I’ve already tried… wah!!!

Typo Knig is going to try to borrow a spare monitor tonight and we’ll see what happens though we’re pretty certain the problem lies outside the computer itself - we expect the spare monitor will work just fine. Possibly the monitor is going bad, or maybe even the cable; since I’m 100% certain I did not touch anything on the monitor itself when this occurred.

10

Is there a keyboard combo that sends commands to the monitor? I’m wondering now…

11

This sounds like the image has been set up for a projector mounted in a ceiling where the image is inverted by a mirror. This is done so the noisy projector isn’t in the quiet meeting room.

Found it!

Here’s what you want. You need to press Ctrl-Alt-F1 and then Ctrl-Alt-Arrow-Key

12

Thanks - I’d found that webpage (among others) that all had basically the same advice but I tried it again anyway just in case I’d missed something. No luck.

I did contact Sony support and they suggested a reset of the monitor. Had already tried that but again, I wasn’t ruling anything out!

We’ve now connected that monitor to three different computers: the original IBM/Lenovo desktop, an IBM Thinkpad, and a Macbook. Backwards, all of 'em.

We’ve borrowed a monitor (CRT - that sucker looks HUGE compared to the nice Sony LCD) so we’re up and running again on the old computer. Well, we will be once we connect it, but it works with the Thinkpad and the Macbook so I’m guessing it’ll be OK with the desktop.

I’m hoping that either totally unplugging the Sony, or perhaps replacing the cable (on the to-do list for this weekend) might sort things out - maybe if the cable has gone bad it’s scrambling the signal.

13

Brief update (already posted to the “help me pick a monitor” thread) - several days of being unplugged, disconnecting/reconnecting all cables, switching from analog to digital and back (switch on back of monitor), and probably most importantly threatening to replace it, and… it’s working FINE.

No clue why, though we suspect that it’s either the switch from analog to digital and back, or the unplugging, that allowed it to forget whatever made it go into reverse. I’m glad we didn’t ship the thing back!!