I use some very buggy software (for GPS postprocessing) and it sometimes locks the system up so badly that the mouse and keyboard and off switch don’t work, so I pull the line cord. I did that today, and when I turned the system back on one of my two displays, an LCD type, had started displaying text with some smoothing effect that leaves the pixels various shades of gray. I hate this - actually have trouble reading it. I think it looks like something just broke. And I always have it turned off.
So I looked at Display Properties and saw that “Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts” was still unchecked, it wasn’t turned on.
Then I tried changing the resolution setting for this monitor and found that a different value makes the effect go away. I guess from this that the crash had changed the resolution setting on the video card.
But, though it looks fine now, there are two other weird effects I’ve never seen before. For one thing, when I open a new window, it is often partly off the edge of the screen. For another thing, when I bump the mouse cursor into the edge of the screen, the entire screen scrolls in that direction, as if it’s a window onto a larger desktop. Since I’m in the habit of bumping the edge as a way of finding the cursor, this is terrible.
Are you using the standard Windows Display control panel to manage the displays or does your video card provide a custom UI? If so, what brand & model of video card?
In general, you’ve got a situation where the “virtual desktop” feature is active. That means the logical screen size is bigger than your physical screen size. Hence the scrolling.
I suggest going through all the configuration steps in the custom video control panel or in the built-in Dispaly Properties UI - Settings tab.
A trick I use to help find the mouse pointer is to turn on the built-in mouse finder. Control Panel -> Mouse -> Pointer Options, then check the box at the bottom: “Show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key”. Works slick.
Thanks, LSLGuy. I’m using the Display Properties UI built into Windows. I think I’ve found every navigable pane and tab in this but have not noticed anything that looks like it controls this feature, and no “virtual” anything. The things I have tried changing did more literally whatever they sounded like they would do and did not change this behavior. It does sound, though, like what it is doing would be called a “virtual desktop”.
I might try the built-in mouse finder, but I want to stop my windows being created beyond the edges of the monitor. This is a very annoying feature.
Whatever these clues are worth: this is happening on my secondary monitor, the LCD one running off the AVI port. My primary monitor, a CRT on a ?VGA analog port, doesn’t do it. And, I can swap primary versus secondary, but they change back every time my system restarts.
FWIW you should be able to switch off your machine without pulling the power plug by pushing and holding the Power button for 4-10 seconds - it varies by machine.
Anyway, it sounds like you’ve got ClearType enabled as well as a virtual desktop.