Win XP: Can I force it to change monitor type?

Factual Questions
1

My monitor has been doing some odd things lately, like blinking occasionally. Likely, it is beginning to fail.

I noticed that Windows sees it as a generic 'Plug And Play" monitor; I’m pretty sure it recognized it in the past as a Gateway VX900.

I installed Red Hat Linux 9.0 on a another HD on the same system, and it also failed to recognize it. I was however able to easily force it to treat the monitor as a GW VX900, which it has listed in its hardware choices.

Likely, this failure of two separate OS’s to recognize the thing properly, when I’m fairly sure they were able to in the past (Red Hat 8.0, at least), is another sign of the monitor failing.

Is there a way for me to tell Win XP that this monitor is a VX900?

2

Use the Device Manager and remove the installed monitor, then reboot and let Windows redetect it. This should work, but if not, you can use Add/Remove hardware to manually select the monitor type from a list. I’ll expand on that if the first method fails, if you need me to.

3

Yeah, I can read, really. Ok, the first method isn’t likely to succeed from what you’ve said. If you need guidance on the second one, let me know. Add Hardware is in the Control Panel. It’s mostly self-explanatory.

4

Thank for the info QED.

Manually removing it wasn’t bad suggestion, since I hadn’t tried it before (the detecting I was referring to was what I supposed Windows XP does on startup) but it didn’t work.

I tried "Add Hardware’, but I can’t find where I can force it to add a monitor.

If I do “Add Hardware” after deleting the Plug 'n Play it searches for and finds a Plug N Play monitor and forces me to add it. There seems to be no way to choose another type.

5

Trying going into the Device Manager, right-click on the monitor and click Properties. In the Properties Window, click the Drivers tab, and then click Change driver. You can then opt to select from a list of drivers to change to. XP ought to have yours in there.

6

Unfortunately, I have no “Change Driver” option in the Drivers tab. I have

Driver Details (I get “no driver files are required or have not been loaded for this device” when I click)

Update Driver (It looks for new drivers on the web, but doesn’t find any)

Roll Back Driver (“No driver files have been loaded with this device”)

Uninstall (which does the same thing as uninstalling from Device Manager.

7

Huh. I guess Change Driver isn’t for generic hardware. Have you tried Add Hardware with the generic one still installed? You can then go and delete the generic one after the proper one is installed. I don’t know if this will work in XP, but it did in 98.

8

Yeah, but there didn’t seem to be an option to add a monitor, of any type, besides the Plug N’ Play one it sees as already there.

9

right click on a clear area of desktop
select properties
click the settings tab
click advanced
click monitor tab
click properties
click driver tab
click update driver
select Install from a list or specific location(Advanced) and click next
select Don’t search. I will choose…
Uncheck Show compatable hardware
Scroll down the left list till you see gateway and select it
scroll down right list to your monitor and select it
click next
follow remaining instructions

HTH

Chillihead

10

That did it, thanks chillihead!

11

Also Rev, a blinking monitor can that monitor cable connection in the back of the computer &/or monitor that’s not tight, just tighten it up.