XP Display Problems and Resolutions

XP Display problems covers Colour Problems – Display Driver Issues – Fuzzy or Blurred Images – Resolution and Desktop Size, including Icon and Font Sizes.

If you have any video display problems XP does have a lot of settings we can change to fix this or enhance the look and feel of Windows, although much of the time its simple changes.

It’s a question of knowing where to look for these.

XP display Problems with Colours

Display driver issue – Always make sure you are using the latest drivers available for your graphics card, bugs and problems do occur and the most resilient and best performing display drivers are usually the latest. These can be downloaded as part of the general Windows updates, or from the card manufacturers website, which is preferable as it will be the very latest available.

Low colours – the amount of colours you have Windows set for has some big advantages and disadvantages, using 32bit colour much of the time is unnecessary it does not make images look sharper, just uses more memory, check it out, Right click on the Windows desktop and select properties – settings tab – under Color quality lower this as much as you can.

It is best to try to find a balance in between using colors as low as possible and as clear as possible, usually 16bit will suffice in most cases.

XP Display Problems With a Blurred or Fuzzy Display Image

Try lowering hardware acceleration & make sure write combing is enabled. This can be checked by right clicking on the desktop – properties – settings – advanced – troubleshoot. * Note * only lower hardware acceleration as much as you need, too much will slow down any applications or games.

As above when you select the advanced option – select the monitor tab – make sure Hide modes that this monitor cannot display is ticked and then select the highest screen refresh rate that is listed.

A fuzzy or blurred image can also be attributed to the monitor – all monitor have a control panel built into them where changes to setting such as image, brightness etc can be changed.

If the monitor looks as though it has a coloured hint or tinge if you are using a CRT monitor Degauss the monitor, this discharges all magnetism from the monitor, you will hear a loud buzz or crack, but this is normal

Horizontal or Vertical convergence – this problem makes any image or text look very blurred, like it has a shadow. Thos occurs when two layers of an element on a monitors picture are not truly aligned.
On older monitors the horizontal/vertical convergence needs to be adjusted manually, but on newer monitors they should have an auto button to change this automatically.

The size/resolution of the desktop is too big or small

If everything on the desktop is too large or small – right click on the desktop and select properties – settings tab – look for the screen resolution slider – now move this to the right to make everything smaller or to the left to make everything bigger, once you change the setting and click apply it will change the setting for 30 seconds, if you do not click ok to the setting you have chosen Windows will automatically change it back for you.

As a general monitor resolutions guide 14 inch or smaller monitor 800x600 – 17 inch monitor 1024x768 – 19 inch monitor 1280x1024

If you find the current screen resolution is ideal, but you want everything to be a little bigger or small then you can change the DPI or dots per inch – right click on the desktop – properties – settings tab – advanced – general tab – now change the DPI – the larger the number or dots per inch the larger things will look.

If you wish to only change the font size – right click on the desktop – appearance tab – under font size select your chosen size.

for more on general settings and XP display problems - setting up your screens resolution and refresh rate

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