BleepingComputer.com: Screen resolution randomly drops

I have a computer running XP Home that has three user accounts. Two accounts work properly. However, when logging on to the third account, the screen resolution sometimes drops to 640x480 with 4-bit color. If I try to increase the resolution, it immediately drops back. If the computer is restarted, the resolution will be back to its normal value (1024x768 with 32-bit color). This happens randomly and does not seem to be a driver or hardware issue. No software had been installed when this problem started.

Would seem to point to a damaged user profile, IMO.

Copy Data from a Corrupted User Profile to a New Profile in Windows XP - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/811151

Louis

This does not always happen, and once the screen resolution changes it is stuck there for all users until the computer is restarted. It seems strange that this is caused by a corrupt user profile. Is there anything else that could cause this problem? I don't want to create a new profile yet, and I don't think that user would either.

Perhaps something loading with the profile is causing the problem.

Open msconfig and on the General tab choose "selective startup" (uncheck all three items) and reboot. Does the problem still occur? If not, start adding items back to msconfig one or two at a time, rebooting after each change, until the problem reappears and you'll have identified the offending process. This is clearly a time consuming procedure, but it is the best way to determine if some process loading with the system is the cause of your problem.

After you've isolated the cause, do not use msconfig to permanently disable the process. Instead, if it is a service go to START - RUN and type: services.msc (then press enter) and disable the service OR, if it a program, you can download & run a simple app such as Mike Lin's Startup Control Panel (http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml) to enable, disable, or otherwise manage startup programs.

in msconfig, is there anything that's loading that relates to resolution, like
a graphics control panel?

All three users have the same startup items. No graphics control panels are loading. Windows had a built-in driver for the computer's video card (NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 420), so I never installed another driver. The latest driver actually reduces performance and makes the computer extremely slow, as if I had removed the computer's 1GB of RAM and replaced it with 64MB.

can you reinstall the driver?

This problem stopped occurring shortly after I started this topic, but it has now returned. It can now occur when any user logs on. The computer also did other random things since the original problem stopped occurring.

Well...it would help if we knew whether you acted on any of the previous suggestions/comments...and what these "other random things" might be.

Hard to attempt to solve a problem...when said problem is not defined as well as possible.

Louis

I don't remember what the other problems were since they stopped occurring for a few months.

I don't see anything running on startup that would cause this problem. If anything is causing the problem, it would be hard to tell which process or service is causing the issue since it occurs randomly.

Could I reinstall the video card driver by removing it from Device Manager and restarting the computer?

Do you have any Programs opening or auto-run when computer fully boots to Windows desktop?

This post has been edited by jhayz: 02 December 2011 - 07:38 PM

No programs load automatically in two user accounts, but my user account has Task Manager open minimized when I log on. This problem has only happened on my user account once.

Try reinstalling your video card driver. The latest version from manufacturing support site(if available) would be better. Must be an Admin. to User account problem.

All three accounts are administrator accounts and the latest video card drivers produce such a large reduction in performance thet I would be better off with the old driver that I am currently using.

I also remembered that attempting to switch user (switching to a different user account while keeping the current user logged on) sometimes causes the "This computer is in use and has been locked" message to appear that would normally only be seen if the Lock Computer option was available instead of Switch User.