Device Management

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If your computer has problems with the display, determine whether the problems persist when you use lower screen resolutions and different color depths with the display driver. If the display driver fails and changing resolutions does not resolve the problem, check or replace the current display driver. Also, make sure the installed display driver is the correct one for the installed display adapter.

Windows 2000 Professional includes safeguards that prevent unsupported settings from being implemented in most cases. However, problems result when Windows 2000 Professional has incorrect information about a monitor or display adapter supporting certain features.

If Windows 2000 Professional correctly identifies your display adapter and you attempt to set the adapter to a setting it does not support, in most cases you see an error message stating that the display adapter does not support the selected resolution or color depth. Less commonly, Windows 2000 Professional tries to set the selected resolution or color depth, and your system stops responding.

Windows 2000 Professional can identify Plug and Play monitors and automatically adjust the refresh rates available in the user interface to correspond to the settings provided in the monitors INF file listing the monitors capabilities. This results in reliable monitor operation and usually prevents users from setting incorrect or incompatible refresh rates.

With older monitors, however, it is possible to set refresh rates incorrectly. If you select a higher refresh rate than the monitor can support, you see a corrupted display with an image that looks like a maladjusted horizontal display with oscillating multiple images. If this happens, Windows 2000 Professional returns the monitor to its original refresh rate after a few moments.

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If the video signal is set to an unsupported refresh rate, newer monitors might mute the video signal and return an error message such as Invalid sync or Unsupported mode.

If Windows 2000 Professional does not recognize the display adapter, try using the basic VGA driver (by definition, a generic 640 x 480, 16-color driver). However, keep in mind that multiple monitor support is not available when you are using a basic VGA driver. If you have a vendor-supplied driver disk for the display adapter, you can install the drivers on that disk. If the drivers were not written for Windows 2000 Professional, some advanced display features might be disabled.

If an error occurs during display adapter initialization, the computer stops responding. To restart the computer, press CTRL+ALT+DEL. This problem might occur if you are using a video accelerator card and you change the display from the default setting (640 x 480, 16 colors) to 1024 x 768, 256 colors in the Display Properties dialog box for your display adapter. Although Windows 2000 Professional might accept the changes, the error still results. The Super VGA (SVGA) driver (1024 x 768) included with Windows 2000 Professional is designed only for nonaccelerated SVGA display adapters. To correct this problem, change the display driver back to the default VGA setting.

To see if the display error is corrected by changing the screen color setting

  1. In Control Panel, double-click Display , and then click the Settings tab.

  2. Check the setting in Colors . If the selection is other than 16 Colors , select 16 Colors .

  3. Click OK .

  4. Retest the condition that was causing the display error. If the error does not recur, you might want to temporarily operate at a lower resolution until you can upgrade the display driver to a version that functions without error.

To check the display drivers

  1. In Device Manager, expand Display adapters .

  2. Double-click the specific display adapter shown.

  3. In the Adapter Properties dialog box, click the Driver tab, and then click Driver Details .

  4. Click each file shown in the Driver files box. If available, the Provider , File version , and Copyright information appears below the file tree (some vendors display drivers might not contain version information).

  5. Check the displayed file versions for compatibility. Windows 2000 Professional display driver files have version numbers starting at 4.00.

  6. If you have an incompatible driver, you can reinstall the original driver from the Windows 2000 Professional product CD or get new drivers from the Windows Update Web site. For information about Windows Update, see the Windows Update link on the Web Resources page at https://windows.microsoft.com/windows2000/reskit/webresources .

To find out if an incorrect display driver is installed

  • Restart the computer in safe mode. When the message For troubleshooting and advanced startup options for Windows 2000, press F8 appears, press F8 to display the Windows 2000 Advanced Options Menu , and then select Safe Mode . If this resolves the display problem, the display driver is probably involved. Try replacing the driver with a newer version, or reinstall the driver from the original disks. For more information about troubleshooting problems in safe mode, see Troubleshooting Tools and Strategies in this book.

To see if the display error is corrected by changing screen resolution

  1. In Control Panel, double-click Display , and then click the Settings tab.

  2. Check the setting in the Screen area menu. Select a setting with a lower resolution.

  3. Click OK .

  4. Retest the condition that was causing the display error.

To change your display driver back to VGA

  1. Restart the computer in safe mode.

  2. In Control Panel, double-click Display , and then click the Settings tab.

  3. Click Advanced , and then click the Monitor tab.

  4. In Monitor Type , click Properties .

  5. On the Driver tab, click Update Driver .

  6. The Upgrade Device Driver wizard is displayed. Click Next , and then follow the instructions on the screen.

If you want to use a high-resolution display driver with Windows 2000 Professional, consult your display adapter manufacturer for the proper driver to use.