LCD's resolution problem

Today when boot up pc i found my windows run in low resolution mode. My LCD's native resolution setting disappeared from selection list, both in windows and nVidia control panel. Previously it was all fine, and i never changed any video settings or drivers.

My specs:
-Dell U2711 monitor (native resolution 2560*1440)
- nVidia GTX580
- connecting them through DVI-dual-link cable

Somehow the max resolution option displayed is only up to 1920*1080

So far i re-install both newer and older nVidia drivers, and the monitor's driver from Dell provided CD, but the problem persisted.

Any idea what might be wrong?

Drivers on install CD's are always out of date:
1. Check dell's site for a newer U2711 driver and use that one.
2. Check the factory default settings for the monitor it might have been set to a fixed resolution instead if it's native setting.
3. Check dell's site to see if there is a Firmware update for the monitor.

Also, try reseating your connectors/connections, and reboot.

I) Tried switch off all power, disconnect and reconnected the DVI-D cable, and connected to a second DVI-D port on my display card to no effect.

II) Set my monitor to its factory setting. Also no deal. The monitor's information section do shows my current resolution (1920*1080), with its max resolution that capable of (2560*1440).

III) Dell website has no newer version of the monitor's driver. No new firmware that i am aware for that particular model. So far similar questions posted on the Dell's forums didn't help much.

IV) I removed 270.xx driver and installed latest 280 driver under safe mode. Still no changes. The 260.xx driver automatically installed by Windows do provides slightly differently modes but no 2560*1440.

Remus,

I also checked Dell's site yesterday and couldn't find any drivers or firmware.
What OS are you running and are the nVidia 3D Vision drivers also installed?

I am using win7 64 bit Home premium. Yes, i installed everything in the driver package including nVidia 3D. The strange thing is that i use the pc for months without problem with the 270.xx driver, and older drivers before that. Now suddenly this issue occured, is it possible that the monitor is faulty?

I tried install the driver component only without other stuff like nVidia update, nVidia HD audio, etc but with same result.

One strange thing in the nVidia control panel is it detected two types of resolutions. First, the HD, SD - from the lowest 480i, 720 x 40 up to the max 1080p, 1920 x 1080; and the second type, PC - which only offered two resolutions, the 800 x 600, and 1024 x 768 that the driver detected as my native resolution. Is this indicating the driver detection problem due to driver itself or monitor faulty, or both?

Shit i guess i'm being "monitored" by monitor :/

Yeah, it sounds like a hardware issue. Either the GPU card or the monitor not reporting its resolution correctly. Since it is less likely that both ports would go bad, I'd guess the monitor is bad first. If you know someone you could temporarily borrow another monitor from, I'd try that to rule out the video card.

Cheers!

Another thing you could try is to run Powerstrip and let it attempt to detect the supported resolutions of the monitor.

Just noticed that if i removed the video's driver, the monitor component will be removed as well in devices manager. That means i am unable to install monitor's driver FIRST before installing the display card's drive. I'm thinking that a "default/generic monitor" instead of correct monitor type may have prevent nVidia driver from properly setup correct resolution modes during its installation.

Any other way to install monitors driver first beside through the devices manager? the properties button is grey out in screen resolution —> Advanced setting —> Monitor properties.

You shouldn't have to install the monitor before the video driver unless its something like an all-in-one integrated system. The device manager is about the best place to installed/uninstall/upgrade drivers.

I would suspect that you may have gotten some automatic updates or something from Windows Update and they installed when you shutdown and rebooted. Now it sounds like you did everything to remove whats there so thats good.

I remember several years ago I had a problem with a device (though not a monitor) getting reinstalled several times into device manager but only one showing up and still not working right. When I booted to Safe Mode all of the other duplicates also showed up in device manager but were marked as disabled. I was able to delete all of them in safe mode and then reinstall the drivers and it worked correctly after that. You might try going to Safe mode and uninstalling devices and rebooting.

The next would to restore a backup of you system from a couple of days ago if you have one. It would probably be dangerous and for advanced users only but you could backup your registry and try to remove the device manually and hope you can still boot afterwords. If it is a registry issue I'm not sure deleting the device will remove the registry key and any cached information (like supported resolutions),

Anyone got detail instructions to force a custom resolution?

I use powerstrip to created a custom monitor driver with 2560*1440 resolution setting but still the Windows & nVidia refused to recognised it.

I tried nVidia's control panel to create custom resolution and came back with " test failed, custom resolution 2560 x 1440 at 60Hz (32bit) is not supported by your display".

Sounds a lot like a broken cable. Do you have any pets that like to chew on your computer cables? Or is it possible that you ran over the cable with the wheels on your chair or with a vacuum cleaner? Or could it be that the cable got bent sharply in some way? Try to think of something that may have caused a broken cable before the issue first occurred and examine the cable closely.
If using a different cable doesn't fix the issue then the most likely cause is that the display is faulty.
To be absolutely sure, hook up the display to another computer. Even not-too-ancient Intel integrated graphics controllers support resolutions up to 2560 x 1600 so you don't need a high end graphics card for testing.

I think i narrowed down the possible answer to my problem. On the Dell's support forum, one poster posted the following solution to a very similar issue:

You can try the following:

Open the NVIDIA control panel.
Unplug the monitor from the computer.
Plug the monitor back into the monitor.
Allow for detection.
Set resolution.

Some people have had luck with those steps for monitors stuck on low resolutions.

Click to expand...

Previously i did try on couple times powered down everything, disconnect DVI-D cable and reconnect, and it won't have any effect whatsoever. But following the post above, yesterday i disconnected the DVI-D cable while the system (Windows) still running, and reconnect, and voila!, the dearly missed 2560 x 1440 resolution show up!. However, it won't work everytime, on 3-4 occasions it also required me to plug into second DVI port on my monitor (it won't bring up any display as the monitor's message stated no DVI cable detected) and plug back into first port before there is any display up and with correct resolution.

Anyway, before this i already called Dell's tech support and although the tech person insisted it was my windows or driver setting problems, she agreed to deliver another monitor for me to test. If it's indeed monitor's DVI ports problem i would get to use the new monitor and return the old one. Finger crossed

As others have said, it could be the cable, too. Have you tried another cable?

I put desktop and all its cables on my table and they are in good condition.

I received a refurbised unit from Dell. It looks new to me, no scratches, dents, smears or anything like that. Most importantly now the Windows and nVidia finally detected all the supported resolutions. The system no longer show the HD and SD resolutions, only the PC resolutions and properly labeled the 2560 x 1440 as my native resolution.

Hmm, so my previous monitor was either had a faulty DVI-D port and or other internal faults that caused my Windows to detects it as LCD TV.