Invalid Format. Probably simple to fix, but I need a little help please

iBurninum

Honorable
Jun 5, 2013
35
0
10,540
My buddy and I were playing Star Wars The Old Republic and a computer we just built for him. It was his first 10 seconds into the game. He minuses the game down to open FRAPS when, boom, the screen went black and said "INVALID FORMAT". We restarted the computer, but it still says it. I hear we gotta change the display settings. Sounds easy, but we can't get the screen to display the desktop. It shows everything loading, but once it gets to the desktop it goes blank and displays the message. He is using a crap TV, but it should work if we could get into the display settings. We tried plugging in a very old box monitor to see if we could at least access what we needed to change the settings, but nope, didn't wanna open the desktop. Screen said "scanning". Do we need to be on actual monitor? Can we take the battery out of the motherboard for a half hour? what can we do?

He is using a GTX 460
and his TV is this one here "LG 32LC2D". Its hooked up through VGA with a DVI adapter in the card. Thanks for any help!
 
Solution
If you only have a TV connected as your monitor and you can't get to the settings, you may have to get a PC monitor in order to access your screen display settings window on your PC and reset it. And pick a screen resolution that your TV will accept.