Screen Resolution too big for screen: Please help

city_wok

Honorable
Jan 16, 2014
4
0
10,510
Hey all, I hope I'm posting this in the right place, I have an issue that seems to have occurred while I was away from my computer. It might be relevant to mention the GPU I'm using is a GTX660 Ti Power Edition with up to date drivers.

Anyways, I left my computer on and unlocked while I went to make dinner and came back about 45 minutes later to my log in screen (which isn't really that unusual because sometimes Windows automatic updates reset the comp. and bring me back to the log in screen). Except this time the screen was stretched, the resolution had been changed.

Ok, that's weird but not a big deal I'll just reset it, but when I get to the Windows resolution settings I see that everything is as it should be: 1920x1080. I also checked the screen resolution in the Nvidia Control Panel and it said the same thing 1920x1080. So, in the Nvidia control panel, I choose the option "Adjust desktop size and position" and through that I'm able to get a bit more of my screen back. However I still can't see the Start button completely (it says "art" from the position I'm in), and on the right hand side of the screen I can't see the "X" button for escaping out of active windows or the scrolling bar on websites. Aside from that everything just looks stretched.

Anyways, I'm wondering if someone here can help me, is this a problem with the Nvidia drivers? Is something wrong with the GPU? Could it have been the Windows update?

Any help is much appreciated. Thanks for reading.
 

city_wok

Honorable
Jan 16, 2014
4
0
10,510


Hey thanks for the response. Yes, I am using a TV as my monitor. I've been using it for months, many Windows updates/ Driver updates have come and gone but this is the first time this has happened. Have you heard of something like this happening before?
 

giantbucket

Dignified
BANNED
only thing I've noticed is that TV + HDMI = a handful of forced settings that are sometimes REALLY difficult to undo. the overscan is the first one i'd look at - within the graphics card driver and using the TV's remote. plan B is always to use a VGA connection if available, since that ought to remove any "hey, i'm a TV, let me set things up for you MY way"
 

city_wok

Honorable
Jan 16, 2014
4
0
10,510
Are you saying that if overscan is happening, there should be an option in the graphics card control panel to correct it? I'll have to look through it again and see if I can find something about that.

Also, when you said before "that sounds a bit like an overscan issue which might have gotten reset after updates" are you saying that there is a default overscan setting? What would that be?

Could a Windows update be responsible for all this?
 

giantbucket

Dignified
BANNED
i'm not sure what the defaults are for overscan, cuz I don't pay attention and just quickly set to what I expect it to be to work right. I only notice if it keeps kicking back to defaults even if I try to manually set it 17 times.....

but yeah, either in the graphics card menu OR in the TV's own menu there should (will?) be an option to turn off overscan. might be easier to find it on the TV, so start there. might be in the advanced picture settings section.

if you want to look in the NVidia control panel, it is probably under Display - Adjust desktop size and position - select the TV, go to the Size tab below it - under item 2 it should say "select the desktop resize mode....." with a pulldown menu.
 

city_wok

Honorable
Jan 16, 2014
4
0
10,510
Hey, just wanted to let you know I figured it out. It was actually an aspect ratio setting on the TV. I definitely didn't change this setting on purpose but I have to at least consider that I may have inadvertently hit an unfortunate combination of buttons on the remote while not paying attention and sitting on it or something. Or maybe it was my dog.

Anyways, I want to sincerely thank you for your help. You've saved me from a great deal of frustration as it would have been a long time before I had even considered the problem was with the TV itself. Can I give you karma or rep or something?
 

rstaraptor

Reputable
Aug 6, 2015
4
0
4,510
I have a similar problem, but its not in the tv settings. it was after I downloaded windows 10.
when I go to 1080 x 920 it is too sretched - out of screen. I am at 1776 x 1000 and everything is way too big and I cant play anything in full screen without messing with the ratio - just for watching a movie which I'm not gunna do.

so yea, I made whole post on this site. idk if you can just go to my profile and find it or what. thanks! hope someone knows more than I do about this.
 

pams1995

Reputable
Oct 6, 2015
1
0
4,510
If anyone else is still having problems, I had a similar problem that I finally solved after many minutes of frustration. My windows were all extremely magnified, and there was quite a bit of overscanning, hiding my start bar completely. The settings said my resolution was set at my TV's native resolution of 1920x1080, and the scaling bar was set to 100%, so I was pretty confused as to what the issue was. For some reason after a reboot, when i went back in to settings, sure enough the scaling was at 150%, so turning that back to 100% fixed my windows, but the overscanning was still a problem. In my graphics card settings (AMD catalyst) there was an option for underscanning, which allowed me to adjust the screen size until it properly fit my monitor. The display still looks a little funky (Text and sharp edges look blurry) but overall I'm happy. This seems like a bit of a work-around so I'm hoping in a future driver update the issue is fixed, but this works for now. Hope this helps!
 

parabuster

Reputable
Feb 12, 2015
5
0
4,510


Thanks giantbucket... as a reluctant upgrader to W10 with their heavy-handed tactics, I was about to revert to my original W8, but addressing overscan on the TV options nailed this nagging problem.