LCD Installation Problem

Have just bought a new ViewSonic VA905 LCD screen.
The installation program that came with it could not detect the monitor, so I downloaded the latest driver from the ViewSonic website, and installed it ok. Problem is that when I try to run it at the recommended resolution of 1280 x 1024 the desktop goes crazy, and needs to be scrolled to see either the Start button or the Icons, or the clock on the taskbar. By reducing to 1024 x 768 the dektop shows everything ok, but everything is sort of fuzzy and not at all clear. Also annoying is that when I turn the screen on, it tells me that I should be running at 1280 x 1024. I already know that but it wont show me the entire desktop if I do.
Sorry, should have said before, am running the LCD off a HP laptop with an ATI Mobility U1 card.
Any ideas guys?
Many Thanks as always.

My guess is that you've found a conflict between the Viewsonic monitor and the built-in HP screen. I suspect that the HP screen won't support 1280x1024, so the driver makes you scroll to achieve that effect on the HP, and of course this is duplicated on the Viewsonic monitor.

I think you would need to disable the HP screen to overcome that conflict, but of course that's no good when your laptop is away from the monitor. The solution to that problem is to create multiple hardware profiles. You may already have multiple profiles, pre-built notebooks often have a docked and undocked profile as standard. You should use the Viewsonic monitor in the docked profile and the HP monitor in the undocked profile.

Hello Lynx.

That makes a lot of sense. Have disabled the HP screen as I dont think it supports so high a resolution. Hasn't made any difference though.Have tried designating the new screen as the Default, and also as the "Plug and Play one, but makes no difference. As for need ing to use the laptop away from the LCD monitor, I dont need that. Only have the laptop to use at home as it is the only one I have.
Do you think it could be the ATI Mobility not being able to handle the new screen?
Thanks for your help anyway.

There's some software that comes with the Mobility chips - Hydravision.
There are probably still some settings you can change either in that software or in the drivers which will allow you to change the native resolution. Unfortunately I've never found Ati's documentation to be of much help in this respect.

There's a basic edition and a full edition of Hydravision. If you haven't got the latest full edition it is available here

Edit: Some notebooks have two options - physical resize (which is what you want) or logical resize (which is what you've got). On Dell notebooks you switch between the two by pressing <Fn>F7. I guess there will be a similar option on HP notebooks.

Very useful info Lynx. looking into it now.

Many Thanks

Just to let everyone know, the Hydravision Full version enabled the higher resolution to display the desktop properly.
Great result for me, and many thanks to Lynx.
Regards

Kenny