Microscopic windows font on XP PC

[Baffled]

Hi,
I'm looking at an XP SP3 machine (HP Compaq). It was working fine earlier but someone swapped the montitor over and the next thing we saw was the Windows font size shrink to microscopic writing. The windows themselves are also very small.

I cannot read the writing on the screen. Please can anybody give me a hint as to how to restore normality on this PC?

Thanks

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Try to Right Click the Desktop, go to Properties and then go to the Settings Tab (the last tab at the top)
Now look for a slider and slide it to the left and press OK.

[Baffled]

I did that, although I could barely see the slider; it was so tiny.

The font size is still microscopic. The icons have grown in size though. It seems that the windows themselves seem to shrink wrap around the tiny font size.

Any other ideas? They are all appreciated.

Thanks

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

So the slider is all the way to the LEFT now?

Head to the Appearance Tab and change the Font Size.

What happened to the other monitor?

[Baffled]

I'm doing all this by feel and by reference to another xp machine so that I can see with tab or Button etc is which. This is because it is all in microscopic proportions. However, by this method, I found the font size combo box. The font changed very slightly, but even the largest of the three options only came up to larger microscopic size. Still barely readable.

Thanks

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Can you make out what the resolution is set at? (in the Settings Tab)

Also:

What happened to the other monitor?

[Baffled]

I have just opened a dos window and, although the writing in the blue bar at the top of the window is microscopic, the dos window font is its normal size.

Is this a clue?

[Baffled]

I have decided to restore the whole of the PC from scratch, as nothing seems to change this font size. It is concerning that this can happen though. Fortunatly, I had not long built the system up on this PC and there was no important data on the hard drive.

Her I go again.... Back to the build stage.

I would be eager to know of any reason / solution for this problem, though. I may encounter it again someday.

Thanks for all your help, though. Much appreciated!

[patio]

Just a wild guess but it sounds like someone installed the wrong video driver or monitor driver...

[Baffled]

My thoughts were along similar lines. However, I am the only one who's loaded anything onto the PC since it was bought. The PC selected its own screen settings for the wide screen monitor which I used to build the system on. Could it have selected duff drivers when the users swapped the monitors over? In which case, it would be a problem with XP which seems to decide what monitor it's connected to at anyone time.

I am half way through rebuilding the system. I hope it does not happen again when I hand it over to them.

Does anyone know of any way of disabling this automatic monitor setting thing in xp?

Cheers

[Baffled]

Hi,
I finished the rebuild, handed it over to the user who promptly plugged in the monitor and hey-presto, the screen went funny again. I replaced the monitor and this time, thankfully, the screen readjusted to a much more comfortable looking setting. (This did not happen last time).

Could the monitor problem be something to do with the HCL (hardware compatibility list)?

Is there any way of switching off the automatic adjustment?

Cheers

[Baffled]

Hi,
It's that darn PC again! It's broken again... The fonts went into microscopic mode again. I have built three of these PCs so far and this is the first and only one (hopefully) to do this.

Is there some Window setting I'm missing? or is it a hardware fault? Has anyone come across this before? How do I fix it?

HEEEEELPPPPPPP!!!!!!!

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

What happened to the other monitor?

Can you make sure it's not a problem with the current monitor you're using?

[Baffled]

One of the monitors we tried was old and caused the problem Another one which also seemed to cause the problem was also an old CRT but I had used an identical one in the build. So, that is puzzleing.

I have re re built the pc using the original flat screen monitior which cam with it. The user has both the PC and the flat screen monitor. I don't wish to speak too soon but he's been using it for over a day now without any trouble. .... Fingers crossed it looks like a compatibilty problem between the monitor and something in the PC.

I recently built two others like it. One is attached to an old monitor and is still going ok. The only difference taht I can think of is that this one has an Athlon processor and the one that has the font problem has a Pentium dual core processor. I would have to check the graphics cards, though to see if there is a difference there too.

Thanks for all of the help. I'll try to keep you posted if I come up with anything.

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

All right.