My laptop has been functioning perfectly to this point but when I
recently plugged in another external monitor into the back of the
laptop and turned the laptop off before the other monitor something
happened.

Now when I boot up everytime everything seems fine [additional monitor
is now disconnected]. The Dell screen greets me as well as the windows
loading splash screen and when I get to the Windows login/password
screen I noticed that the display is now half size! When I do enter my
password, it still remains the same. All the games, programs, and
other windows will not go full size on the laptop monitor.

In short, everything running in windows will continue to appear shrunk
nearly half size on the center of the laptop screen after I plugged in
another monitor in the back.

This is a Dell Inspiron 8100 with Ati Radeon 7500 on Windows XP Home
Edition.

---

Clarification of Question by space_cowboy-ga on 02 Oct 2002 09:09 PDT

I have pushed every function button including the "CRT/LCD" Also
nothing works in the Display where i checked that there are no other
active monitors but my laptop present.

Hello space_cowboy,

And thanks for the question.

I went over to the Dell site and made my way to the Customer Forum at
http://delltalk.us.dell.com/default.asp?fp_id=0&sid={943E949A-CC43-4AD7-BA77-DBD1C563F8E6}
. I have found in the past that it is sometimes most efficient to
search conversations between customers of a product when there seems
to be a unusual problem. This seemed to prove itself true once again
in this case.

I did a number of searches for Inspiron display, small, shrunk and the
like at these forums and found quite a few people experiencing the
same or very similar problems with the same model laptop as yours as
well as similar models. In every case, the cure was to hold down the
Fn key while pressing F7.

In most cases this was all that was needed for the problem to be
cured. In rare instances, it also required the latest video driver to
be downloaded and installed. A Dell tech describes the procedure to
obtain the new driver as follows:

"You may want to try downloading and installing the latest video
driver available for your system from the Dell File Library. You
should be able to find and download any necessary drivers for your
system in the Dell File Library. Just go to our website at the
following address:

http://support.dell.com/us/en/filelib/index.asp

Insert your system's service tag in the text box labeled "Enter your
Service Tag" and click the "Go" button. You will be given a list of
files and drivers specific to your system. If you do not have your
Service Tag available you can simply choose your Dell system model
from one of the drop down menus."

I hope this cures your display problems and turns out to be just as
simple as it sounds. If this is unsuccessful, please ask for
clarification and provide any additional information you think might
be helpful for me to know and I will search further.

Regards,

-=clouseau=-

EXACTLY WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR, AND EXTREMELY SPEEDY RESPONSE!!!!

THANKS!!!