Color Depth Big Problem

[ryedhel]

Hello there,

Hope you'd take the time to give me a few hints on what to do with my problem.

See my PC, originally, could display color depths up to 32 bit. but when my nephew came over for the summer, i checked my computer, and it could only now choose between color depths of 2 colors and 16 colors.

Please, oh kind hearted PC lovers. i need your help.

With the greatest of gratitudes,

ryedhel :rolleyes:

[Whyzman]

Welcome to thehttp://www.pcguide.com/ubb/pcgubb.gif Forums!

It sounds like your video drivers might have become corrupted. I would suggest uninstalling and then reinstalling the video drivers. This can be accomplished in Control Panel>Add/Remove Programs...look for the video drivers...

I'm not sure what your level of expertice is, so, the drivers usually are located on either the motherboard driver disk. Or, if you have a video card, they normally come on a disk from the manufacturer.

[Sylvander]

SUGGESTIONS
1. Be aware. Keep your wits about you and watch for changes for the worse.
When you notice a bad change, then immediately restore to undo the change.
2. If you don't already have, then set up a system that allows you to REVERSE changes in either the CONFIGURATION or the FILE SYSTEM.
It's important that you have both forward and reverse gears [if you get my metaphor].
Which OS do you have?
a. Winxp allows you to use "Restore Points" to restore the configuration and also SOME files I believe.
b. Win9x/ME uses SCANREG /RESTORE at the command prompt to restore one of 5 stored sets of configuration file sets.
c. If you don't already have this, best to set up a system of backup and restore of your partition contents, especially the C: partition.
I just discovered yesterday that the free EBCD at http://ebcd.pcministry.com/ includes "Image", that will backup a partition to a file [on another partition or CD disk] and also restore that.

The above methods will reverse, not only this unfortunate change [to the driver files & configuration settings for your Video Display Adapter], but any unfortunate change in the software.

On this specific problem:
It looks like Windows is unable to work with the installed video [card?] driver and is automatically reverting to a generic Windows video driver.
Which driver was installed when it worked well? A Windows driver or an OEM driver?
You could either:
1) Reboot into safe mode | "Remove" the "Display Adapter" [all copies] | reboot and when Windows finds the "New Hardware" navigate to the driver files. [This method eliminates "ghost" copies of the device settings in the registry, so is best.]
2) Go into Device Manager and "Update" the driver, then point the wizard at:
a. Search for a suitable driver within the Windows installation files.
b. Search for a suitable driver on the drivers' CD supplied with the PC.