[SOLVED] Diminished screen resolution after upgrade to Win 7

mike the car guy

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Old Toshiba Laptop I'm trying to milk another year or two out of. M55-S1001. It's been XP since I bought it ~15 years ago now but XP barely works anymore so I decided to try an upgrade to 7 Pro, 32 bit.

All went fairly well, I had to search a bit for an audio driver, oddly WIFI works fine with whatever default 7 puts in there, but my screen resolution is down to 1024X768 and it should be 1280x768. I've tried an assortment of drivers that suggest they're for the ATI Radeon Xpress 200M graphics, but none of them do anything different and if I manually try to install one it says "The best driver software for your device is already installed." On the "Screen Resolution" I get "Generic PnP monitor on Standard VGA Graphics Adapter" with no other options beyond 1024X768.

Is it unsupported? Am I doing something wrong, I've some, but limited knowledge, which is why I'm asking questions? Help would be appreciated.
 
Solution
I've tried an assortment of drivers that suggest they're for the ATI Radeon Xpress 200M graphics, but none of them do anything different and if I manually try to install one it says "The best driver software for your device is already installed."
Did you try these drivers? Choose ATI Display and Chipset Vista 32bit option.

https://support.dynabook.com/support/modelHome?freeText=1311519&osId=3333635

https://www.amd.com/en/support/grap...i-radeon-xpress-series/ati-radeon-xpress-200m
1280x768 is considered as "wide screen" back then, it's not always included in Windows's default list of a particular graphic card.

You need to find out the exact model of your graphic card and go to the graphic card manufacturer's website to download the latest drivers.
 

mike the car guy

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I don't think it's a separate card, but regardless I have gone to the ATI Radeon Xpress 200M site and downloaded what appear to be the correct drivers. But nothing changes. I've gone to Toshiba and it shows drivers for Vista, which I've heard will probably work, but again, nothing changes. I've tried off CNET and somewhere else, but nothing changes. It downloads, seems to install, but nothing changes.
 
I don't think it's a separate card, but regardless I have gone to the ATI Radeon Xpress 200M site and downloaded what appear to be the correct drivers. But nothing changes. I've gone to Toshiba and it shows drivers for Vista, which I've heard will probably work, but again, nothing changes. I've tried off CNET and somewhere else, but nothing changes. It downloads, seems to install, but nothing changes.

Even when it's a built-in graphic card, the chipset could come from a third-party maker.

You also can try upgrading to win8 (if compatible) to see if win8 has better support for old hardware.
 

mike the car guy

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So ATI isn't the right place to look for drivers? The computer does have several removable panels on the bottom, I might be able to find something with a name on it. If I'm lucky. I would like to get it resolved but this is mostly a road machine that sees little use so it's not super critical. Still of course I like things to work right.
 
So ATI isn't the right place to look for drivers? The computer does have several removable panels on the bottom, I might be able to find something with a name on it. If I'm lucky. I would like to get it resolved but this is mostly a road machine that sees little use so it's not super critical. Still of course I like things to work right.

ATI is indeed the manufacturer of the chipset, but I'm not sure if they provide the drivers for Win7.

Win8 and Win10 have a larger list of generic drivers that could work for you.
 
I've tried an assortment of drivers that suggest they're for the ATI Radeon Xpress 200M graphics, but none of them do anything different and if I manually try to install one it says "The best driver software for your device is already installed."
Did you try these drivers? Choose ATI Display and Chipset Vista 32bit option.

https://support.dynabook.com/support/modelHome?freeText=1311519&osId=3333635

https://www.amd.com/en/support/grap...i-radeon-xpress-series/ati-radeon-xpress-200m
 
Solution

mike the car guy

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I know I've tried the first link and I'm pretty sure the second. Trust me, I have tried before just throwing questions out there.

My understanding is Vista and 7 are close relatives, 8 and 10 less so. Might drivers for 8 or 10 work on 7? Is there any real downside to trying them? If I can find any that is. Would I end up with a black screen or just no change if they didn't work?