Display Settings question

[Old and In the Way]

A few weeks ago I got a new graphics card (ASUS EAH5450) and LED display (Acer S231HL) for my box. It seems to have worked OK, except for an occasional boot failure where it's suggested that I restore to original settings....I've disregarded the advice and have found it books fine on the 2nd attempt. Except today. I think Windows Update may have crashed the system and I couldn't get back into the Win7 desktop until I did a restore to earlier today. I then had a bunch of updates come in...maye 40 or so...installed and rebooted no problems.

However, I notice now (not sure how long it's been this was) a black border around the windows desktop....about 3/4" on the sides and 1/2"top and bottom. Obviously, this reduces the real estate of the usable display. I've tried to locate the software in Win7 to control this - no luck. Same for the Acer software and the Asus software...no options to control borders.

Any ideas on how to adjust for this? I possible clue - I see in the Win7 monitor properties screen that it says I have Acer s231HL monitor ...no option in the drop down box for ....what gives? I know I'm using HDMI connections. I'm going to try the DVI cable to see if there's any differences....brb.


On edit - the DVI cables did the trick...all borders removed and I have 100% of the available screen available. Still says {analog} for the monitor, though...not sure why.

Any reason why the HDMI would map the display differently than the DVI cables?

[canetoad]

1. If you open the Catalyst Control Panel

That came with your video card installation, plug in the HDMI and fossick around for a 'Scaling' option, you should be able to get rid of the black borders.

Not sure why this is so, I find that DVI gives as good quality. I think you would notice the difference if you were connecting the computer to a television and not a monitor.

[Old and In the Way]

2. Thanks...not having much luck in locating the scaling option

The CCC seems not to be loading in much info on the card or the monitor...I'll continue to play around with it...in the meantime, I'm sticking with the DVI cable solution.

[darkstar3]

3. The problem is DDC information and how it is handled by the card.

DVI connections send DDC information that is slightly different than HDMI connections. Basically, HDMI tells the card that you're using a TV, and DVI doesn't. It's more complicated than that, but that's a good way to sum it up.

The good news is that DVI vs. HDMI video quality should be identical, or close enough to make no difference. If you want to be able to send audio and video together, however, or just simplify your cable setup, you'll need to find that option called "Scaling" under the Desktop Properties section of CCC, and set it to zero.

[Old and In the Way]

4. My monitor has no audio capabilities, I use a seperate audio card/cables that handles that function.

So, in neither case, is that an issue. But I still can't find the scaling options in the video card/monitor software...I might try the HDMI cables again and see if that feature suddenly shows up. Otherwise, the DVI connection seems to be as good as the HDMI cable set-up I started with.

[RC]

5. Have you tried the AUTO function on your monitor.

Sounds like a monitor setup problem to me