Incompatible monitor resolution

[tmathews]

I was given a working XP Home SP3 machine. When hooked up to my monitor the bootup process looks normal until it gets to the login screen. At this point, the screen becomes jumbled and unreadable. I believe the previous owners were running it at some resolution my old monitor doesn't support.

I can boot into safe mode but if I try to change the resolution it bluescreens. I've checked and the video drivers are the latest. If I don't try to change the resolution I can reboot normally but it doesn't remember to stay in 800x600 and I'm back to the unreadable login screen. I can find plenty of stuff on the web about how to change resolution from the desktop (which I can't see to get into) and how to change resolution in safe mode (which doesn't stick for normal mode) but neither of these helps.

I'm sure there must be some way to go into safe mode and change the default resolution for normal mode. Does anyone know how to do this? I'd hate to have to haul it all the way back there just to boot, change the resolution, and haul it back here...

[glc]

Instead of safe mode, boot it into VGA mode. Then you can change the resolution and refresh rate and it will stick when you reboot. Start with 800x600 60 Hz.

[tmathews]

Thanks, but VGA mode also bluescreened when I tried to change resolutions. I ended up reinstalling the video driver and was able to get it to work. Thanks for the help.