On Sun, 26 Apr 2009 19:44:03 +0100, "Pete Zahut"
dont@bother wrote:


When you bought the laptop, the panel may have been declared as
"1440x900" or the like. What does the control panel currently claim for
the
resolution setting ?

Actually the laptop belongs to my niece (or it did until recently when she
decided to get a new one and gave this one to me )) so I don't know what
it was declared as when new. When I look in Control Panel, there's a choice
of only two resolutions, 800x600 and 1024x768. There's a tick-box with the
words "Hide resolutions that this panel cannot display" (or something to
that effect) and there is currently a tick in that box. When I deselect that
choice, other resolutions become available, but selecting any of them makes
no change to the width of the display - that 65mm strip of "darkness" is
still there.

You need to uninstall (if one is installed) the video driver
then reinstall it again. It may be found on Acer's site or
Intels. I'd go with Intel's since it is probably newer.
Appears to be Intel 950 video.

Because the driver is not working if present at all, you
won't have the 1280x800 resolution needed. It appears then
that what you see on the right side is simply 1280-1024=256
unused columns of pixels.


Another test you can try, is to boot a Linux LiveCD and do some
testing there. If the same weird effect is present, then the problem
is hardware (panel doing something it shouldn't). If the machine
appears to work normally, running something like Knoppix Linux, then
that would suggest the driver is doing something strange in Windows.

I tried a Linux LiveCD as you suggested Paul and there's no change, the
problem is still there - so it's hardware then. Oh dear (

This is not proof it is hardware, the LiveCD may simply lack
support for the Intel GMA video it appears to use. The bios
is the wild-card, it should fill the whole screen but
because it doesn't offer the native resolution in windows
there does seem to be a driver problem.

One last thought, is it possible the screen on this laptop
has been replaced (presumably due to damage) with the wrong
one?