Unable to change video resolution after Support Pack 7.10

[Bernd Groß]

Hi,

I am running Windows 2003 Server (SE & EE) on about 15 Proliants 6400R. Each of them was installed using the same Windows CD and the same installation procedure. After the initial installation HP Proliant SupportPack 7.00 was applied on every server.
The problem described here, was first recognized after installing the latest HP Proliant Support Pack (version 7.10). After rebooting the servers, four of them came up with a video resolution of 640x480@16colours. In the display properties I still can move the resolution slider to a higher value and the listbox still offers a choice of different colour-depths. But whatever I choose, after applying the settings, the slider moves back to 640x480, the listbox shows 4bit again and the display doesn't change either. In the advanced section I still can see my Plug&Play-Monitor and the ATI Rage IIC. Everything looks exactly the same as on the servers that don't have the problem. The hardware control panel shows no device with an error - everything looks as it should. The ATI card is using the standard Microsoft-driver like all the others do. No problem or conflict is reported.
I already tried to remove the P&P-monitor and installed a SVGA1024x768-monitor-driver. That didn't help. Uninstalling the ATI-driver resulted in having an black screen after the initial Windows-startup-screen. After that I had to reinstall the server. At this point I stopped my experiments.
I really would be glad if someone could help me with a good idea about what's going wrong on my machines.

Best regards
Bernd

[Oleg Koroz]

If you use W2K driver for 2003, would it work ?
http://h18023.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/download/17769.html

[Bernd Groß]

The Windows 2000 driver didn't work. I tried first on a server that had no display problems and it still was ok after installation. When I installed the W2K driver on one of my servers having the problem, the display went totally black after the initial boot phase. The only chance to connect was by using remote console. After reinstalling Windows standard driver the display was back in 640x480.
After that I decided to try an "upgrade" of the existing installation using the original installation CD. This took me about one hour and the result was, that the graphics resolution is ok now. So that could be the solution, even if it is time consuming, if I can't find another answer.
Any more ideas ??

[Chris Turnbull]

Hmmm. Sounds really like the problem that used to kick around under NT4 with the Rage IIC. When you installed a certain PSP (was it 5.something?) the graphics support went out the window in a VERY similar way that you describe here. I recall that under NT4 it had something to do with having PCAnywhere installed on the server.

Maybe completely unrelated, but DO you have PCA installed?

[Bernd Groß]

Hi Chris,
I read a lot about the problems related to PC Anywhere on Windows NT. But in my case this product isn't installed. We are using standard Remote Desktop. So unfortunately there must be another problem.
Regards
Bernd