My monitor (Dell Ultra Sharp 1701FP 17 inch LCD Monitor) is not recognised at all on my PC which in turn is affecting my screen resolution, I cannot change it from 640 by 480. So my screen is not to scale. When I go in to advanced settings then monitor it just says default monitor and is greyed out so I cannot change it or access plug and play. When I go into device manager it isnt recognised just VCA or something is under other devices with a question mark i tried manually installing here but to no avail as you are asked for a disk for that but I dont have it. VCA is not there now as I tried unistalling to see what would happen but nothing did. I only have a download of the driver (off Dell website) but don't know how to use this to install. Just a real pain as cannot install my printer either. It works fine otherwise. Friend said it could be the graphics card but I dont have one its in built on the mother board. Be great if someone could help im fairly new to this game and only got this far through this forum and other advice.

check Display Adaptor in Device manager, is there an entry which says Display Adaptor? if so, go into it, does it show correct make/model or something genereic like VGA.
If it does not show correct make and model of the display adaptor (that means the built in graphics card) then you need to load the correct graphics / video drivers.
In respect of the Monitor, can you change driver to the generic Plug & Play Monitor.
My 19inch widescreen is in Device Manager as Plug & Play Monitor and I can get 1440 x 900 resolution fine

I do believe that the Ultra Sharp monitors require a 256mb graphics card to run.

(At least that is what Dell's website noted when I ordered my Dell. I did not get the Ultra Sharp, although I would have liked to, but did not want to spring for the extra money for the extra graphics card. Mine came with a 128mb card.)

Bryan

No display Monitor is showing just VGA Video controller. If I had a disk for the drivers I could possibly install that way but I don't only have the file I dowloaded off dell website is there anyway of putting this on to disk have tried basic way on to floppy etc doesent work. "nd if they do require a grpahics card I will purchase but will this solve the problem?

You should be able to run the downloaded file by double clicking it. What is the extension on the file?

When I double click on it I hit run it then he asks me to unzip the file which it does, then it leads me to a manual install page......as follows but I cannot do it this way as I do not have the monitor tab it is greyed out and says default monitor.

Microsoft Windows Operating System

To manually install or update the driver, perform the following steps:

Click Start-> Settings-> Control Panel and then double-click Display.

In the Display Properties window, click the Settings tab, and then click Advanced.

Click the Monitor tab, and then click Changeà Specify the location of the driveràNext.

When the Update Device Driver Wizard dialog box appears, select “Display a list of all the drivers in a specific location, so you can select the driver you want,” and click Next>.

Type the location in the Copy manufacturer’s files from: box where the driver files were extracted (most likely C:\Dell\Drivers\1701FP) and then click OK.

Click Next>, Next>, and then Finish to complete the installation.

Close the Display Properties window.

Thanx again