Hi, I have a Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop. My son used a game the other day that changed the appearence of my monitor. Now the image doesn't stretch all the way to both sides. I have two vertical black bars on each side of the screen. I uninstalled the game and tried going to control panel, but it didn't help. What should I do to get the image to fill the whole screen? Thanks!

He probably changed the Windows display resolution for the game. You should tell him that's not necessary - the game itself does that, or resolution settings in the game itself can be changed if the default setting doesn't give him the result he wants, and Windows will re-set the resolution to what it normally was in Windows when he exits the game. (The lower he sets the resolution and the number of colors in the game settings, the more likely the video will be smoother looking and have a better fps - frames-per-second - rate. If he connects an external monitor to the VGA port the video will probably look better on that.) RIGHT click on a blank area of the desktop screen, choose Properties. That goes to Display Properties. Click on the Settings tab. Choose a different resolution. The resolution you choose depends on whether you have a standard 4:3 resolution display, e.g. 1024 X 768, or a wide screen display, e.g. 16:9. All LCD displays have an "optimal" or "native" resolution they look best set to. That optimal" or "native" resolution is stated in the specs for your laptop model. Other resolutions will NOT look as good, the most noticable thing being the text on the screen will not be as clear. In any case, your LCD display usually looks best when Clear Type has been enabled. Turn on Clear Type in Windows XP or Vista - makes type/fonts on LCD screens look clearer. http://www.microsoft.com/typography... If you have a standard 4:3 display, if you choose a wide screen resolution, either the display fills the screen but is compressed too much horizontally, and/or the display does not fill the screen - e.g. black areas top and bottom If you have a wide screen display, if you choose a standard 4:3 resolution, either the display fills the screen but is streched too much horizontally, and/or the display does not fill the screen - e.g. black areas left and right.

Thanks! It worked!