Win8 Display Stretched - Odd Aspect Ratio

Hey all, I need some help. Been trying to work through this issue for the last 4 hours and have been hitting a brick wall. I installed Windows 8.1 (yeah, I know...), everything seems great apart from the new interface annoyances, except that I just noticed that all my old photos are stretched, vertically. Started looking at video, yeah, it's stretched too. Looked up a test pattern thing with a circle and square and yeah, things are stretched vertically, it's everything. It's not bad, until I want to look at or edit a photo or something at which point it's just intolerable. Issue is, I can't fix it so far and I'm pulling my hair out.

Example: Ever watch a video with the aspect ratio or the crop that is incorrect? The stuff on the screen looks stretched one direct or the other, and by messing with the program you view it with, you can correct it by changing the aspect ratio or the crop settings. I don't think those are available in Win8, going to go look for some way to edit those next.

Tried this so far and other info:

• I checked my screen resolution and it's set for 1920x1080, but the monitors native resolution is 1680x1050.
• Set the resolution to 1680x1050 and it, well, it pushes the screen size in on both sides in such a way that I have vertical black bars on my monitor. This is not unusual for a CRT, and you would just change the screen width manually, but for LCD it's weird. I thought to try changing settings for the monitor, but the geometry settings are disabled on my monitors on screen display.
• The screen is actually crisp and clear at 1920x1080, and blurry on any other setting.
• Changed drivers for the monitor to one I found on a forum that had the same issue with Win7 (wow did MS make it hard to install a digitally unsigned driver). No luck there.
• Found ATI/AMD drivers for the card and installed catalyst control center, no help there either.
• Note: The display works perfectly in XP, haven't tried Win7 from this platform, but the forum I got the monitor driver from says they have the same issue (I cannot confirm).
• Tried running photo/video programs in a different compatibility mode, no help, this is a display issue, not compatibility.
• If I change my videos aspect ratio to 2:21:1 they look OK, but this is no solution and doesn't help with photos and doesn't help the overall issue.
• Monitor is attached to PC via DVI cable, no option for VGA or something else, doubt this has anything to do with the issue.

Below are the items I've got in my poor old Desktop.
My monitor is a SCEPTRE X22WG-1080P
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824112009

My video card is a ASUS EAH4870 DK
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121291

crap...I don't know where to start.....that's definitely odd. I had a weird win 8.1 dispay issue but a quick reboot fixed everything....so I don't know.

Set to 1680x1050 and try to adjust the monitor after? Maybe off/on will do if other adjustments won't?
Also some videocards have a scaling option.. maybe it auto-sets the wrong way?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CeeBee

Set to 1680x1050 and try to adjust the monitor after? Maybe off/on will do if other adjustments won't?
Also some videocards have a scaling option.. maybe it auto-sets the wrong way?

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Just tried setting and rebooting one a little while ago. No luck there. Looked for scaling options in cat control center, but not seeing anything, will look again for poops n giggles. TY.


Googled aspect ratio issues and there's a lot of info, but mostly about games or video having issues. Downloading one of my games from steam right now to see if it happens in games too, for giggles and I need a break, been at this since I woke up at 11 (yeah, I know, late in the day but I hadn't slept since monday, so...).

You might want to run the Windows 8.1 compatibility check tool. My guess is that it doesn't support your hardware. They want you to buy new stuff. Could they make it compatible? Sure. Will they? Most likely not. They seem to be trying really hard to get people out of legacy stuff and into modern stuff.

But that's just a theory of mine. I can't back that claim up with facts. In the meantime, couldn't hurt to check and see what results come up...

link: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windo...patcenter/home

EDIT:
I just checked your video card. It says it's compatible. Maybe the monitor is the thing having trouble. Maybe it's not liking the DVI to VGA.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Webhead

You might want to run the Windows 8.1 compatibility check tool. My guess is that it doesn't support your hardware. They want you to buy new stuff. Could they make it compatible? Sure. Will they? Most likely not. They seem to be trying really hard to get people out of legacy stuff and into modern stuff.

But that's just a theory of mine. I can't back that claim up with facts. In the meantime, couldn't hurt to check and see what results come up...

link: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windo...patcenter/home

EDIT:
I just checked your video card. It says it's compatible. Maybe the monitor is the thing having trouble. Maybe it's not liking the DVI to VGA.

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Wondered about that, thanks for the link. The asus 4870 is compatible (it is old but it's a bad ass card, no joke). Can't find the monitor on their site but other scepters seem OK with them. Such a nuisance. Might scrap the version of Win8 I got for X-mas and just go with Win7. At x-mas time my wife and I decided that I should get a copy of Win8 and a huge Cisco CCNA book for study purposes. Should have just used the pirated codes I had for Win7 and used that. So far, everyone I know for work purposes has been using Win7 and has shunned 8 like the plague, I'm starting to see why. I mean, it's sooooooo fast and smooth, despite the whole issue with confounding former windows users with the idiotic interface.

I mean, I actually understand why they went with the tiles and such, bu don't get why they released such a buggy OS again after releasing Win7 which has bee so awesome. Must be some legacy M$ thing where they feel that they must shove their wost stuff at people instead of supporting their great accomplishments (2000, XP and 7). I just wish they would make these simple interface change more subtly vs the way they do things.


Also, as a side note, I need to learn how the library works. Need to hide all my pr0n, and don't want it showing up in the library. :D That's a joke, my wife doesn't give a fig.

Yeah. My opinion is that W8 is good to experiment with for personal use. But for business use, I will only use Windows 7 Pro SP1, fully updated. Also, you might want to make sure you've installed Windows 8.1 Update 1. Yes, that's Windows eight point one, update one (<-- emphasis on the "update 1"). It just came out but it's necessary going forward.

This OS has been the worst thing they've ever put out imo.

I think the reasoning behind this is that they wanted to continue with Windows 7 but at the same time they knew they needed to enter the "tablet/mobile" space and they didn't have much time. So they rushed this by combining all kinds of weird ideas together, shot themselves in the foot over and over again and now we are here. That said, W8 has been making incremental improvements -- but they still have a long way to go. Windows 9 should be much better.

I hear ya webby, and totally agree with you. I also think that change to the start menu was something that was logical for a 1st time user too, though the corners thing was kind of derpy. I actually bought this for testing/learning purposes. Might just install a hacked copy of 7 just to try it and see if it's better despite hearing that my monitor is wonky with 7 too. Honestly, I don't think this is the end of the world where it comes to OS's, it's actually uber fast, quite nice when you get used to it and it's, well, idiosyncrasies. I think that's the nice way to put it. Honestly the whole install was so simple it felt amazing, literally it took an hour or so to install the whole OS, but then it took 12 hours to get it tamed down to a liveable level. I will never understand why M$ will add amazing features to broken shite. It boots in maybe 10-15 seconds after the post, and moving from app to app is near instant (it's so fast that I'm not sure that I could outpace it after getting used to it, if you know what I mean). My post literally takes longer than the boot, which is amazing and something that Win7 could never do IMO. Win7 always takes ages to boot, change apps, etc, from my experiences. Anyway, Love the speed, hating the one issue I have with it (apart from the goofy interface).

Side note, games display slightly stretched too, I think. It's so hard to notice unless you look at a photo, at which point it's horrible. Can't live with this as a photoshop guy.

Yeah, I hear ya. There are some good things about it and like I said, it's incrementally getting better. I might even be willing to try it again by the time 9 comes out.

Found out that I'm fairly dumb and that I had Win8 installed, so I upgraded to 8.1. Added my PC to a homegroup without asking me and overwrote my local account without asking as well. Don't want the M$ online account, skydrive, etc. After upgrading, the issue persists, I can no longer move files off this PC to others (can read and copy to), ATI video drivers will not install now, all browser based video plays choppy or freezes my PC up if it's a resolution greater than 360p, oh, and the "dimming issue" (that I didn't mention but seems to be prevalent with Win 8 and refuses to be corrected despite what changes I make) persists and is now worse. Sigh. Oh, and all that lickety speed that was there opening programs, moving between, etc, kinda gone, things are slower now, though the boot it still crazy fast. I tried to fix all these issues with fixes located on different websites, each suggesting a different thing. None of them work.

And I thought Vista was bad. Oh well, what I liked, I loved, but it's just so frikkin buggy, even with the upgrades, updates, etc. Sad.

Going to format and put Win 7 on this thing. See how that goes.

Exactly. I mean, during the install you can choose to login as a local admin instead of logging in with your microsoft account. But still, the clunkiness remains. Now take the experience you just had and try to imagine implementing that in a business network with active directory. I mean, I'm sure it can all work out if enough effort is put in, but it's so ridiculously crappy that why would anyone want to?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Webhead

Exactly. I mean, during the install you can choose to login as a local admin instead of logging in with your microsoft account. But still, the clunkiness remains. Now take the experience you just had and try to imagine implementing that in a business network with active directory. I mean, I'm sure it can all work out if enough effort is put in, but it's so ridiculously crappy that why would anyone want to?

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how about this for even worse. I am starting to roll out windows 8. My pcs are coming loaded with it and include the free win 8.1 upgrade option. OK so I'm building my image. I upgrade it, go through all that and then as I'm ready to capture the image I attempt to run sysprep as I always do before imaging. well guess what? I can't run sysprep because my install is now an upgrade install. I really thought windows 8.1 was more of a service pack and I could always sysprep after installing windows xp service packs or windows seven service packs etc....but apparently 8.1 is considered a full fledged OS upgrade....so I'm kinda stumped as to what to do....I'd like to have the 8.1 features but as far as I know the only way for me to get it is through the store which means is through the upgrade which means that I'm then not able to sysprep machines and run the risk (ableit small) of having AD problems with duplicate SIDS..... :sigh:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 74AD

how about this for even worse. I am starting to roll out windows 8. My pcs are coming loaded with it and include the free win 8.1 upgrade option. OK so I'm building my image. I upgrade it, go through all that and then as I'm ready to capture the image I attempt to run sysprep as I always do before imaging. well guess what? I can't run sysprep because my install is now an upgrade install. I really thought windows 8.1 was more of a service pack and I could always sysprep after installing windows xp service packs or windows seven service packs etc....but apparently 8.1 is considered a full fledged OS upgrade....so I'm kinda stumped as to what to do....I'd like to have the 8.1 features but as far as I know the only way for me to get it is through the store which means is through the upgrade which means that I'm then not able to sysprep machines and run the risk (ableit small) of having AD problems with duplicate SIDS..... :sigh:

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Oh man! What a nightmare. I feel your pain. When I experimented with Windows 8 about a year ago, I made a conscious decision that this was not going to be part of my companies network. I'm sticking with 7 for as long as possible.

As far as what you are dealing with, I think there is an option to download the ISO of 8.1. Then once you get that, maybe you can slipstream the Update 1 into it? And then do sysprep after that?

Paul Thurrott has an article about how to download the ISO for 8.1. I've tried this and failed in the past. Maybe you'd have better luck? http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/wi...-8-product-key

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Webhead

Exactly. I mean, during the install you can choose to login as a local admin instead of logging in with your microsoft account. But still, the clunkiness remains. Now take the experience you just had and try to imagine implementing that in a business network with active directory. I mean, I'm sure it can all work out if enough effort is put in, but it's so ridiculously crappy that why would anyone want to?

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I swear it didn't give me the option to set up a local user during the update to 8.1, or maybe I just missed it. It looked like the option was just missing to me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 74AD

but apparently 8.1 is considered a full fledged OS upgrade....

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Ain't that a load of horse poop??? I mean, WTF? I had to get a free code to enable my upgrade to 8.1. I hope that charging for screwed up service packs does not become their model in the future.





As a side note, I was reading that the desktop PC market has been hurting in the last year, sales down a full 25% with people stating that it's all due to tablet sales, etc. IMO, this is wrong, it's due to M$ not allowing people to buy Win 7 on PC's anymore (which is why companies like HP and others have told M$ to stuff it, and they will sell Win7 again). I don't get the M$ obstinate attitude. It's like every other OS they try and cram a OS that few want down our throats, "But, ME is amazing", "But, Vista is amazing, we don't care if XP still works amazingly well", "But, Win8 is amazing, we don't care if Win7 still works amazingly well". Is it just me? Anyway, I like 8, except for all the bugs that I can't fix. I swear, I am am the king of bugs...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ilovetheusers

I swear it didn't give me the option to set up a local user during the update to 8.1, or maybe I just missed it. It looked like the option was just missing to me.

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happened to me too. I actually think the trick is to click create new account and then there's a small bit of text at the bottom that says "continue using existing account" or something like that. It's hidden pretty well but I did find it on this last win8 machine I upgraded to 8.1.

Yeah, it's easy to miss. The option to do it is written in tiny words. I think they would really prefer you sign up for a Microsoft account and use that for all your stuff. They want you on outlook.com for email and onedrive.com for files. All these giant media conglomerates are fighting to keep you walled into their proprietary media space. Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.

By the way, the HTG just wrote an article recently about the "dying PC market". He claims it's not dying and he makes some good points: http://www.howtogeek.com/183381/are-...not-heres-why/

By the way, the Windows 8 thing looks something like what is described here: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/win...in-windows-81/


See at the bottom where it says, "Sign in without a Microsoft account (not recommended)"? Yeah, that's how you do it...
http://tr2.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/20...al_account.png