Screen resolution problem

     Best thing is to check and see if there are (updated) drivers for you video card and/or monitor for Linux. Check the manufacturer's web site if nothing is in the Ubuntu repository anywhere. If you can get those, that'll be the BEST way to fix it.
     If that doesn't work out for you.... I'm not sure I like the way Ubuntu seems to handle screen resolutions - I was more familiar with what I got looking at this stuff in Fedora Core 2...
     Having said that, I recommend looking at "/var/log/Xorg.0.log" to see if there is anything in it that tells you where to begin (might have something like 'video card supports, but monitor doesn't'... or other messages). Usually anything major is in a line starting with WW (warning messages).
     There are instructions to MANUALLY configure any video card and/or monitor if you check "man xorg.conf" and follow instructions.

You have apparently not activated the driver for your graphics card.
What is your output lspci ?

Isak
Sorry i am new to Ubuntu, please could you tell me how to find out the Ispci output?
Regards
Steve

> To: <email address hidden>
> From: <email address hidden>
> Subject: Re: [Question #79302]: Screen resolution problem
> Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 07:17:32 +0000
>
> Your question #79302 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/79302
>
> Isak Frants requested for more information:
> You have apparently not activated the driver for your graphics card.
> What is your output lspci ?
>
> --
> To answer this request for more information, you can either reply to
> this email or enter your reply at the following page:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/79302
>
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.

Press Alt F2. Write in gnome-terminal. Press enter.

Write in "lspci" without quotes. This will give some basic information of your computer. Post the output here please :)

steve@steve-laptop:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CX700/VX700 Host Bridge (rev 10)
00:00.1 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CX700/VX700 Host Bridge
00:00.2 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CX700/VX700 Host Bridge
00:00.3 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CX700/VX700 Host Bridge
00:00.4 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CX700/VX700 Host Bridge
00:00.7 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CX700/VX700 Host Bridge
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237/VX700 PCI Bridge
00:06.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection (rev 05)
00:07.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
00:0f.0 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VX800 Serial ATA and EIDE Controller
00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 90)
00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 90)
00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 90)
00:10.4 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 90)
00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CX700/VX700 PCI to ISA Bridge
00:11.7 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CX700/VX700 Internal Module Bus
00:13.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CX700/VX700 Host Bridge
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. CX700/VX700 [S3 UniChrome Pro] (rev 03)
02:01.0 Audio device: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT1708/A [Azalia HDAC] (VIA High Definition Audio Controller) (rev 10)

> To: <email address hidden>
> From: <email address hidden>
> Subject: RE: [Question #79302]: Screen resolution problem
> Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 10:39:17 +0000
>
> Your question #79302 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/79302
>
> Status: Open => Needs information
>
> Isak Frants requested for more information:
> Press Alt F2. Write in gnome-terminal. Press enter.
>
> Write in "lspci" without quotes. This will give some basic information
> of your computer. Post the output here please :)
>
> --
> To answer this request for more information, you can either reply to
> this email or enter your reply at the following page:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/79302
>
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.

how do i activate the driver on my graphics card? my Ispci output is as above

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OpenChrome
http://samiux.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/howto-via-s3-unichrome-pro-problems-fixed-on-ubuntu-9-04/

It's sad that the driver is installed but not activated. I wrote a working xorg.conf manually to someone but I'm unable to find it anymore here on launchpad. You must manually edit xorg.conf to tell xorg to use the openchrome driver.

In a terminal to get started you could:
sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak
gksudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

That will backup your xorg.conf and edit a new one MANUALLY.

That's why most easily you can get around this by using these two commands.
sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

This will backup your xorg.conf and you will be asked a whole lot of questions. Answer them right and you will get a working system :) Hopefully.