Vista 'Sleep' Changes Resolution - FIX!
Vista has a bug in it's fancy new video system. The folks at Microsoft may argue as to whether it really is a bug or not, but it is.
The symptom is this: when Vista wakes up from its low-power "sleep" mode the screen resolution may be reset to a lower resolution mode.
The Fix is below.
Many techie sites around the web have mentions of this problem but all that I've found incorrectly blame it on the computer hardware or the hardware drivers or on the Windows Vista OEM computer makers mods to Vista. These are all incorrect; it is a Vista problem.
The actual problem has nothing to do with sleep mode, per se. Rather, it has to do with programs temporarily requiring a different resolution from the Vista video system. This was never an issue with earlier editions of Windows, up thru XP, as Windows managed screen resolution differently and generally programs ran in the resolution that they are given. Period.
In the new Vista video management system, Vista tries to help by dynamically adjusting the resolution to fit the program. There is a good reason for this; it's to help make video -- like downloaded TV shows and such -- look better and smoother. So no complaints there.
The problem seems to be that when Vista is finished "helping" the application by adjusting the video resolution it forgets to reset the resolution.
For example; if you plug your 1280x800 wide screen laptop into your 720p TV, Vista will adjust the resolution output to optimize the picture on the TV. Cool! But when you unplug the TV to go back to crusing the web or working in Word or whatever, Vista forgets to switch back to the correct resolution for the computer monitor.
So what does this have to do with "Sleep" mode? Here it is:
Most computers come with a screen-saver set on by default. Usually it comes on before Vista goes to sleep. You may have noticed when your Vista computer goes into screen saver mode that the screen sort of blinks a few times when it comes out of the screen saver. Sometimes you see the blink when it goes into the screen saver too. This is the Vista video system actively optimizing the video system for the job at hand -- the screen saver.
The problem is that Vista and screen savers don't seem to always communicate perfectly with each other. Most times this is OK because Vista will quickly figure it out and reset the resolution. BUT, for some reason, when Vista gets busy waking up, the communication between screen saver and Vista can just totally break down and Vista will be left with the screen resolution set to some lower-res configuration.
The Fix:
Actually, the work-around. Turn off the screen saver or set it to the "Blank" screen screen saver. This way the resolution will not be changed during the screen saver run and Vista will not get confused when the computer wakes up.
No; it is not drivers and it is not video chipset firmware. It is Vista doing its thing and getting confused during wake up.
Hopefully Microsoft will fix it for Vista SP1, but since they don't seem to have acknowledged this bug as of this writing so probably not.
