Like it says. After a few days of looking at different Dell machines online, I went out and bought a Dell ECT1250 mini-tower. Once I got it home and set it up, it took an hour or two to update its pre-installed Windows 11. No big deal. The big deal was that it had no trouble with my Samsung 214T, which is no longer my primary monitor and is now on my tinkering desk and not my computer table. The ECT1250 detected the 1600 X 1200 resolution and set it as its display resolution.<\/p>\n
So what happened before? I don\u2019t know. Really. There may have been something wrong with the first machine I brought home. It doesn\u2019t matter. I have the 27\u201d widescreen now and the 214T will soon be in the closet as a spare.<\/p>\n
I did backups on my main machine and Carol\u2019s machine, and then took a deep breath, found the Windows Update link on her machine, and clicked it. Again, it took a few hours to download the new Windows and configure it. But this time, it detected Carol\u2019s 4:3 monitor without any fuss. Her monitor is the slightly older Samsung 213T, which I bought in 2006 and used for a year or so before I bought the 214T. Apart from the 213T being made of a different color plastic, the two monitors are functionally identical.<\/p>\n
So why did the smaller Dell machine not talk to the 214T? I have only one theory: I raised the 214T from the dead ten or twelve years ago when several of its its electrolytic capacitors croaked. This was not an isolated problem. (Does anybody else remember it?) I thought I was out a monitor, then after doing some research online, bought a capacitor repair kit and literally replaced all the monitor\u2019s electrolytics. This didn\u2019t seem to have any adverse effects on the 214T, but it\u2019s possible that I winged something on the main circuit board while soldering in all those caps. <\/p>\n
Or maybe it was evil spirits. Who knows? Doesn\u2019t matter. The 214T may or may not ever be used again.<\/p>\n