I have had an intermittent but consistent problem with my #2 display monitor reverting to 640 x 480 from its native 1600 x 1200.  Running a Dell 490, 4mb RAM, nVidia QuadroFX 3500, Samsung 214T displays.  This problem started while running Xpress Pro 5.7 a few months ago.  A helpful person pointed me to the version matrix and I discovered that I was running the latest nVidia drivers and we had to roll back to a previous one.  That solved the problem for a short while, but it would still pop up once in a while.  I've since upgraded to MC 2.8.1, which should support the latest video drivers, but still the same problem persists.  My IT guy got another boot drive from Dell under warranty and is now trying that approach.  I suppose next we'll try another video card from nVidia.  Incidentally, he sent me this link from the nVidia website

http://www.nvidia.com/object/avid_cert_drivers.html

which doesn't seem to jive at all with the Avid version matrix.  Has anyone else had this sort of issue?

TIA,

Dave Fleming, WPTZ

 No, MCA v2.8.1 does not support the lasest Nvidia release.  The readme file will tell you which driver and where it's located so you can install it.

It's always is a worthwhile effort to read the readme before installing a new version...saves a lot of hair pulling.

True, but like I said, we've rolled drivers ahead and back with little change in this odd behavior.

df 

 Have you tried reversing the feeds to see if the problem follows? 

I doubt it's an Avid problem because you experienced it on two different applications.  I'm thinking its a hardware problem.  It could be the graphics card output or the monitor itself.

I encountered that problem with a GeForce 7950 display card, and the issue turned out to be related to how the displays were started.  If I turned on my monitors and then my PC, no issues.  If I turned them on all at once, half the time the secondary display would start up in 640x480.  Since I had the monitor set up for 1:1 pixel mapping, this meant a tiny display in the centre of a 1920x1200 screen.  And of course, once it started in that mode it could not be reset.

I never did track down whether it was a Windows problem, a display card firmware issue, or a mobo BIOS bug.  Until I junked that card though, I always booted the monitors first.  And if I forgot and turned the monitors on once the boot process had started, 100% of the time the secondary monitor would start in the faulty mode.