Desktop wrong size [with Ati all-in-wonder 9800pro]

I've upgraded my graphics card (to Ati all-in-wonder 9800pro), and the driver set the resolution to 600x800. if i change this to 1280x1024, the native resolution of my 17" lcd monitor, it makes the change, but instead of reducing the size of objects on the screen, it enlarges the desktop to be bigger than the screen, so that i have to scroll around it. the same thing happened with my previous card, but i could work around it by uninstalling the driver, so that it used (I believe) a generic windows driver; that doesn't work with this card though. once when i rebooted, windows did an 'auto-adjust' that fixed it, but i had to reinstall and it hasn't done it again. i can't find any non-auto-adjust option!
any suggestions much appreciated!

 

As you've discovered, a set of generic windows drivers isn't going to cut it. The following is from my driver version re: ATI AIW 9800 Pro which are probably the most recent:

Driver Packaging Version 8.391-070626a1-049709C-ATI
Catalyst® Version 07.7
Provider ATI Technologies Inc.
2D Driver Version 6.14.10.6706
2D Driver File Path System/CurrentControlSet/Control/Video/{73EC049A-FE93-4E98-91A3-FF344BEED790}/0000
Direct3D Version 6.14.10.0510
OpenGL Version 6.14.10.6645
Catalyst® Control Center Version 2007.0629.2229.38354
AIW/VIVO WDM Driver Version 6.14.10.6238
AIW/VIVO WDM SP Driver Version 6.14.10.6238
AV Stream (T200) Driver Version 6.14.10.1082

The best advice I can provide is to head over to the ATI website and download all of the latest drivers for this card to a folder. Then you are going to have to uninstall all of your current ATI drivers and reboot using a generic set of VGA drivers. Yes, your display will be very ugly. Then you can start installing the newest drivers from the folder where you downloaded them but note, you will need a CD with a serial number in order to download the DVD drivers. There is also an instruction set at the ATI website. If you encounter problems (and I expect you will), you may need to use Driver Cleaner Pro (search for this utility using Google) to rid yourself of your current ATI drivers. As a caution, do not try to install new drivers without first removing all and I mean all of your current ATI drivers - anything short of this may require a clean installation of Windows to correct the resulting problems.

Note: I am running this card on a MCE installation.

Good Luck.

 

thanks for that useful and prompt advice, which certainly gave interesting results: if i delete everything labelled ATI, and run the drive cleaner pro, eventually i get the desktop the right size, and it all works ok. but as soon as i reinstall anything from ATI (graphics card CD or download), the problem comes back (and a few others!). at least my display works now, but i'd like to get to the bottom of the problem so i can use the all-in wonder software. so far so good, anyway...