[Ryan]

My brother, in his infinite wisdom, decided to change the refresh rate on the computer the day before I went back to college. Now when he starts it, he gets "Refresh Rate out of range", and cannot start the computer. When I've had this problem before, I could start the computer in safe mode and be able to change the refresh rate. However, that does not work in this case, and I cannot think of anything else for him to try. Any help would be appreciated.

-Ryan

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the refresh rate shouldn't prevent the computer from starting. It should only prevent the monitor from displaying a picture if it is too high. I think you should try starting the computer with a fifferent monitor. If it does work good, but if it doesn't good luck.

[morfius]

the refresh rate shouldn't prevent the computer from starting. It should only prevent the monitor from displaying a picture if it is too high. I think you should try starting the computer with a fifferent monitor. If it does work good, but if it doesn't good luck.

[Ryan]

By start teh computer, I meant that he could not see anything on the monitor. I just tried the advice above - no joy.
I also tried going into Safe Mode with CMD Promt to use the keyboard to change the settings - no joy there either.

Advice still welcome and appreciated.

-Ryan

[Neil Jones]

Restart the computer, keep pressing F8 until the menu appears.

There's an option on the menu in your XP installation, to enter VGA mode. What this does is load Windows normally yet give it a 640x480 resolution at a standard 60Hz refresh rate, which pretty much all monitors made in the last ten years or so will be able to work with.

Once in Windows, right-click the desktop, Properties -> Settings and change the resolution and refresh as you see fit.

[Ryan]

Neil Jones, I was able to get into the properites that way. I was a bit puzzled when I saw the refresh rate was set to the hardware default, but changed the resolution back to what it is normally set to. That seemed to fix the problem as my brother just told me he was able to restart and see the welcome screen without having to do anything special. Thanks