Hewlett Packard w1907 LCD monitor needs picture correction

[loninappleton]

I got this old HP w1907 from a local Craiglist seller but I did not see it beforehand. He delivered it for me
and for all that I am grateful. It replaced some other dead monitors I had that were even older or free.

On win7 this wider monitor than a 5x4 (I had an HP 1740 on the setup) shows a distorted picture pulled horizontally-- like it's trying to fill out that old 5x4 HP screen I had on it. The adjustment buttons don't have anything for this. I've tried to find things in Windows but nothing for this.

My question here is: does anyone know of an installable driver or driver disk that you have? I say it this way
because I've been to several of the 'driver finder sites' that's what they do-- they don't supply any downloads
and I'm suspicious of the installed software they want you to use. Anything else that might help appreciated.

Another detail is that when I got the w1907 the image was huge: 800x 400 or something and I was able to correct that with the 'make text bigger or smaller' option within Win7. A simple resolution change was already maxed. But that did not fix the pulled picture.

It was $10 and I needed one without a lot of looking around.

[davexnet]

According to the monitor specs the native resolution is 1440x900.
Is this size not available to you in Windows settings?

Is the monitor correctly identifed in the Device Manager or does it say generic plug and play monitor?

[loninappleton]

Hi Dave, thanks for answering.

The highest rez showing in Preferences is the 1440. That's what it's set at. There is only one option showing for 60hz. I tried using the forced higher resolution setting at 1920 (the next one on the list in Win7) but I got no change. I may just have to live with it. The image overall is very good for
an old screen. Craiglist did have a picture of the monitor. I was not totally in the dark about that. HP doesn't offer any driver support. In other words, they don't even show any old ones or a software disk that was, I guess, included in original sale. That's why I asked about it in the question.

But in fact raising the resolution more would just make things smaller yet. My setting on the 'make text smaller' option is set at smaller (of the three
options.) If there's anything in BIOS for this old board with On board video, I haven't explored it. This is an aspect ratio problem which can usually be fixed in media players, but in system I'm out of ideas.

[davexnet]

You'll get the best picture if you leave the settings at 1440x900, then it matches the actual pixels in the monitor.
(monitor aspect ratio 1.6:1)

You could try manually loading the monitor driver to see if it makes any difference.
The procedure using the device manager to load the driver is explained by Paul Tikkanan in this post at the HP forum
https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Video-Display-and-Touch/Driver-install-for-HP-W...0/td-p/8612309

[loninappleton]

Yes, ok, the other part of that question is: does anyone have the drive and or HP disc for the w1907? I was not able to looking at so-called drive sites or oldversion places.

Thanks for the reply. The HP is usable. I just didn't know if there was a solution.

[davexnet]

I just didn't know if there was a solution.

I don't understand what the problem is.

The download for the monitor consists of the inf/icm files for installation and
gamma/color calibration settings.

The file is available from the HP site for this monitor.

[loninappleton]

I misunderstood what you were saying for the link. I read it as just an explanation of what to do for installations. If there is downloadable content, I'll go there and see what it contains.

[edit] It starts out talking about Win10 where Win7 is on that PC. However I'm weaning myself off of need to maintain a Win7 set up. In the text it says that there's some other drivers the author had for Vista. I suspect that is very close to Win7.

First off I'll do what you recommended but forgot and see what's in Device Manager. Then go to the link. I just didn't see any downloadable links for the Vista items describes but will go back to it.

Ok, I now see where the driver download is and got that. I'll come back with any progress. Thanks for your patience. Maybe it's just the way I fail to read screens.

[loninappleton]

So far I know that Device Manager properly identifies by name the w1907. The driver installed is the generic PnP driver
which Win7 is telling me is running properly.

I downloaded the zipped folder of sp39951 which has three files in it. I read the info one but none of the three look be executable.

From HowtoGeek the say to run the driver update routine.

Here is a screen shot of what's in the sp39951 folder for anyone not familiar with what we're talking about.

In the past installing drivers has always been a problem for me when it comes the 'have disk' prompt which is why I prefer
executables. But we are not there yet.

[davexnet]

That HP community website link I posted has step by step instructions on how to use the Device Manager
to update the driver.
If the Device Manager already lists the HP monitor by name it's probably not necessary

[loninappleton]

No, Device Manager does not show the w1907. But View Devices and Printers option shows it by name. Again, where I think I'm reporting correctly I made a mistake in describing what is shown and where. I don't know what the difference could be and that is why it's confusing. I now see that if I opened the View Devices entry for the HP that it does show Generic PnP in it.

It may take me a while with the driver install routine since I don't do any of this quickly. My replies might take a while. I'l read it over again.

[loninappleton]

I've reread the how to and I'm at my limit on that. The problem at my end is I can only get so far and then system "browse" cannot find or will not open the folders and subfolders (screenshot) to activate. This is why I want an autoinstall. I simply cannot get to the DRV file showing. Does any of this need to be unpacked further to be seen by the 'browse" for drivers screen? I'm out of ideas.

Are there third party programs that can make an installer for the very small 14Kb DRV file?

[davexnet]

If you were successful in navigating to that folder from the Device Manager and you selected the inf setup file,
the system would either install the driver or tell you that the best driver was already installed (probably meaning the inf setup is too old for
Windows 10)
Did you get that far?

[loninappleton]

Dave,

All this is going on with Win7. I thought I made that clear but maybe not. The problem is (and I'll follow up on what you say) is that I haven't gotten the folder open to act on any of this. It's the 'everything you know is wrong' stuff that gets me and I'll probably just quit it. Everything is usable as is but this is not the first time I've had no success with dealing with the 'have disk" screen, meaning that is the only other option. In the old days I think I tried burning problem drivers to disk and tried that which resulted in some other error. So much of this is a dead end without an autoinstall.

[davexnet]

First of all, copy the folder containing the 3 install files to your desktop

These images were taken from my Windows 10 PC, but I looked at my old Dell Windows 7 desktop, it's almost the same.
Hopefully these images will help

[loninappleton]

I know you are trying to help. I'm not 'recording' or remembering everything I've tried but I think that that message you described about Win7 reporting 'you've already got the best thing' is probably the final answer. It's all good, I don't want to offend anybody and co-operate the best I can.

I'll see if I can get the folder visible in the browse box as shown. The "THEN" part-- well, we'll see.

[loninappleton]

Success.

The visual on this helped and the driver is successfully shown in Device Manager--

Thanks to davexnet and all for your patience. The graphics for this helped and maybe will be useful to others. In some way the Win7 screen for updating drivers was not clear to me on the sequence of things to do.