Windows image squished first time I turn on monitor

[wichitakid71]

Hi everyone-

I’m new to arcade machines, and I have a Makvision 3125 trimode in an Arcade Legends 3 cabinet with a 4th gen i5 processor and 8 gb of RAM.  I am using CRT emudriver, Groovy Mame .201 and an ATI Radeon HD 8490 card.  I ran VMMaker and set the edid emulation and presets to the Wei-Ya 3129.  I used Atom-15 to flash the bios to 31khz.  My desktop is set to display 640 by 480p.  My front end is Big Box which displays at 480p and then switches appropriately between games in Groovy Mame.

My problem is at startup.  My monitor and computer are in a cabinet together with a master power feed that goes to the monitor and the power supply for the computer.  110 feeds the monitor and marquee light, and the PSU supplies the CPU, some 12v lights on the cabinet and a speaker amp.  When I flip the master switch, the computer starts immediately, and the monitor takes a few seconds to kick on.  When the image appears, it looks like a 480p display of the Dell logo.  A few seconds later, I see my windows welcome screen and the screen is squished and stretched.  Windows says the resolution being displayed is 640 by 480, but it doesn’t look right.

When I restart the computer, it reboots, I see the Dell logo again and this time Windows displays properly, filling my entire screen.  It stays at the correct display resolution while I use the computer, play the games, etc.  When I power it off, and boot it up again, the display issue returns.  But restarting always fixes it.

I don’t know if this is a software issue or a monitor hardware issue. Is it possible that it is related to the fact that my monitor does not power on until after the computer is already well into booting up?  Any help figuring out and correcting the problem is appreciated.  Thank you.

Scott

[buttersoft]

Go to start menu, type "services", stop and disable the AMD External Events Utility. Go to desktop and bring up screen properties, go into the properties of the monitor and check the "hide modes this monitor can't display" box, or whatever it's called.

Then, if you're on Win 10, search for and open “Power options” in the Start Menu. Click “Choose what the power buttons do” on the left side of the window. Click “Change settings that aren't currently unavailable.” Under “Shutdown settings” make sure “Turn on fast startup” is disabled/unchecked. This means each time you turn off the computer it actually shuts down, it doesn't part-hibernate so you can fast start.

This should stop any program or even the system from grabbing modes it's not meant to, and stop your computer from ever starting up with a letterbox crush.

I stole this post of mine from another thread. The second item is really the one you want, but the first doesn't hurt either.

[wichitakid71]

Thanks!  I’ll give it a try.