My old Dell XPS 1645 laptop is still kicking along. Sure, I might have nick-named it “Big Iron” due to the fact that it single-handedly technically put me over the carry-on baggage weight limit on my recent trip overseas, but it does the job, and runs Windows 10 quite well.

Except that earlier this year Microsoft (or AMD/ATI) updated the video drivers (15.200.1060.0 [15/07/2015]) and introduced a bug that causes the maximum resolution to change to 1280x1024, which looks ridiculous. The only solution I’ve found is to revert back to the older driver.

  1. Open Device Manager Windows Device Manager
  2. Right-click on the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670
  3. Choose Update Driver Software
  4. Select Browse my computer for driver software
  5. Select Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer
  6. In the list, select the older version (8.970.100.9001) Update Driver Software dialog
  7. Click Next
  8. The screen will flash a few times, and a few beeps later you should be returned to your regularly scheduled 1920x1080 resolution again.

The Windows Feedback tool shows that this error has been reported by a number of people, but unfortunately I suspect it hasn’t registered as a high enough priority to fix (and may not be considering the age of the video hardware).