How to Change the "Active Signal Resolution"

Hello Daniel

Hi, I’m Nicole, an independent advisor and a Windows user like you. I’ll be happy to help you out today. I'm sorry that you are experiencing this issue, and I will try my best to assist you with this so that you find a satisfactory solution.

The way to change the active signal resolution in Windows 10 is as follows.

Right-clicking the desktop, and choosing "Display Properties", and changing the display resolution in this window doesn't work. Instead, scroll further down in this window (down toward the bottom) and click "Advanced display setting". Now, on this new page/window, click "Display adapter properties", and a new window will open. On the "Adapter" tab, click the button "List All Modes", and a new window will open again. In this new window, scroll and click the resolution you want, then click ok (that window will close). Now, on the previous window, click apply. This will change the active signal resolution as well.

One glitch to be aware of... This happened to me... If you've already tried changing the resolution from 4k (3840x2160) to 1920x1080 (for example) the way I mentioned above that doesn't work, then when you first load up the window that lists all the display modes in the adapter settings, it will show 1920x1080 (or whatever resolution you chose in the normal display properties window). However, in order to make it change the active resolution to this, you will need to choose a different resolution from the "List All Modes" window, apply it, then go back into the "List All Modes" window, choose the resolution you want, and apply it. Now, the active signal resolution will change as well. Hopefully that makes sense, seems like a long description to describe a simple problem.

My recommendation is to never change the resolution in the normal display properties window. Instead, you should always just change the resolution through the Display Adapter properties Window through the advanced display settings, and the desktop resolution and active signal resolution will both always change and be in sync.

Hopefully this will help you resolve your issue.

Regards,

Nicole

Hello Daniel

Hi, I’m Nicole, an independent advisor and a Windows user like you. I’ll be happy to help you out today. I'm sorry that you are experiencing this issue, and I will try my best to assist you with this so that you find a satisfactory solution.

The way to change the active signal resolution in Windows 10 is as follows.

Right-clicking the desktop, and choosing "Display Properties", and changing the display resolution in this window doesn't work. Instead, scroll further down in this window (down toward the bottom) and click "Advanced display setting". Now, on this new page/window, click "Display adapter properties", and a new window will open. On the "Adapter" tab, click the button "List All Modes", and a new window will open again. In this new window, scroll and click the resolution you want, then click ok (that window will close). Now, on the previous window, click apply. This will change the active signal resolution as well.

One glitch to be aware of... This happened to me... If you've already tried changing the resolution from 4k (3840x2160) to 1920x1080 (for example) the way I mentioned above that doesn't work, then when you first load up the window that lists all the display modes in the adapter settings, it will show 1920x1080 (or whatever resolution you chose in the normal display properties window). However, in order to make it change the active resolution to this, you will need to choose a different resolution from the "List All Modes" window, apply it, then go back into the "List All Modes" window, choose the resolution you want, and apply it. Now, the active signal resolution will change as well. Hopefully that makes sense, seems like a long description to describe a simple problem.

My recommendation is to never change the resolution in the normal display properties window. Instead, you should always just change the resolution through the Display Adapter properties Window through the advanced display settings, and the desktop resolution and active signal resolution will both always change and be in sync.

Hopefully this will help you resolve your issue.

Regards,

Nicole

This didnt work for me, its still staying at 3840x2160 active signal resolution even after following both steps,

Try change to 59hz, it work for me to change Active Signal Resolution.

No its just windows being the POS that it is. Its 2023 and they still cant figure out dual monitor systems. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Having same problem with a 1920x1080 monitor that is stuck at native 1024x768. If you go through nvidia settings and create a custom resolution, it works, sometimes. I had a microsoft support tech remotely access my system, i had to walk him through how to create custom resolutions, and when he set it to the 1080 i wanted it was still blurry. I fixed it this morning by creating a 1919x1079 res and deleting his 1920x1080 and recreating it. Was a nice crisp image again, but still cannot display on 2nd screen only. Had them defer me to nvidia support, after completing removing nvidia from my system and performing a clean install, im stuck back at blurry 1920x1080 and active resolution stuck at 1024x768.

I can’t stress enough how embarrassing this must be for microsoft to not be able to produce a working OS in this day and age!

Not sure if it was windows or Nvidia but for those wanting a fix, this is what Nvidia support provided to me:

Try the below method in updating the driver to the latest hotfix release 531.26 and see if that helps fix the issue: a. First download the 'Nvidia Clean-up Tool' from this link: https://developer.nvidia.com/cleanup-tool and run the tool, which will erase all the existing trances of graphics services, thereby we can rule out any conflicts from existing files.b. Download the driver file form here: https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5450/c. Once downloaded, now right-click on the driver setup file that you have downloaded and select 'run as admin', during installation you will be prompted with two options “Express Installation” or a “Custom Installation”, please do select the option “Custom Install”, in the subsequent screen select the option “Perform Clean Install” and continue with the installation.d. Now within Windows 'Settings' - 'Apps' here locate Nvidia Control Panel and click 'uninstall' to remove. Once fully removed, now download the fresh NVIDIA Control Panel from Windows app store and install it to see if this helps fix the issue.