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I have one installation of Windows 10 which I set at 144Hz because I have an AOC G2460 monitor and a GTX970. However, the DisplayPort cable I used has apparently given up the ghost, so whenever I try to get in all the monitor shows is a black screen. I have an older Win 7 installation on a hard drive and using it and a DVI cable I can 'peer' into the SSD containing the Win 10 install, so it looks like everything is fine inside.

Is there any way I can fiddle with the Win 10 installation from 'from outside,' as it were, so I can dial the resolution back down to 1920x1080 60Hz so my DVI cable and monitor can handle it?

user707289
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3 Answers3

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If you have access to that system via a network, you can change it from powershell:

Set-DisplayResolution -Width 1024 -Height 768 -Freq 60 -Force

If you cannot access the system, you will need to restart it, use a boot disk, Press Shift + F10 there to open the command prompt when the installation screen appears and then type

bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy

After that, restart and you will be able to press F8 at start-up and choose enable low resolution video.

Overmind
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The easiest, user-friendly ways would be:

  1. From another computer on the same network as the one with the problem, Remote Desktop into the computer and fix the screen resolution that way. You'll have to use the /admin switch of mstsc program (Start -> Run... mstsc /admin).

  2. Boot up into Safe Mode; it should revert to a lower resolution.

Note, Windows 10 does not appear to store display settings in the registry anymore, so the old trick of editing the registry will probably not work.

allquixotic
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Here's a method that doesn't require network access.

  • Step 1: Download nircmd
  • Step 2: Create a batch file (with the .cmd file extension) with the following content:
    nircmd setdisplay 800 600 24

  • Step 3: Place both batch file and the exe in the same directory on the WIndows 10 disk.

  • Step 4: Create a shortcut to the batch file and place it in the startup folder on the Windows 10 disk (usually found at C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup for the current user, and C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp for all users)

The next time that you start Windows 10, the resolution should automatically get changed on startup.

Further Reading:
How can I change screen resolution from command prompt in Windows 10?
NirCmd Command Reference - setdisplay

EDIT Okay, so this won't work if the account has a password since the commands are run after the user is logged in. In this case, you could wait for a while till you're sure that the PC is switched on, then use this sequence to log in:

<spacebar> - [password] - <enter>

If there are multiple users on the system:
<spacebar> - [username] - <tab> - [password] - <enter>

undo
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