Oh.....I had my own version of HP tech support fun on the phone.  I'd been able to successfully restructure my video adapter's resolution settings by uninstalling & then re-installing the video chipset driver.  It worked great -- temporarily.  Unfortunately, upon the very next re-boot the video driver reverted back to its old (incorrect for my monitor) settings.  So on a whim, I called up HP tech support.  I got a heavily Indian-accented woman on the phone.  She'd been very well trained with cookie-cutter solutions for any and all potential problems that might arise......and she was utterly unable to think outside of that box.  Frankly, I knew more than she did........outside of a couple of built-in tricks with this particular model of PC.  I wasted approx. 2 hours of time with her.

There was also a mistake in HP's online documentation.  The PDF manual for my model of PC said -- in brief -- that my machine had "numerous slots for add-in cards like AGP and PCI.  However: my PC actually has TWO (2) spare slots.  One PCI and one PCI Express.  Which is actually a good thing, video-wise.

They say that all's well that ends well.  I bought a new video card this morning.  I'm looking at the box as I type this.  It's an ATI Radeon 1650 Pro w/512M DDR2 RAM for PCI Express.  It just happened to be on special this week.  I think that I got the last one on the shelf.  So I've gotten a better card than I expected out of the deal.......although it did cost me some additional cash.

Of course, this hasn't exactly "ended" just yet.......I've got to install the card tonight.  I know whether or not I can relax after that.

Something To Do At 3:00AM