Display Problem After Power Outage in Middle of Windows Updates

My friend has an HP Pavilion P6874 upgraded from W7 to W10 a few years ago. He tells me that everything was great on the computer until the other week. While the tower was in the midst of installing updates the power in their house went out (not computer related). When the power returned and they restarted the PC, their display wasn't the same. I'm told that although the desktop picture of their dog looks normal, the icons seem smaller and they have wide black bars on either side of the desktop display. They've tried playing with the resolution and the monitor menu buttons, but whenever they get the full widescreen display, the icons and the dog picture are stretched wide. I brought the tower home, hooked it up to a smallish non-widescreen monitor and started it. I got the black screen with the while Windows 10 logo and the rotating circle of dots. Then I got a box headed Out Of Range Hf 30 KHz - 60 KHz Vf 55 Hz - 75 Hz Current FrequencyHf 64 KHz Vf 60 Hz I couldn't get beyond this screen. I then hooked the tower to a widescreen monitor. The closest I can get to what it was is going into Image settings on the monitor, setting the scaling ratio to fill. The desktop is a little stretched, but setting it to 4:3, while it makes the icons and dog picture normal, it brings up the right and left black bars (not as wide as the bars on their monitor).On their monitor the black bars show when the monitor menu is set to 'set display to aspect ratio'. Setting it to 'fill' uses the whole screen but stretches everything.

It would seem you're diagnosing and treating the symptoms (video output) instead of diagnosing and treating the cause (video card and drivers).

The optimal solution should be to back up important files and clean reinstall, so whatever was damaged during the interrupted Update (and not demonstrated thus far) will be replaced.

pyramid10 said:

The optimal solution should be to back up important files and clean reinstall, so whatever was damaged during the interrupted Update (and not demonstrated thus far) will be replaced.

I would go for an in-place repair install, same replacement of damaged components, but retains all your files and installed apps (you won't need to reinstall them all).

A backup before you start is always a sensible precaution, whichever type of install you try.

Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade

pyramid10 said:

It would seem you're diagnosing and treating the symptoms (video output) instead of diagnosing and treating the cause (video card and drivers).

The optimal solution should be to back up important files and clean reinstall, so whatever was damaged during the interrupted Update (and not demonstrated thus far) will be replaced.

Yeah, I get you about treating the symptoms. I just couldn't see how a power outage in the middle of a Windows update would adversely affect a video card and / driver.

Since it's really not my PC and my friend is an insurance agent with a ton of insurance company software sitting on it - software that he'd have to jump through a fair number of hoops to reinstall, I'll try deleting the video driver and then rebooting. And if that doesn't work, I'll go with Bree's Repair Install suggestion.

Thanks for the replies, folks. I'll let you know what happens.

Bree said:

I would go for an in-place repair install.
Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade

How long is this in-place upgrade supposed to take? It has taken 3 hours to go from 0% to 25%, which would, of course indicate 12 hours for this to complete. That hardly seems reasonable...

There have been reports that for a few makes of machine with particular hardware the upgrade to 1709 (which is what you are effectively doing (again)) can take a long time. It should complete though, so be patient. Usually it speeds up after getting past the 'problem' hardware/software.

It took well over 20 hours, but the Repair Install finally completed. And nothing has changed. Here are 2 screen images - both displays were initiated via the monitor settings. The first has the scaling set at Display 4:3. I am told that this is, more or less, the way things did look prior to the power outage. The more part is that the image of the dog and icons appear normal. The less part is that there are 2 black bars on the left and right of the desktop. You can't see them in the screen grab because the mouse won't go beyond what it thinks are the borders of the page, but they are there. The second image has the scaling set at Display Fill. Here the black bars are gone and the entire monitor screen is populated, but everything is a little too wide.

Oh hell ..... I can't show you the difference. I've used both the Snipping Tool and the Print Screen function - and somehow the images come out identical, even though the images on the monitor are different. It's like the system is adjusting the screen grabs. I dunno....

What is the winver.exe? What is the date of the graphics driver?

What is the native resolution of the monitor? What is the output resolution and frequency? Maybe the specifications are slightly off?

pyramid10 said:

What is the winver.exe? What is the date of the graphics driver?

What is the native resolution of the monitor? What is the output resolution and frequency? Maybe the specifications are slightly off?

Winver 1703, Build 15063.726
From Device Mgr: Display Adapter ATI Radeon HD 4200 - 07/25/2017

How do I determine the monitor resolutions and frequency? And remember, this is not my friend's monitor - the one where the problem originally occurred. This is my own widescreen monitor with his tower. So whatever the difficulty, it is manifesting on 2 separate screens.

If by native resolution you mean the default (recommended) resolution, that would be 1024 x 768. I currently have it set to 1152 x 864 - that seems to give best (least stretched, no black bars) outcome and is closest to what my friend says it was. Other resolutions available are 1280 x 1024 and 1600 x 1200.