When you change resolutions the refresh rate will reset to 60Hz. When you go back to the resolution you had before the refresh rate will go back to what you had it at. It remembers.
Also, try adjusting your monitor settings (buttons on the monitor) to fill the screen better.
That's all I can think of. Don't know of anything else that would be causing that.
I have a 17 inch CRT monitor (flatscreen) that can go up to 1280x1024, with 1024x768 as its native resolution. I run at 75Hz. when I use a resolution such as 1152x864 or 1280x960 it doesn't look right, it doesn't fill the whole screen and the sides are curved, so it looks almost like it's in a bubble or something I don't know. 1280x1024 also looks like this on my desktop but I think in games it was actually ok, but I remember people saying CRT's should run 1280x960 but it doesn't look right, anybody know why?
It does that because the adjustments are the same for the lower rez as the high. You need to adjust it for that resolution. It also changes as you change the refresh rate.
If you have the instructions that came with your monitor, look in there.
Or look on thier website.
You should be carefull, becuase any monitor doesn't support every particular resolution. I've read that it can damage your monitor.
My monitor remembers the screen adjustments like horizontal placement, horizontal size, refresh rate,etc. for each resolution so I only have to adjust each one once.
Ok I was just thinking about that. That'll be a pain to keep adjusting but I guess I will cause now I can run HL2 at 1280x960 with my 1GB of RAM, and 4xAA/8xAF it's great.