[howtosee]

NEVERMIND. PROBLEM SOLVED.
I scraped a piece of dust out of the monitor plug with a toothpick and moved a pin back into place (although it's still a bit strangely rotated), and now everything is working fine.

In a moment of stupidity, I uninstalled the display adapter (Standard VGA adapter) from my computer on device manager. Now my Sony SDM-x82 monitor says "Out of scan range, Input1: DVI-D, Resolution>1280x1024." Right from startup my monitor says this, and safe mode does not help. No matter how small or large I make the resolution, it still says the same thing. Screen refresh rate can only be 59Hx or 60Hz, which should be fine based on what the manual says. I installed a video card driver (HIS 4650) and a monitor driver (albeit for XP since there was no Vista driver, probably not the greatest idea but whatever). I even did a clean reinstall of Vista. Not sure what to do.

Tech Support Guy System Info Utility version 1.0.0.2
OS Version: Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Ultimate, 32 bit
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+, x64 Family 15 Model 75 Stepping 2
Processor Count: 2
RAM: 3069 Mb
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series, 512 Mb
Hard Drives: C: Total - 715394 MB, Free - 659416 MB;
Motherboard: Dell Inc, 0CT103
Antivirus: avast! Antivirus, Updated: Yes, On-Demand Scanner: Enabled

[20_2_Many]

Have you Reset Defaults on the Monitor menu?
Have you preformed the Monitor Self Diagnosis?
Have you removed the Monitor from the device Manager and rescanned for Plug & Play?

From page 20 of the Manual for the Monitor
If OUT OF SCAN RANGE appears
on the screen (page 19),
xProblem caused by a connected computer or other equipment, and not
caused by the monitor
• Check that the video frequency range is within that specified for the monitor. If you
replaced an old monitor with this monitor, reconnect the old monitor and then adjust the
computer’s graphics board in the following ranges.
Horizontal frequency: 28 – 61 kHz (SDM-X52) 28 – 92 kHz (SDM-X72/X82)
Vertical frequency: 56 – 75 Hz (SDM-X52) 56 – 85 Hz (SDM-X72/X82)
Resolution: 1024 × 768 or less (SDM-X52) 1280 × 1024 or less (SDM-X72/X82)
If using Windows, • If you replaced an old monitor with this monitor, reconnect the old monitor and do the
following. Select “SONY” from the “Manufacturers” list and select “SDM-X52” or “SDMX72” or “SDM-X82” from the “Models” list in the Windows device selection screen. If “SDMX52” or “SDM-X72” or “SDM-X82” does not appear in the “Models” list, try “Plug & Play”
or install the information file for this monitor using the Windows Monitor Information Disk.

[howtosee]

Have you Reset Defaults on the Monitor menu?

Yes.

Have you preformed the Monitor Self Diagnosis?

As far as I can tell it doesn't actually do anything, it just means that the power light will flash if there's a problem. I don't think there's a problem with the monitor itself since it's able to display colors.

Have you removed the Monitor from the device Manager and rescanned for Plug & Play?

Yes. I didn't restart in-between though so maybe that'll change something? idk.