Macbook screen looks zoomed in after connecting dongle

[lawoman85]

I plugged in a dongle into my macbook in order to use a projector. Usually I plug in the dongle, the screen on my computer turns blue, the screen on my macbook looks zoomed in/resolution changed then whatever is on my computer screen is projected on the screen. Then I unplug the dongle and my computer screen goes back to normal. I have had problems using the dongle and screen before. Sometimes it takes awhile to connect and sometimes what is projected on the screen is an extension of my computer screen (NOT what is exactly on my computer screen). This time I had some more trouble getting the screen to connect to my computer and when I unplugged my dongle my screen is zoomed in/resolution is off. I tried plugging in and unplugging the dongle to get my macbook screen to go back to normal but it hasn't. How do I get my screen to look like it normally does?

 

[tommy060289]

what happens when you switch of the machine?

 

[lawoman85]

When I shut it down or restart it the screen still looks the same.

 

[tommy060289]

You could try stopping power to the mac for a minute or so (either by removing the battery or if you cant try following these steps on the apple support pages:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379?viewlocale=en_US

 

[lawoman85]

I tried using Command-Option-P-R before the gray screen when it starts and the desktop looked normal. When I reset Safari and restarted the computer my computer changed back and looks zoomed in again.

Also, about 5 days before I had the zoomed in problem some of my files have disappeared.

Do I have a virus or is it something else?

 

[MultiFinder17]

System Preferences --> Displays --> Display tab --> Resolutions.

Something about that projector didn't play nice with your machine, and it just didn't feel like changing the resolution back itself.

 

[lawoman85]

I tried that. I could not click Displays because it is grayed out.

 

[GGJstudios]

Do I have a virus or is it something else?

It's something else. No viruses exist in the wild that can run on Mac OS X, and there never have been any, since it was released 10 years ago. The handful of trojans that exist can be easily avoided with some basic education, common sense and care in what software you install:

Mac Virus/Malware Info​

 

[lawoman85]

I got it fixed! It was my screen resolution that needed to be changed but I needed the administrator password to reach System Preferences --> Displays --> Display tab --> Resolutions. I should have remembered this earlier! I thought macs couldn't get viruses but this just seemed too odd.

Thank you all for your help.