screen display settings dont show correct resolution

Only two choices appear in screen display window 800x600 and 1024 x 768 for my monitor. Window shows unknown monitor about 85% of the day when I check it. Am forced to use one or the other of these settings.. neither of which is right for my screen. One has giant letters and the other a verticall squashed screen.

Once in a while (the other 15%) when I click on the system settings icon... something happens and the display resets itself to a higher resolution and better screen fill than the above two choices. then when I check the screen display window it shows I have a HANSOL 16" screen. In this case a 3rd resolution is offered 1280x1024 5:4 and is almost correct... call it useable. However this 3rd setting does not survive a reboot and the cycle repeats itself.

The monitor is actually a 17" Hansol knock off.. MH-170a model E17BL if that helps any... Over ten years old.

Is there someway to make the Ubuntu system offer the 1280x1024 option right after system boot. For some reason only the other two options I mentioned in the first sentence show up. I will attach a picture of what I get when the correct setting finally appears.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: unity-control-center 14.04.3+14.04.20140922-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-45.74-generic 3.13.11-ckt13
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-45-generic i686
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.7
Architecture: i386
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Wed Feb 18 14:08:01 2015
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/unity-control-center
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-02-16 (2 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release i386 (20140722.2)
SourcePackage: unity-control-center
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
usr_lib_unity-control-center: deja-dup 30.0-0ubuntu4