Solution ONE:

About the resolution problem, its usually something to do with your refresh rate. xorg uses the information provided about your monitor in the xorg.conf file to determine 'safe' resolutions. if you are sure that your laptop lcd screen can handle a resolution of 1024x768 then its a simple case of xorg underestimating your monitor.

use your manual or maybe boot into windows (if possible) and find out the refresh rate the your lcd screens run at. (LCD's are locked to a single refresh rate and have an optimal resolution unlike CRT's and its usually 60Hz)

now to change your configuration. since we're going to mess about with your display configuration, it would be wise to make a backup of things. exit X and go into the plain black console.

cd /etc
cp inittab inittab.old (make a backup of inittab file)

edit the inittab file using vi or any other editor and change the default runlevel to 3 from
save the file and exit.

(this ensures that should something happen to the display, you wouldn't have too much trouble reverting back)

cd /etc/X11
cp xorg.conf xorg.old
vi xorg.conf

go into the Monitor section and look at the refresh rate values. currently they read

HorizSync 31.5 - 48.5
VertRefresh 40.0 - 70.0

using the info u got from windows or your manual, increase the horizsync and vertrefresh. please note that if the values are too high you won't have any display at all so please be careful.

since u changed the default run level to 3, the system will now boot directly into the console and not the familiar graphical login. so login and do a startx and try to get it to run on 1024x768. if in case you don't get any display... press CTRL+ALT+F1 and the hit CTRL+C to force X to shutdown. then edit your xorg.conf file again and reduce the
refresh rate.

to revert back to your original config, rename the inittab and xorg.conf files to something else or delete them. rename inittab.old to inittab and xorg.old to xorg.conf

(to rename use the mv command)

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Solution TWO:

Change resolution in Fedora 7

1. First check possible resolutions supported by your graphics card using the following command.

'xrandr'

It will display all possible resolutions like this.

Screen 0: minimum 400 x 300, current 1152 x 864, maximum 1152 x 864
default connected 1152x864+0+0 0mm x 0mm
1152x864 75.0* 70.0 60.0
1152x768 55.0
1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.0 60.0 87.0
832x624 75.0
800x600 85.0 75.0 72.0 60.0 56.0
640x480 85.0 75.0 73.0 67.0 60.0
720x400 70.0 85.0
640x400 85.0
640x360 85.0 75.0 70.0 60.0
640x350 85.0
512x384 87.0
416x312 75.0
400x300 85.0 75.0 72.0 60.0

The current selected resolution will have a * next to it.

2. Change resolution.
Suppose your graphics card support 1024x768 resolution then you can change it using the following command.

xrandr -s 1024x768