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The Joel on Software Discussion Group (CLOSED)

Following the lead of many here who have sung the praises of dual monitor systems, I broke down and ordered one to use with main development laptop.  My laptop is a T41 Thinkpad with a 1400x1050 display, so I thought it would be a good idea to get an external LCD monitor with same native resolution.  I ordered the Viewsonic VG2021m 20" monitor from newegg (  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824116008  ) a few days ago and got it today. 

I was excited to use it but ran into a problem.  Although the display settings on my laptop are set to 1400 x 1050, the monitor synchs at 1280 x 1024, leading to a sligtly fuzzy picture.  I updated my video drivers and spent some time with Viewsonic tech support, and in the end they said it must be a defective unit and said I should exchange it with newegg for a new one.

I have no problems with doing this, but I don't want to do this if the new monitor is going to have the same problem.  Anybody here have any comments on that?  Or any ideas that could be helpful in getting current monitor to work?  Like I said, my video card supports 1400 x 1050 external monitors, it's just that my external monitor doesn't seem to want to synch at that resolution.

This is a dumb question, but is the native resolution of the external monitor you're using capable of displaying 1400 x 1050 (or higher)?  In an external LCD, I believe that's an unusual native resolution.

Check the vertical refresh rate for the external monitor, it may be something other than 60 Hz.  I found LCDs, that are connected to an analog source, work best when the refresh rate is at 60 Hz.  The Analog to Digital converter in the monitor will do a better job if given a slower refresh rate.

Following up on Zekaric's suggestion, if the video card in your laptop offers a DVI port (I'm too lazy to look up the specs on T41 Thinkpads), try making a pure digital connection. I'm considering the possibility that NewEgg shipped an "all in one" cable that's preventing the laptop and monitor from holding a two-way conversation and establishing the correct monitor settings automatically. You may have to borrow the correct cable - don't do DVI to Analog or any such conversions.

A second thing to try is to hook up your laptop to someone else's LCD monitor and see what happens. You may not get the desired high resolution, but you can at least rule out a defective video card that you just never noticed before.

LCD Screen are designed to work best at their designed resolutions.  So in my case I run my laptop at 1400x1200 (something like that) and my 19" monitor LCD at 1284x1024 (or something like that).  Anyway just set the two screens to their native resolutions and that should solve your fuzzy problem

Right, if an LCD monitor is set to anything other than its "native" resolution it will be blurry (because it just scales it up or down). Set monitor two to 1280x1024 and 60Hz.

"nyway just set the two screens to their native resolutions and that should solve your fuzzy problem"

I understand that.  Actually, that _is_ my problem.  When I set the settings on my laptop to display 1400x1050 to the LCD monitor, the monitor doesn't synch to a 1400x1050 signal.  Instead, it synchs at 1280x1024 and tries to display a scaled 1400x1050 desktop within that.  (Pretty convoluted, it's a 1400x1050 native display, but it synchs and tries to display the income 1400x1050 image within 1280x1024 non-native pixels.)

Thanks for suggestion on synch rates.  Problem there is I'm already at 60 Hz.  LCD monitor synchs at 1280x1024 @60Hz, won't go higher even for 1400x1050 signals.  It does go lower if I try to put a lower signal out of my laptop.

Ah.

Sounds like you bought the wrong monitor? You'd be better off with one running that 1400x... @ native methinks.

Hmm, well it may be a lemon monitor, but it's not the wrong model.  It's a 1400x1050 native res lcd.  Stands to reason it's made to be used to display a 1400x1050 signal, right?

I downloaded the nifty display utility Powerstrip and still wasn't able to get it to synch higher than 1280x1024, so I think something must be wrong with the monitor.  (Powerstrip can be found here:  http://www.entechtaiwan.net/util/ps.shtm )

Maybe I haven't read enough, but have you tested this monitor on something other then your laptop?  That program you downloaded doesn't look like it would rule out a faulty/mis-configured/bad-drivered video card if you were running on the questionable laptop.

.... Just thinking out loud on this:

Don't monitors have some quasi-driver thing that ships with them that (i assume) tells the machine what it's capablities are?

"Stands to reason it's made to be used to display a 1400x1050 signal, right?"

The problem seems to be that your laptop isn't pumping out that resolution to the external monitor.  It's a mistake to assume that because the laptops LCD panel can display 1400x1050 that it can do the same through the external interface at the same time.  Check the specs of your laptop.  You are literally doubling the amount of memory and processing required to display your desktop -- it might not be able to handle it.

+ 1 for a closer check of the specs on possible resolution restrictions when running two monitors at once (even though a support guy *should* know about this). You could also try to set the external monitor as the primary or better yet only one and see if this changes things.

It may be a problem with the display information the monitor is sending to the PC - did you check the EDID data etc in PowerStrip? The monitor should identify its max resolution to the video card. The PC will not let you override this, so if for some reason it believes the monitor is as 1280x1024 device because the monitor data tells it (erroneously) so, you'll get exactly what you describe.

Installing the real monitor driver for the display rather than a generic one is a real help when dealing with non-standard resolutions like this one. If you can't find one, PowerStrip will help you generate one.

I drive a plasma screen directly from an HTPC at a custom resolution, and getting the video hardware and the plasma to agree is quite a feat, involving many workarounds. This stuff can be a real PITA.

Hi, Herb -

Have you tried switching to displaying ONLY on the external, and not using two-monitor mode?  You may be able to display at 1400x1050 on internal, or external, but not both.

As others have said, your laptop specs should tell you.

Thanks everybody who responded.  I had done all the checking using single monitor only, making sure color depths were lower when checking for operation on dual monitor, etc.  My video card supports up to 2048x1536 external resolution, so that was not the problem.

I checked with another laptop, which was able to display a 1400x1050 image with external monitor actually synching at that resolution.

Had a long chat with Thinkpad support, which was moderately helpful.  They ended up pointing me to a Thinkpad specification that said external resolution of 1400x1050 was not supported.  I had seen that document before I purchased and concluded that it was wrong.  It also indicates that 1400x1050 is not supported in _built-in_ lcd and that any resolution above XGA is by panning only.  So it seemed to be specs for XGA model only.  Also, I was using setup and IBM Presentation Manager which indicate 1400x1050 was supposed to be supported, and they're built to only show supported resolutions.

So at that point I was left with possibility that my monitor was okay (since it worked with other laptop) but that my T41 for some reason either did not support external 1400x1050 or had some minor incompatibility that prevented its signal from being used properly by my monitor.

At this point I thought I was up a creek without a paddle, because NewEgg would not take returns, the monitor did not seem to be defective so no use for warranty, and I love my Thinkpad and don't want to switch to a different dev machine.

As a last gasp effort I came across the Driverheaven Mobility Modder Tool, which could be used to give my ATI Mobility Radeon some extra capabilities.  ( http://www.driverheaven.net/patje/ ) I had no idea whether it would work to fix my particular problem, but I gave it a try. 

It worked!  My external monitor now synchs at its native res of 1400x1050.  I did end up wasting three or four hours in getting the display to work right.  I'm hoping increased productivity will make up for that pretty fast.  In any case, the external monitor looks great at it's native res and I'm beginning to understand why people love multi-monitor setups so much.  Thanks again to everyone who piped in with helpful suggestions.

I would like to confirm that the Driverheaven Mobility Modder Tool also allowed my new Viewsonic VG2021m to run at 1400x1050 on my IBM Thinkpad T41 with an ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 video card.