My monitor is sqaushed.

September 8, 2007 10:34 AM

My notebook's external monitor goes wonky when running at its native resolution.

I recently bought an external monitor with the intent of using it with my notebook. The monitor has a native resolution of 1920X1200, and I am running it through my notebooks vga out. My notebook has intel 945gm which I'm worried might be the problem. Right now it is running in 1920 1080 but things look a little bit off. The weird thing is when I move up to 1920X1200 the monitor compresses the image horizontally showing a large black bar on the left side of the monitor and a small black bar on right side of the monitor.

That seems like a strange thing to happen.

Is there anything to do about it?

posted by I Foody to computers & internet (9 comments total)

Is this display an LCD or CRT?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:53 AM on September 8, 2007

lcd
posted by I Foody at 11:00 AM on September 8, 2007

Do you have the correct frequency set? (Usually 60 Hz.)
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:21 AM on September 8, 2007

I had a similar problem with my laptops external monitor showing a distorted mess at native res but ok images at other resolutions. The fix for me was to go in the display properties -> advanced. And find the monitor settings tab and uncheck display adapter scaling and check monitor scaling.

For some reason it was set to display adapter scaling for native res, but the other resolutions used monitor scaling.

Keep in mind I have an nvidia geforce go, so you're graphics card drivers might not have this tab.
posted by Smegoid at 11:28 AM on September 8, 2007

Does your laptop have DVI out?
posted by gregvr at 12:03 PM on September 8, 2007

I don't think there are many laptops with DVI out, but that might be the solution. I've heard that plain old VGA cables sometimes have trouble with such high resolutions. You might try a shorter cable.
posted by zixyer at 12:14 PM on September 8, 2007

No DVI out, frequency is set to 60 hz and that is the only setting that sends a signal at all.

Smegoid: I couldn't find that option in advance properties.

It doesn't show a 'mess' at its native resolution, the image is just horizontally compressed and off center along the horizontal axis.

Other resolutions either don't work at all, or show the image stretched to fit a 16:10 aspect ratio. The native resolution of 1920X1200 is the only resolution with this problem.
posted by I Foody at 12:45 PM on September 8, 2007

Most LCD monitors have a button you push or some menu option to have it lock back in with the analog signal it is getting.

What make and model of monitor do you have?
posted by Good Brain at 2:25 PM on September 8, 2007

Soyo 24" Topaz S
posted by I Foody at 5:44 AM on September 9, 2007