Resolutions up to 1920x1200 with DELL's 2405FPW (24")

[Guest sean335]

I have an inspiron 8600 with a geforce 4200 go video card. It supports the internal monitor of 1920x1200 as it should, but I recently purchased a 24" external display, and i was somewhat dissapointed when i saw that I could only go up to 1600x1200. Is there any way I can force the video card to go to 1920x1200? It should be able to handle it fine, as I am not using both the external and laptop monitor at the same time, so the amount of processing needed by the card should be identical to what it has done for the past two years on the internal display.

Are there any utilities that can force the resolution I want or is there some way to modify the driver inf file to get it to support 1920x1200 on the external display?

Edited February 15, 2006 by ®®®

[Teraphy]

This link to the Dell website is your best answer Dell Monitor Info

You know Dell plays things safe.. as for a work around I'm not sure yet as I believe the 5200Go supports 2048xsomething on an external CRT? Not sure what the 4200 can handle.

Dell / 2405FPW / 24"

Edited September 23, 2005 by Teraphy

[Bill]

Open this PDF and go to page 67 and start reading, it tells what modes certain cards support, and while this one does not include laptops, it gives you a pretty good idea.

http://download.nvidia.com/Windows/77.72/7...lease_Notes.pdf

You could look at the release notes for older drivers if you want.

The 4200 go was based off of a GF4 Ti, so that is the closest thing.

Edited July 26, 2005 by Bill

[mobilenvidia]

The go5200 should be able to handle 2048x1536 as my GF2go can.

It will depend on the DAC you have though and the max frequency it can handle.

If it does handle this frequency it will probably only be @60hz not good for the eyes (lots of flicker)

You may need my INF as it has all the resolutions enabled (if it can handle it) with all the possible refresh rates as well.

Enjoy.

[Guest sean335]

Through browsing other areas of this site I stumbled across a page that describes the variables in the inf file. I went ahead and took at stab at adding a new variable, and placed the line:

HKR,, NV_Modes, %REG_SZ_APPEND%, "32 1920x1200 60 0"

right below all the other resolutions. It seems to be working great. I know have dual 1920x1200 displays when using my laptop and external display simultaneously (which is even better than I would have hoped for). Is that change safe for the card and the computer? It seems to be working fine, but this definitely isn't my area of expertise and don't want to do anything that will hurt my system.

I am very happy that it is working as dells website and customer service reps have repeatedly told me that none of the video cards on the i8600 support a 24" external monitor.

[Bill]

Send Dell some pics or something, anyway it should not harm your laptop, if you got it working that way you must have some idea what you are doing in that area. :)

Maybe Pieter should add this res to all his INFs? (looks at Pieter) :)

[Teraphy]

I haven't had time to play with this situation until now. I just got a 24" too. So thanks sean335 for thinking up a solution :)

I'm a bit perplexed. The line:

HKR,, NV_Modes, %REG_SZ_APPEND%, "32 1920x1200 60 0"

Doesn't represent the normal layout and yet it works?

I went with:

HKR,, NV_Modes, %REG_SZ_APPEND%, "{*}SHV 1920x1200x32=4;"

Put a maximized IE screen on the 24" then "auto-adjust" it through the on screen display. Works like a charm on my new 24" :)

Now you need the rotation shortcuts:

rundll32.exe NvCpl.dll,dtcfg rotate 2 90

rundll32.exe NvCpl.dll,dtcfg rotate 2 0

[mobilenvidia]

Maybe Pieter should add this res to all his INFs? (looks at Pieter) 

I added this about a year ago, I do it a little different in my INFs

Here is what I use:

HKR,, NV_Modes,                      %REG_MULTI_SZ%, "{*}S 320x200 320x240 400x300 480x360 512x384 640x400=1FFF;SHV 640x480 720x480 768x576 800x600 1024x768 1152x864 1280x720 1280x768 1280x800 1280x854 1280x960 1280x1024 1360x768 1366x768 1400x1050 1440x900 1600x900 1600x1000 1600x1024 1600x1200 1680x1050 1920x1200 1920x1440 2048x1536x8,16,32=1FFF"

I simplified the line above as I can't allow for every single case so I enabled everything.

You should be able to have refresh rates up 240hz on the lower resolutions etc and everything in between.

[EdZ]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I'm having a similar problem with a HP l2335 (essentially the same as the 2405FPW, except with an S-IPS panel instead of PVA).

I'm trying to use Cloneview at 1920x1200. I can do this over VGA at full resolution, but not DVI. Dualview limits me to a resolution of 1024x768 (but not using when using VGA, only DVI), and trying to use cloneview with DVI gives no output whatsoever (monitor goes to sleep). I tried installing a newer driver using a modified INF (with the code mobilenvidia posted), but this did not change anything (and killed my softkeys for adjusting laptop display brightness and volume controls, restoring of which reverted the GPU drivers anyway).

I'd be happy just getting a full resolution output on the external display only (without cloneview), but I can't do this over DVI either!

Oh, and I'm definitely using a dual-link DVI-D cable.

OS: Vista Business 32bit

Computer: 17" Macbook Pro (1920x1200 model)

GPU: mobile 8600GT

Monitor: HP l2335 1920x1200 native

Edited February 6, 2008 by EdZ

[Guest DigitalCHET]

Guys, I've tied pretty much everything spelled out on here. I need some suggestions.

I have a Dell Inspiron 9400 hooked to a Dell E248WFP 24" monitor which had been working great at 1920x1200 up until last weekend when I decided to update my nVidia GeForce 7800 drivers for a game (Spore). Now I get nothing over 1600x1200 on that monitor. I've tried several driver versions and enhanced INFs but have had no luck at all.

Can anyone please shed any additional light on this issue?

Thanks in advance.

[zipper]

- check another bunch of drivers - especially if the display inf has that resolution; the modified inf should have.

- you can add a missing resolution via Nvidia Control Panel - if the CP happens to work and your driver/monitor combo

really supports it.

[Digital*CHET]

I've tried a number of different drivers with modified INFs but none have the desired effect. I can't understand it.

I've also tried adding the resolution via the nVidia Control Panel to no avail. The setting gets added and is selectable, but when it gets applied, the screen flickers and the interface behaves as though it were set to that resolution but it continues to display at 1600x1200. It's quite frustrating.

It makes no sense that a prior version of drivers would allow the resolution but subsequent updates not. I'm stumped.

The latest drivers provided by Dell for this system are from January 2007. :/

Edited September 28, 2008 by Digital*CHET

[Guest Mikeandike]

Guys, I'm in the same boat and I would truly be grateful for a solution. I have a Lenovo T61P with a Quadro FX570 and XP x64 (Nvidia 178.13). The internal laptop resolution is 1920x1200 and has had no problems, I also have an external 24" monitor (Dell 2408WFP) that when it's in landscape mode also displays great in 1920x1200. However, if I rotate the monitor to a vertical position (the position I need it to be because of desk space) the resolution drops to 1200x1600 instead of 1200x1920, naturally this non-native resolution causes the screen to not be razor sharp.

As a side note I know this configuration can be done as I have a colleague who has an identical setup and things work great for him. I verified the driver version and they're identical.

This post is as close as I've come to finding a solution/hack; adding a custom resolution. Unfortunately, I'm not very technical and I'm having difficulty understanding how the custom entry should be formatted and where in the INF it should go :-)

Regards,

Mike

I've tried a number of different drivers with modified INFs but none have the desired effect. I can't understand it.

I've also tried adding the resolution via the nVidia Control Panel to no avail. The setting gets added and is selectable, but when it gets applied, the screen flickers and the interface behaves as though it were set to that resolution but it continues to display at 1600x1200. It's quite frustrating.

It makes no sense that a prior version of drivers would allow the resolution but subsequent updates not. I'm stumped.

The latest drivers provided by Dell for this system are from January 2007. :/

[Guest Richard]

I have tried various fixes for this problem but none have worked. The only thing that has worked for me is to disconnect my monitor from the laptop, then I reboot my computer if I've already booted it up or, if I have not already booted up my computer I disconnect the cable from the laptop. I boot the computer up and, with the Dell 2405FPW OFF, I then connect the cable to the DVI on the laptop. Then I turn my display on then I press the Fn key (it's to the right of my left Ctrl key) and while still holding it down, I press the F7 key. Then my Dell display shows the correct resolution. This is the only thing I've found that works but it is annoying to have to do this. Earlier in this thread, they had some part to add to the inf file and that was suppose to fix the problem but it did not work for me. It seems like there would be a simple fix for this. When I first bought my laptop, my monitor did show the correct resolution on bootup...without having to do the above. My laptop display would even go off on it's on and only the Dell monitor would show. I have not sat down and compared the driver that came with my laptop to the ones that I download off this site. I want to buy another laptop but I don't know if I want to continue to what I have to do now to get my Dell to show the correct resolution.

rbrownes@aol.com

Guys, I'm in the same boat and I would truly be grateful for a solution. I have a Lenovo T61P with a Quadro FX570 and XP x64 (Nvidia 178.13). The internal laptop resolution is 1920x1200 and has had no problems, I also have an external 24" monitor (Dell 2408WFP) that when it's in landscape mode also displays great in 1920x1200. However, if I rotate the monitor to a vertical position (the position I need it to be because of desk space) the resolution drops to 1200x1600 instead of 1200x1920, naturally this non-native resolution causes the screen to not be razor sharp.

As a side note I know this configuration can be done as I have a colleague who has an identical setup and things work great for him. I verified the driver version and they're identical.

This post is as close as I've come to finding a solution/hack; adding a custom resolution. Unfortunately, I'm not very technical and I'm having difficulty understanding how the custom entry should be formatted and where in the INF it should go :-)

Regards,

Mike

[Guest Guest]

hi, i have the same problem with a 24'' Samsung Monitor.

I can only make a 1600x1200 but the monitor needs 1920x1600.

When i select the 1920x1600 i have to scroll on the extern monitor.

Is this a driver bug? With my old nvidia drivers there was no problem

[Guest Mike]

I can confirm that Guest_Richard_*'s suggestion worked for me...I'm running XP x64 on a T61P so technically the Lenovo Hotkey Manager doesn't really work like it should so using the FN + F7 won't/didn't work for me.

However, after forcing myself to reboot (I hadn't rebooted in three months, I HATE rebooting, in my mind if I have to reboot I'm not 'seeing' something :) ), I unplugged my DVI cable, rebooted, logged it, waited for the Drive to settle down, plugged in the monitor, turned it on, went to the Display Porperties and to my surprise 1200 x 1920 was avilable and now my monitor is razor sharp in portrait mode as expected!

Keep in mind that when you go to the Display Properties use the mouse wheel to scroll through the resolutions since you might miss one if you simply clck to move the slider, on my setup I had about 30 resolutions avilable and 1200 x 1920 was NOT the one furthest to the right as I would of expected it to be! Don't miss it!

Thanks again Richard!

I have tried various fixes for this problem but none have worked. The only thing that has worked for me is to disconnect my monitor from the laptop, then I reboot my computer if I've already booted it up or, if I have not already booted up my computer I disconnect the cable from the laptop. I boot the computer up and, with the Dell 2405FPW OFF, I then connect the cable to the DVI on the laptop. Then I turn my display on then I press the Fn key (it's to the right of my left Ctrl key) and while still holding it down, I press the F7 key. Then my Dell display shows the correct resolution. This is the only thing I've found that works but it is annoying to have to do this. Earlier in this thread, they had some part to add to the inf file and that was suppose to fix the problem but it did not work for me. It seems like there would be a simple fix for this. When I first bought my laptop, my monitor did show the correct resolution on bootup...without having to do the above. My laptop display would even go off on it's on and only the Dell monitor would show. I have not sat down and compared the driver that came with my laptop to the ones that I download off this site. I want to buy another laptop but I don't know if I want to continue to what I have to do now to get my Dell to show the correct resolution.

rbrownes@aol.com