Thinkpads Forum

Can anybody tell me if running too high a "refresh" rate will harm a TFT display?

I know it's not the same thing as with a CRT.

The reason for asking is that I noticed a new install of openSuse had wrongly detected (or failed to detect) the display type and had set it as a generic TFT at 1400x1050 @78Hz. Manually selecting the "Thinkpad" display reduces that to 50Hz (it's a 14" T43p btw - per my sig), the same rate WinXP and another Linux use by default.

Visually, I think the 50Hz setting looks more stable, but the default KDE "background" makes it a bit difficult to be certain !

cheers!

IG

The US screens run a standard refresh rate of 60Hz, which coincides with the 110V/60Hz electricity here.
So your 50Hz with your local 220V/50Hz should be spot on. You could probably run 60Hz as well without any damage.

I'm in the US, where the frequency of AC power is 60hz. Any harm in my running a 50hz refresh rate to save battery life?

I don't think there is any direct correlation between LCD refresh rate and AC frequency.

Most LCDs have a default refresh rate of 60Hz, which means they draw 60 frames per second. Few can do more (probably none of the laptop LCDs). If you set too high a refresh rate, it will accept more data from the video card and just drop some of the frames.

I don't think you can harm it by setting it to 50Hz.

dr_st wrote:I don't think there is any direct correlation between LCD refresh rate and AC frequency.

Most LCDs have a default refresh rate of 60Hz, which means they draw 60 frames per second. Few can do more (probably none of the laptop LCDs). If you set too high a refresh rate, it will accept more data from the video card and just drop some of the frames.

I don't think you can harm it by setting it to 50Hz.

Thanks. I didn't think so either. My Monitor/display options actually has a box I can unselect. Next to the box, it says,

"Hide modes that this monitor cannot display,"

and,

"Clearing this check box allows you to select display modes that this monitor cannot display correctly. This may lead to an unusable display and/or damaged hardware."

The only options mine doesn't hide are 50 and 60 hz. I chose 50 hz was because I noticed that Power Manager's profiles offer to set a timer to lower the display refresh rate. I figured the lower the rate, the more battery power would be saved, but I'm really not sure how much battery power I would save between charges. For negative ramifications, I was thinking more along the lines of longevity. Would 50 versus 60 cycles for the refresh rate make a difference in how long monitor/display itself will last?

Here's a pretty interesting article on refresh rate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refresh_rate

I don't think there is any direct correlation between LCD refresh rate and AC frequency

Correct, I have run some that were failing at 50 to get a little bit more life. I have seen others come defaulted at 50 .