Poor resolutions on external display

[mkadmin]

At home, I prefer to use the 17 inch LCD of my desktop (Lenovo 3000 H series), this works fine but I can only set the TP's resolution as either 800 by 600, or 1024 by 768.

If I increase the TP's display resolution to say, 1280 by 1024 or higher, the LCD screen goes blank and displays the following error:

"Out of Range"

What's weird is that when plugged in to the desktop, the LCD supports resolutions higher than 1280. So what goes wrong if I try the same resolution while using it as an external display to my TP?

Please help.

Much appreciate.

[pianowizard]

Is your Thinkpad a T60? Then this doesn't make any sense at all.

[mkadmin]

pianowizard, Yes it's a T60, with the 15" screen. Van you elaborate a bit because this is the first time I'm trying out two monitor setup.

[pianowizard]

I assume you want to extend the Thinkpad's screen into the external LCD. The following procedure should work:

1) Connect the external monitor to the Thinkpad's VGA port

2) Open "Display Properties"

3) Choose "Settings"

4) Click on monitor #2

5) Check the "Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor" box

6) Select the resolution you want, i.e. 1280x1024 in this case

7) Click "OK"

On the other hand, if you want to mirror your T60's screen on the external monitor, and if this T60's native resolution is only 1024x768, then you won't be able to increase it beyond that.