Thinkpads Forum

I have a 14.1 Widescreen with NVIDIA and WXGA+ screen.

I want to use it with the advanced mini dock and have Dual monitors.

What is the Max widescreen resolution that I can get from the DVI and also from the VGA?

It's at least 1920x1200. Depending on your model, it can be as high as 2560x1600.

How do I know which model supports 2560x1600?
I am guessing that it is an NVIDIA vs Intel thing?

If you have the nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M, then the max resolution via DVI is 1600x1200 according to the nVIDIA web site. I have asked this question about the integrated (Intel) graphics and have not gotten a clear answer.

That significantly conflicts with what Ron said.

Is there anyone that has actually tested or tried this?

I wonder if I can get 1680x1050 with DVI. According to that chart, no.

kingweb wrote:That significantly conflicts with what Ron said.

ron's correct if referring to VGA output since up to 2048x1536 is supported.   DVI appears to be more limited.

you could also purchase a thinkpad advanced dock and install a separate video card supporting dual DVI ports to drive two monitors.   i'm not sure what card to recommend here.   ron is the resident dock + video card expert.

Ron, any comments on this? I purchased (haven't received yet) the advanced mini dock.
I would like to be able to have dual 1680x1050 minimum resolution.

My guess is that you should be fine.

The VGA on all T6x machines should support up to 2048x1536, but I have no personal experience with VGA on Thinkpads beyond 1920x1200. I have yet to see a T6x that can't do 1920x1200 off both the VGA and DVI.

I have successfully driven 2560x1600 out the DVI with both a T60p (v5200) and a T61p (FX 570M) out a Mini-Dock. I'm sure it would work the same with an Advanced Dock. The quality seemed perfect. I made a thread about it here.

I've never had my hands on Thinkpad with NVS 140M (I typically buy 'p' machines). Snife reported in this threadthat his T61 with NVS 140M will indeed drive 2560x1600, which of course means that it has dual-link capability.

There has been a mix of reports on this forum that some people with v5200 can use 2650x1600, but those with v5250 chips cannot. It seems that the only known incompatibilities for driving dual-link DVI resolutions (that is, resolutions beyond 1920x1200)from a Thinkpad T6x are: a)T60p with v5250, b) Any T6x with integrated (GMA) graphics. I could easily be wrong here; it's just my guess after hanging around these forums for all this time. I guarantee that you will never get a straight answer from IBM/Lenovo about this.

Also, I should point out that just because NVidia and ATI's specs say they support dual-link DVI on a chip, that doesn't mean that the Thinkpad that uses those chips will support it. If the extra signals to support Dual-link aren't brought through to the DVI connector, you're stuck.

What if I were to hook 1 monitor to the vga output of the docking station and the other monitor to the vga output of the laptop itself? Can both vga outputs be used together?

kingweb wrote:What if I were to hook 1 monitor to the vga output of the docking station and the other monitor to the vga output of the laptop itself? Can both vga outputs be used together?

I believe the machine disables the redundant ports on the unit itself in favour of the dock's

I'm on travel right now, so I can't test the VGA+VGA question, but I'm fairly certain that technics_speak is correct - you can't have two analog (VGA) outputs simultaneously from the Thinkpad base unit.

Well here is the verdict.

The max DVI widescreen resolution for the NVIDIA 140m is 1680 x 1050. I personally tested it without any hacks, etc and it worked great.

I didn't test the VGA max res, but I know that it is much higher than the DVI max res.

kingweb wrote:Well here is the verdict.

The max DVI widescreen resolution for the NVIDIA 140m is 1680 x 1050. I personally tested it without any hacks, etc and it worked great.

I didn't test the VGA max res, but I know that it is much higher than the DVI max res.

Really? Wow. I'm glad I got the T60 with the ATI X1400; it supports 1920x1200 (which happens to be the native resolution of my brand new Dell 24" panel).

Actually, I made a possible mistake here.

The monitor that I tested this with has a max resolution of 1680x1050, so the T61 didn't allow higher. So it is possible that the DVI can display higher than 1680x1050, but I am not sure.

kingweb wrote:Actually, I made a possible mistake here.

The monitor that I tested this with has a max resolution of 1680x1050, so the T61 didn't allow higher. So it is possible that the DVI can display higher than 1680x1050, but I am not sure.

That makes sense. With that monitor connected via DVI, you'll only see the monitor's max resolution, not the adapter's. I suspect it will support a display with a higher resolution than that.

So that now brings me back to my original question. WHat is the MAX widescreen resolution?

If I can get WUXGA 1920x1xxx out of it, then I want to buy 2 24 inch monitors. If the most I can get is 1680x1050, then I will buy 22 inch monitors.

Looking at my display control panel on my t60p ati 5200, it will allow me to adjust the size of the dvi and vga monitor to 2048x1536 each. When I apply that size, both monitors go into scroll mode, since they can't handle that resolution natively, and when I scroll around in the monitor I see I have much more desktop space than before.

My day to day setting is 24" dvi at 1920x1200 and 20" vga at 1680x1050.