dual monitor problem on X20

[jkbrand]

I'm using the VGA port to drive a secondary monitor.

If I boot up XP without the VGA port cabled, the Thinkpad comes up in full screen, 1024x768. If I boot up with the VGA port cabled, the secondary monitor comes up full screen, but the Thinkpad's monitor falls back to 800X600, and I've lost valuable real estate.

The slider bar is stuck at 800x600. Is this behavior normal?

(I have another desk top that's configured for two monitors, but its behavior (XP also) is different--especially in CP/Display/Settings where it clearly identifies a primary and secondary monitor. The Thinkpad "sees" two monitors, but the system doesn't designate a primary and secondary...maybe this is normal?)

Jeff

[tanstaafl]

I revive this old thread because I too am having a problem extending my XP destop to an external monitor (attached to Port Replicator II) using my X20. I too could not see a secondary monitor in Windows XP's monitor "settings," until I upgraded to the latest ATI Rage Mobility M video drivers. Then both monitors showed up. But now my problem is : when I try to extend my desktop to the external monitor, both the X20's LCD and the external monitor revert to 800x600 resolution. All attempts to increase the resolution have failed. Is this failure due to the slim 4MB of video RAM? Or is there a fix possible?

[Thinkpaddict]

That's most likely due to the 4 Mb of memory. Each monitor at 1024x768 and 16 bits per pixel would consume about 1.5 Mb of raw memory. There might also be some overhead involved which requires more memory than that amount per monitor.

As an experiment, have you tried to set the color depth to 8 bits if that's an option that you have available? Obviously 8 bits is near worthless (unless you are doing word processing or the like), but at least it might point towards the validity of the limited amount of graphics memory being the reason why you have limited resolution.

Another consideration is that it might be possible mathematically to run both displays at 1024x768 and 16 bit under some conditions, but the driver programmer just disallowed that option to play it safe.