Thinkpads Forum

Hi guys.

I have two external LCD monitor. One is Samsung 2253BW which worked very well at 1680 x 1050 resolution and I just bought new one (ACER 23") which supports FullHD (1920 x 1080) but it flickers too much to watch. Now I decrease the resolution down to 1680 x 1050 and now works fine but I'd like to try 1920 x 1080.

My X60 is slightly more than three years old and I just upgraded to new version of Bios, VGA adapter and Presentation director but doesn't seem working.

I checked my monitor with my friend's laptop and it worked fine.

I have the same problem with LG E2260 monitor. Is there anybody who knows the solution?

It's analog, so have you tried using a different cable? I wouldn't expect it to be perfect at such a high res over analog connection anyway.

IvanAndreevich wrote:It's analog, so have you tried using a different cable? I wouldn't expect it to be perfect at such a high res over analog connection anyway.

VGA cables can go up to 2560x1920 at 60Hz. 1920x1080 is nothing by comparison.

Squiddy wrote:VGA cables can go up to 2560x1920 at 60Hz. 1920x1080 is nothing by comparison.

It makes no difference what the theoretical limit is. Fact of the matter is, at anything beyond 1680x1050 the image is going to suck badly. If you ever tried it you would know.

Maybe IvanAndreevich is right. I've seen a couple other mentions of people having various otherwise untraceable display issues at high resolutions. However, I think it may still be worth exploring two possible culprits:
1. your VGA cable
2. your LCD monitor

I attach my X60 Tablet to a range of different monitors in different docking configs. But none of them are actually greater than 1600x1200 (aside from my 21" LaCie ElectronBlue III CRT monitor, where fine text and lines actually become a bit blurry in places at anything higher than that).

Different monitors I think will make a difference in the case of LCD monitors because the signal from your Thinkpad is actually converted from analog to digital by the monitor itself, and I suspect that different monitors do a better job of doing this conversion cleanly than others.

Cable quality can definitely make a difference, but as IvanAndreevich suggests, it is unclear to me if ANY VGA cable can actually perform well with anything above 1600x1200. I notice even at that resolution that if I try to rotate the screen, the quality of the picture degrades considerably, and I am using cables that are supposedly rated for 1920x1080 or higher, and I am using very high quality 20" DELL UltraBright screens with IPS panels.

But you say your problem is with flickering. I never have problems with flickering on any of my monitors. The problem is that the picture is just not quite as crisp as it should be. Flickering suggests a refresh rate problem maybe? Do you get flickering when your computer is idle showing your desktop? Or do you mean flickering when watching a video or something? Some flickering could be due to processor demand.

Oh, I just re-read your post and see that you checked the monitor with your friend's laptop and everything looked fine. Probably that elminates the cable and monitor as cuplrits. Oh well, maybe someone else has further ideas.

Phil.