Making 960x600 stick

[steeve]

Hi

I have a z61t runing Windows XP which I'm using as a media centre running XBMC with a wide-screen standard def TV. The TV only has composite, scart and s-video inputs so I set my laptop to run in 960x600 resolution with the display "cloned" to the s-video TV output, then close the lid and connect it to the TV via svideo. Everything works fine (and I'm REALLY pleased with it!!), except ...

Annoyingly, when the PC is rebooted with the lid closed, it reverts to 800x600. If I take the laptop out of the cabinet (taking care not to disturb cables) and crouch while balancing it on my knee, I can change it back to 960x600 and "cloned", then close the lid again. But it makes my knees hurt.

So I tried connecting to the laptop remotely via VNC to do this without opening the lid, but when I do that, I can't select "cloned" (the TV is the only display device) and 960x600 is not in the list of options.

I'd like to find a way to keep the laptop permanently in 960x600 resolution, even after a reboot, with the lid closed or open ... it's a family PC, and they need to be able to restart it without me being there to do my knee juggling trick.

Since I know it can run in 960x600 with the lid closed, it seems like this should be possible ... but I'm all out of ideas ... can anyone suggest how I could proceed?

Steve

[Harryc]

Have you tried running the Lenovo Presentation Director and configuring a profile for your setup?
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 67364.html

[steeve]

@harryc

When I started switching it to 960x600 and "cloned", I was doing it via the Intel graphics options. But that was a pain, and I discovered that with Presentation Director, I could define a profile for it. So now, I only have to press Fn+F7 to bring up the Presentation Director and press enter to select these settings (since I only created this one profile.)

However, when I boot with the lid closed, it doesn't use this profile, it reverts to 800x600 non-cloned, and I have to do the knee balancing trick to open the lid and press Fn+F7 to activate it.

I'm guessing that the profile is ignored when the lid is closed because 960x600 is not a valid (selectable) resolution unless the lid is open (even though it works when I close the lid!)

[Harryc]

Seems to me there should be a way to force a profile to be the default, but I am not a Presentation Director user, so no help here. What happens if you set your lid close switch to do nothing in your power manager profile?

[steeve]

@harryc

That's how it's set at the moment, "no action" on lid close.

I'm guessing that the profile is being ignored on boot, perhaps because it won't support setting that resolution or "cloned" when the screen is closed. However, if I set it to that profile, when I close the lid, it takes "no action" to revert the settings to 800x600 uncloned.

Steve

[Colonel O'Neill]

Startup item that changes resolution? I'm sure there's a few programs that can change resolution silently using commandline parameters.