External Widescreen Monitor with Thinkpad T42

[rocketman]

I'm thinking of buying this new Dell 20" Widescreen monitor:
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/Prod ... sting.aspx
Will the T42 with the ATI 9600 64mb video card recognize this monitors native 1680x1050 resolution?

[Flightvector]

Actually yes, there is a relatively easy way to do this, it requires you to abandon your standard MR9600 drivers for the more generic ATI Catalyst drivers which thankfully doesn't present any major compromise with GPU performance. This allows you to pick a large range of output resolutions and gives you more options for external displays via DVI.

This process must be done with the small Patje Driver Modification to override the refusal of Catalyst installation due to your Mobility GPU. This message probably exists due to the usual support concerns that nobody will want to deal with if a customer inadvertantly botches something. It will work quite well this way and will allow a full range of external resolutions higher than the native LCD's.

Basically, you need to download this utility to slightly modify the Catalyst .inf files, and then you can install them with no warning messages. Instructions are very clear so you should have no issues, keep in mind that this is fully reversible too in case you don't want them. The link for the file is below:

http://www.driverheaven.net/patje/


The reference thread for your issue is here, I think you will find it informative:

Help-External DVI: ATI Drivers Don't Work
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=5155

[sswany]

Once this is done, can you use the IBM Presentation Director?

[UCI2CI]

wow, im just wondering why is this Dell monitor so cheap compaired to other 20 inch LCDs

[sswany]

Not sure, but it's great. Found out that it needed the modded ATI driver first, and then to get Presentation Director to work at 1680x1050, I had to set up the new profile while using the monitor, wouldn't allow that resolution when on the laptop's LCD.

[texasdiver]

Question for you sswany:

Have you tried to rotate the display to portrait and does it display in native resolution over DVI in portrait mode?

According to the Dell literature, both monitors can be rotated to protrait mode. This is interesting to me because I do a lot of page layout work of text documents.

Have you tried to rotate this monitor to portrait mode and will it work that way with the thinkpad? I see all the information about updating the drivers to display 1600x1200 over DVI but with the rotation I would actually be displaying 1050x1680.

I''m leaning towards buying this monitor tomorrow when my 25% off Delf coupon expires. But knowing for sure I can view a rotated display with a T42p will sweeten the deal.

[sswany]

I haven't tried rotating it to portrait yet, mostly because I haven't had time to sit and screw with the drivers. I'm using VGA right now, because I haven't gotten a dock yet for my T42. I'm starting to notice a slight ghost that sits to the right of everything that I remember from another post, but now I can't find it. It may have to do with the VGA cable, but I'm not sure.