External 2048x1152 LCD on T60 with GMA950 using VGA.

[yak]

I have a T60 with Intel GMA 950 graphics (see sig.) and no Advanced Mini Dock. I would like to buy a Samsung 2343NW monitor (pic) which is a 23 inches 16:9 LCD monitor with 2048x1152 resolution and a single VGA input. I would like to connect it directly to the VGA port on the side of the laptop.

The question is, will it work? I know the theoretical maximal resolution a GMA 950 can handle is 2048x1536 but I'm not sure if there are any other obstacles in the way.

If it will, how about running the laptop's display (SXGA+, 1400x1050) and the monitor at the same time?

Have any of you tried such a setup?

I'm mainly interested in getting it to run under Vista, later maybe with Windows 7.

TIA,
yak

[qviri]

I have a Samsung screen of this resolution connected to my T60p. VGA connection wise, it is perfectly fine. I have the FireGL, so unfortunately I cannot comment on the GMA950 aspect. FWIW, mine can run external 2048*1152 and internal 1600*1200 simultaneously.

[yak]

qviri, thanks for replying. What would you say about the image quality? Have you run lower resolution screens on the VGA too? Is there any noticeable difference?

If anyone tried it with GMA 950, I'm still looking forward to hear from you. Or if anyone cares to speculate...

[qviri]

This is the only external screen I've used with this laptop. I haven't looked closely and nitpickingly, so the best I can do to describe it is "looks fine". Image is stable and seems sharp to me. My external screen is TN at 102 dpi and the internal is IPS at 133 dpi, so there are differences in size of stuff, colour accuracy, and viewing angles, but text looks fine as far as I am concerned.

I used to have a Matrox G400 or G450 in a desktop a while back, going to 17" LCDs. It's been a while, so I can't really compare directly, but I think I'd notice if it was super bad.

I am away from the screen right now; I will look more closely at this tonight and report back.

edit: well, I'm looking at it now. Looks fine, maybe a bit worse than my UXGA IPS, but I cannot bring myself to think this a significant difference. No obvious shadowing, no noticeable problems refreshing (using for text and movies, no games). That's the best I can describe it.

[yak]

Thanks qviri, looking forward to your report.

In the meantime I was able to find a thread in Polish (fortunately I speak it) where someone reports that he got this Samsung display working with a GMA950 based MacMini, albeit using DVI.

Even if this is true, it still remains a question whether the Windows drivers will handle such a resolution. I guess the PowerStrip could be of help if they don't.

--- ADDED ---
Found an even more comforting thread, this time in German (I guess it's good to speak many languages after all ). It speaks of an Acer Atom based media PC (EL1600) featuring GMA950 as the graphics chip. The guy says he got it running with the same Samsung 2343NW using VGA port in native resolution. Not sure on which Windows version.

I guess the T60 shouldn't be any different, right?

[qviri]

.

[Jih]

I am currently using the Samsung 2343bwx (same resolution) with my T61p (gfx: Quadro fx 570M).
The native resolution wasn't supported in the lenovo drivers so I had to uninstall that.
Additionally I had to mod the NVLT.inf file of the extracted driver (before install) from the official nvidia site to accept the resolution as per these instructions:
http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/mess ... d.id=32271

1. try uninstalling the driver and re-download it.

2. next run the downloaded EXE file.

3. navigate to the folder where you extract the monitor drivers to and look for "NVLT.inf"

4. open it using a text editor and perform a find using "NV_Modes" as the keyword.

5. there should be 4 search results but you will only need to edit the 1st three. (those that have "%REG_MULTI_SZ%, "{*}S 800x600x16..." along the line.)

6. at the end of each of the 3 lines, add this text in 2048x1152x16,32

7. it should look something like this (please do not copy the line below exactly and paste it. this is just a reference on how to add the additional text at the end of the line)

HKR,, NV_Modes, %REG_MULTI_SZ%, "{*}S 800x600x16,32 960x600x16,32 1024x768x16,32 1280x720x16,32 1280x768x16,32 1280x1024x16,32 1360x768x16,32 1440x900x16,32 1440x1050x16,32 1600x1200x16,32 2048x1536x16,32=1F;1680x1050x16,32 1920x1080x16,32 1920x1200x16,32 2048x1152x16,32=F;"

8. once your are done editing the 3 lines, save it and run the setup as usual. this should fix the problem :smileywink:

Though I don't think this will be applicable to you I thought you might want to be aware.

Now I have the monitor setup all nicely though

[yak]

Jih, thanks for your input. I'll be getting the monitor in the next week or two. I'll report back when I get it.

[pianowizard]

I'm interested in getting the Dell sp2309w, which is also 23" 2048x1152, but before buying one I wanted to make sure that my Thinkpads can support this unconventional res. So, I just went to Fry's (in southwest Houston TX) with my T42 which has the Radeon 9600 and tested it with a 2048x1152 Samsung LCD (probably the one you just ordered) that's on display. It could simultaneously drive the internal 1600x1200 and the external 2048x1152 via VGA, using Lenovo's latest driver. Of course, this T42 has a different video card than your T60, but if a 5-year-old laptop can do it, chances are your T60 can do it too.

[yak]

Ok, got the monitor today and after some fiddling, it works in native resolution!

First I connected it without touching any software. I got it to display the image easily but the maximal resolution I could set was 1680x1050. I installed the monitor driver downloaded from the website (German) but this didn't bring me any further. Rebooting didn't help either. Then I tried the driver from the CD but it turned out to be the same one. Next, I downloaded the GMA 950 drivers from the Intel site (by selecting 945G Graphics Driver on this page). Installation ended with an error saying that I should go to the Lenovo website instead. At this point I decided to give the PowerStrip a try. After playing with it for half an hour I got it to display 1920x1080 but it refused to allow me to set 2048x1152 when using the same procedure. As a last resort, I tried the Intel GMA 950 drivers again but this time after uninstalling the old ones first (Lenovo ones).

That did the trick, I was able to set the native resolution. Because of the struggle I had been through, I'm not sure if PowerStrip or the monitor .inf driver are needed. But what matters is the end effect.

The GMA 950 is able to drive the internal 1400x1050 as well as the external 2048x1152 displays at the same time. Playing a HDTV movie on the 23" 16:9 monitor is impressive. That said I got this monitor mainly for work.

The image quality is very good. I'm able to see the separate pixels if I look closely, that's enough for me.

Thanks again everyone for your input, may this thread be helpful for other people facing this question.

[yak]

One problem remains. The 2048x1152 resolution can't be selected in the Presentation Director making it unusable. Any suggestions?

--- EDIT ---
Fixed.

It seems that there is a hard-coded set of resolutions known by the Presentation Director and 2048x1152 isn't one of them. However, once a scheme is created, any resolution can be set using the Registry.

The Presentation Director schemes are stored in the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Lenovo\NPdirect\Data\Common\Presentation Schemes\

The schemes are listed as sub-keys. Every scheme key has a 00 sub-key and optionally a 01 one if the scheme is for both internal and external displays. The sub-keys have a Resolution value which is what we're going to modify. It is a DWORD with lower 16 bits representing the width and higher representing the height. For example a 1024x768 resolution is represented as 0x.0300.0400 (0x0300=768, 0x0400=1024).

So, what I had to do was to create the schemes I wanted and set the monitor resolution to 1024x768, everything using the Presentation Director dialogs. One important step here is to click OK on all Director windows to make it close. Then I found the relevant registry keys using the regedit.exe and changed the Resolution value from 0x03000400 to 0x04800800 which represents the 2048x1152 resolution.

It works. The schemes can even be edited in the Director and the Summary page lists the correct resolution too. We just have to remember not to touch the resolution setting (the combo box) which for me jumped to 2048x1536. As long as I leave it alone, I can change the other settings and the resolution remains unchanged.

[yak]

Vista's Windows Update has decided to update the GMA 950 driver I downloaded directly from intel.com and as a result, the maximal resolution went back to 1680x1050. I had to uninstall the updated one and install the downloaded one again. This made the 2048x1152 resolution available again. Luckily, the Windows Update may be instructed to ignore specific updates so that's what I did to prevent the problem from occurring again.

And here's a photo of my current setup. Sorry for a crappy cell phone quality.

[Jih]

I apologize, I should have checked this thread earlier seems like you invested a lot of time troubleshooting this - though it seems you are very much capable.

Going to install Win7RTM (MSDN) when I get my new HDD (500gb .. in the middle of shipment, should get it tmr) so I'll report my progress.
Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500GB 2.5 SATA 5400RPM 8MB Notebook Hard Drive OEM 3YR MFR Warranty (Part#: WD5000BEVT)

When I get my camera back from my gf I'll post a crappy pic

[yak]

Windows 7? A new HDD?

The only part of your post that fits this thread is the "crappy pic" (see my last post)

[Jih]

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
I guess makes things easier for someone to search for anything related to the monitor without having a multiple thread going on.

UPDATE:
Installed windows 7. The main problem that I had was the installation of my video driver (570M). After following this site's instructions:
http://blogs.msdn.com/dglover/archive/2 ... river.aspx
I successfully installed the driver. It naturally supported the 2048x1052 resolution of the 2343bwx..... sort of anti-climatic

[yak]

Installed windows 7. The main problem that I had was the installation of my video driver (570M). After following this site's instructions:
http://blogs.msdn.com/dglover/archive/2 ... river.aspx
I successfully installed the driver. It naturally supported the 2048x1052 resolution of the 2343bwx..... sort of anti-climatic

That's great.

I plan to test the 7 on my T60 too in the next week or two. I will update the thread on the compatibility with 2048x1152 on GMA 950 too.

[yak]

I have just installed Windows 7 RTM on my T60 (clean, no upgrade). The monitor was connected all the time. It turned on in the middle of the installation with a 1280x720 resolution in duplicate mode (the laptop's SXGA+ switched to the same resolution with wrong aspect ratio).

After installation I was able to set the extend mode and both displays to their native resolutions (1400x1050 and 2048x1152) out of the box.

Windows Update updated the GMA 950 driver shortly after but this didn't affect the resolutions.

Good job Microsoft, you finaly got it right.