Why Black Bars When Connect PowerBook to Monitor?

mcmike100 said:

I just connected my 15" PowerBook to an external LCD (native resolution 1280x1024) for the first time and there are black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. I have the correct resolutions set for both devices in the Display area of System Preferences.

What's the problem?

Thanks

Click to expand...

You probably are connecting while your PB is own. That is normally what happens because the video card doesn't always know what is going on when you plug it in while it is one.

Do you have spanning or mirroring on?

Did you click "Detect Displays"?

mcmike100 said:

Yes, I hit Detect Displays. I have mirroring on. With spanning there are no black bars.

Superbovine, did you mean I have to connect the monitor with the PB off? I'd really rather not since I never shut it down, just sleep. I connect the monitor when it's asleep though.

Click to expand...

In that case everything's fine. Your native resolution is 1280x854, so it's better that you have black bars for 85 lines above and 85 lines below when mirroring to your 1280x1024 screen, rather than having those 854 lines "stretched" artificially to 1024.

If you prefer those pixels to be filled up, either run your PowerBook with the lid closed or span.

when i first read the title i thought it said black bears... hehe

terribly sorry for the useless post...

What you are experiencing is normal. Mirroring means exactly copying what is showing on your PowerBook to the external monitor, including resolution. If your PowerBook's resolution is 1280x854, then that's what you get on your external monitor. Since you cannot set the PowerBook's display resolution to 1280x1024, you will never be able to use all of the screen space on your external monitor when mirroring. As others have suggested, you can do spanning instead, or close the lid. Hope that helps.

There's an echo in here.

Uhh...yeah, so basically what's going on is that your external monitor is more square shaped than, like, your PB screen...so it's like watching a letterbox film...

Whoa...did like, someone already say this?

(PS: I couldn't help it...I had to!)