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Macbook + external monitor

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mrcymru

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 8, 2006
19
0
Hi all, how are you?

I'm new here, have been Maccing since October when I bought a 2GHz PPC iMac. Top piece of kit :D

I've convinced a friend to go down the Mac route too, and he's decided on a 2GHz Macbook. He's heard a rumour that the Macbook will not display a screen resolution of 1440x900 on an external monitor, even if monitor is designed for that. I doubt what he's heard, as the Macbook is designed for up to.. 1900x1200 isn't it?

So, if someone could tell me whether 1440x900 works on their external monitor hooked up to a Macbook, that'd be fab! :D

Thanks all, hope you're well.

Dom
 
F

Fisheke

macrumors member
May 16, 2006
49
0
Antwerp, Belgium
Strangely enough, my display-preferences panel doesn't show that resolution in the options..
It show pretty much every other conceivable option though.. so i can't confirm nor deny the possibilty..

edit: just to be clear: i AM working on an external monitor.
 
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mrcymru

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 8, 2006
19
0
Fisheke said:
Strangely enough, my display-preferences panel doesn't show that resolution in the options..
It show pretty much every other conceivable option though.. so i can't confirm nor deny the possibilty..

edit: just to be clear: i AM working on an external monitor.
Click to expand...
How very queer.. thanks for your reply :)

Anyone else?
 
L

lexbollmora

macrumors newbie
Jun 9, 2006
4
0
I can confirm that when using an external monitor using the optional VGA-adapter does provide pretty poor resolutions on the macbook.

1600x1200 is supported only at 60Hz (unusable on CRTs)
1400x1050 maxes out at 90Hz, but i was unable to stretch the image to cover the entire screen.
Instead I had to use 1344x1008 at 100Hz, which does work reasonable but is a much smaller resolution than I'd like

The monitor used (viewsonic p225f) is not the limitation as it happily provides 1600x1200@100Hz on a PPC Mac mini. It is detected correctly through DCC(sp?). Closed lid, mirrored or extended desktop mode doesn't matter.

This whole issue is rather weird as the GMA950 has a 400Mhz RAMDAC and should provide these resolutions easily. If there's a software fix I'd love to find out.

But by the looks of it your friend has a TFT using DVI, which probably wouldn't be affected by this.
 
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mrcymru

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 8, 2006
19
0
Thanks Lex for the info.

Could you explain this part to me - I've not used DVI so far (iMac..) so don't know the differences between it and VGA:

lexbollmora said:
But by the looks of it your friend has a TFT using DVI, which probably wouldn't be affected by this.
Click to expand...

Thanks again :)

Dom
 
C

c1gar

macrumors newbie
May 30, 2006
23
0
question

Hey, can you use 2 monitors for diffrent things?

Im really confused by the whole 2 monitors, can any one dumb it down,
 
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mrcymru

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 8, 2006
19
0
c1gar said:
Hey, can you use 2 monitors for diffrent things?

Im really confused by the whole 2 monitors, can any one dumb it down,
Click to expand...

You can have the external monitor either display the same as the laptop screen, or set it so that you can drag something across the laptop screen, and e.g. keep going to the right and it pops up on the other monitor, as if the laptop screen didn't actually end, it's extra wide.

Kapisch?
 
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mrcymru

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 8, 2006
19
0
..or just switch the laptop screen off entirely and only use the external one.
 
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lexbollmora

macrumors newbie
Jun 9, 2006
4
0
DVI is a digital connector used by most flat-panel displays whereas CRT displays use analog VGA-connectors.
 
M

mrcymru

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 8, 2006
19
0
lexbollmora said:
DVI is a digital connector used by most flat-panel displays whereas CRT displays use analog VGA-connectors.
Click to expand...

Yep, I understand that, but how would it not be an issue with screen res if using DVI?

Thanks :)
 
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lexbollmora

macrumors newbie
Jun 9, 2006
4
0
yeah I saw that, it makes sense that this puts a limit on the RAMDAC as it's probably not designed to run faster than the rest if the chip.

"Yep, I understand that, but how would it not be an issue with screen res if using DVI?"

There might still be issues, just not this one. :p
 
M

mrcymru

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 8, 2006
19
0
lexbollmora said:
"Yep, I understand that, but how would it not be an issue with screen res if using DVI?"

There might still be issues, just not this one. :p
Click to expand...
So it'd display 1440x900 if it uses DVI? :confused:
 
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Ozman712

macrumors member
Mar 6, 2006
88
0
I have a 2Ghz Macbook and use a 19" Widescreen Viewsonic monitor hooked up via DVI. Its resoluction is 1440 X 900 and it works great. I think the difference between DVI and VGA is noticable. I would def recomend getting a DVI monitor for the Macbook.

Oz
 
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mrcymru

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 8, 2006
19
0
Ozman712 said:
I have a 2Ghz Macbook and use a 19" Widescreen Viewsonic monitor hooked up via DVI. Its resoluction is 1440 X 900 and it works great. I think the difference between DVI and VGA is noticable. I would def recomend getting a DVI monitor for the Macbook.

Oz
Click to expand...

So why does the screen res work with a DVI monitor? :confused:
 
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Ozman712

macrumors member
Mar 6, 2006
88
0
Well when I was first looking at the Macbook I went onto Apple's site and looked at the tech specs for the Macbook and it doesn't say that it will support the resolution of the 19" monitor. Then I posted here asking that same question. I was incorrect in what I said, but some of the posts on that explain some of your question and there are other numerous threads here that explain the difference between VGA and DVI.https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/204635/ I called Apple to double check the resolutions the MB supported and it does in fact support up to 1920x1200 DVI.
 
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joebells

macrumors 6502
Oct 24, 2005
425
0
Just to add to this. I recieved my macbook the other day and my mini-dvi to vga (meant to order the dvi-dvi adapter instead will be picking one up soon hopefully) I have a 19inch widescreen lcd that has a 1440 x 900 resolution and it definately does work at 1440 x 900 the option is there when I hook up my lcd.

The bad news is that the picture looks soft on the external display. I'm hoping its the dvi-vga adapter and that getting the dvi-dvi adapter makes a big difference because at this point I am very unhappy. Its not the lcd as it looks great on my windows pc. Anyone think of anything that I might be missing? I have it set to the right refresh rate and osx actually recognises the display by name. So I really hope its the dvi-vga adapter causing this problem.
 
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joebells

macrumors 6502
Oct 24, 2005
425
0
Its a Xerox xr6-19dw I bought it because it was on sale fairly cheap. At office depot last week it was on sale after coupon and such for around 180. At that price I say yeah its definately worth it (as long as this fuzziness is corrected by the other adapter it looks pretty nice in windows) at full price of 300 or something its probalby not such a good deal as there are other better ones in that price range.
 
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mrcymru

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 8, 2006
19
0
joebells said:
Its a Xerox xr6-19dw I bought it because it was on sale fairly cheap. At office depot last week it was on sale after coupon and such for around 180. At that price I say yeah its definately worth it (as long as this fuzziness is corrected by the other adapter it looks pretty nice in windows) at full price of 300 or something its probalby not such a good deal as there are other better ones in that price range.
Click to expand...
Cheers Joe :)
 
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