Current gen MBP 13" having trouble driving (lag) Dell 24" display?

[shoelessone]

Hello all!

So, I just received a new work laptop,
Processor 2.7 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB

The problem (I'm GUESSING) is that I'm having trouble driving a 24" Dell display. Basically, it's slow. Actually everything seems slow when I'm using this display. For instance, scrolling through a page seems "laggy", basically everything feels slower then I figure it should on a brand new laptop.

This is a terrible thread so far, so let me try to give it some purpose:Can any of you confirm that you have/have not been able to drive a larger, 24"ish inch display (1900x1200) with a 13" MBP?. My guess is that perhaps the onboard/integrated just can't handle the display, but 1900x1200 doesn't seem THAT large for a modern laptop.

Not all applications are equally slow/laggy, for instance PHPStorm (IDE, similar to Eclipse) is particularly bad. Switching "desktops" (ctrl+arrow keys) is painful to watch sometimes. Also, resizing windows makes a bit difference. For instance, if I have PHPStorm full screen (1900x1200) then it's really terrible, and scrolling takes half a second, and if I scroll up/down really fast then it jumps around. If I resize the window to take up a tiny corner of the screen, then the scrolling isn't an issue. Additionally, another huge give-away is that when I actually resize a window, it's incredibly laggy/jumpy/painful when it's large, but as the window I'm resizing becomes smaller, it's redrawn/responds faster. Once the window is a fraction (say an 1/8th) of the full resolution, the window resizes like "normal."

FWIW, this was a fresh install of Lion, then I imported all of my applications from my previous Snow Leopard install (20" iMac).

Thanks for any pro-tips!

 

[jenzjen]

Maybe at least this helps you narrow it down, I had no problem driving a U2410 with the older MBA that had the Nvidia 9400 (I think).

 

[shoelessone]

Maybe at least this helps you narrow it down, I had no problem driving a U2410 with the older MBA that had the Nvidia 9400 (I think).

Thanks much for the reply! My guess was the 13" SHOULD be able to drive the display without too much of an issue, but I'm sort of at a loss for what might be causing the problems. I'm wondering if it could be one of the various applications that I had installed previously (such as an App for using an iPad as a second display), etc.

If anybody has any troubleshooting ideas, I'd really love to hear them!

Thanks again for the reply

 

[snaky69]

What are you using to connect the display?

 

[phyrexia]

The onboard graphics card has no problem driving my 17" 1900x1200 display, so it shouldn't have a problem powering one externally, except on the 15 and 17 models the integrated graphics isn't connected to the TB/MiniDP port.

I know this isn't directly related to your machine but hopefully it will help.

Maybe updating to 8GB of RAM would help. This would give your graphics card 512MB RAM instead of 384MB.

 

[shoelessone]

Thanks much for the reply! My guess was the 13" SHOULD be able to drive the display without too much of an issue, but I'm sort of at a loss for what might be causing the problems. I'm wondering if it could be one of the various applications that I had installed previously (such as an App for using an iPad as a second display), etc.

If anybody has any troubleshooting ideas, I'd really love to hear them!

Thanks again for the reply

Its a mini display port to display port cable from amazon. Unbranded.

 

[BiggAW]

That's a software issue. It should be able to drive up to a 30".

 

[Mojo1]

I'm going to hazard a guess here and suggest that the problem is due to the cable that you are using. It would be relatively easy and inexpensive to switch to the Apple branded converter and see if that improves the performance...

I tend to go with the easy fixes first and when I read "unbranded cable from Amazon" that was probably inexpensive my mind goes "Ah Ha!"

 

[GermanyChris]

Samsung B2430H here..no issues

 

[Laurido92]

I'm running a Dell 2409 and it works fine. I would have to agree with Mojo. Most likely is the Amazon unbranded cable.