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External display, image not filling entire screen.

T

tmt345

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 24, 2008
84
0
I just bought a tv to use as a external monitor for my mac however when i boot into windows 7 the resolution (1080p) is fine but its not filling the screen completely, there is 1 inch of black on the top and bottom and about 1.5 inches of black on the left and right sides. it does not do this when i am booted into osx.

i think this could be because of how hdtv's are made and the resolution isn't exact (usually a little bit greater) so windows isn't "stretching" the image to fill the screen. i think osx does it automatically but windows doesn't. if this is the problem how do i get windows to stretch the image? i tried switching the screen mode on my tv's remote but that didn't work.

thanks for the help everybody and merry christmas!
 
Its a problem with the windows OS. It doesn't exactly know how to display different resolution of wallpapers on different screens. There are third party applications that fixes this, but I personally don't use them so I don't know any.
 
PseudoScifi said:
Have you changed the resolution at all? What resolution do you have it set on now?
Click to expand...

i currently have it set as my tvs native resolution 1080p

whats weird is that when it was set as my imacs resolution (i'm using it as an external monitor) 1440x900 it filled the screen but it wasn't clear enough because it isn't true 1440p.
 
What I do in windows is I close the lid on the MBP, then I lift up the lid just enough to get one finger under there without turning it on and I push the command key a couple of times. It works every time. Fills the whole screen and the MBP screen stays off. You can just close the lid after the external comes on. Try that.

Also, there are some settings in control panel that allow you to set the external display to primary. I use the Nvidia control panel. What graphics card do you have?
 
PseudoScifi said:
What I do in windows is I close the lid on the MBP, then I lift up the lid just enough to get one finger under there without turning it on and I push the command key a couple of times. It works every time. Fills the whole screen and the MBP screen stays off. You can just close the lid after the external comes on. Try that.
Click to expand...

after doing some research, alot of people who (i think) have similar problems say to do that but how would i do that on an imac?

thanks for the help and merry christmas!
 
and to add to my comment, i have it set so that the only monitor in use is the new external one, so the imacs screen isn't even on as i'm writing this.
 
i noticed that while i boot into mac i have the box "overscan" checked in the display settings, where do i find the same box in windows 7?
 
Which iMac do you have and what video card? That info would be helpful for troubleshooting. If it's one of the new iMac's (21.5" or 27") with an ATI graphics card, try the following:

Get the latest drivers from the ATI/AMD website but they won't install properly until you mod them. Download the modtool from this site:

http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool.php

Follow the Vista instructions further down the page but you don't need to disable UAC in Win7 as it's a smarter UAC then Vista. Works great and then you'll have the Catalyst Control Panel as well. From there you should have the correct access to all the display settings in Win7 and proper support for dual monitors.

Also make sure you don't have the monitors set for mirroring as the displays would have to be of equal resolution. Otherwise it uses the lowest resolution display as the common denominator for both screens. Set the desktops for "Extended" or whatever they call it on the Windows side. I have a dual monitor setup running just fine with Win7 on my new iMac, 27" with ATI 4850 and a Samsung 275T 27" external monitor. (using latest modded drivers as per above) Both screens are running perfectly at their native resolutions.

If you have an older iMac you can also try the above as well but only if you have ATI graphics. If you have Intel or Nvidia graphics then sorry, can't help you with that one. Cheers!

James
 
joudbren said:
Which iMac do you have and what video card? That info would be helpful for troubleshooting. If it's one of the new iMac's (21.5" or 27") with an ATI graphics card, try the following:

Get the latest drivers from the ATI/AMD website but they won't install properly until you mod them. Download the modtool from this site:

http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool.php

Follow the Vista instructions further down the page but you don't need to disable UAC in Win7 as it's a smarter UAC then Vista. Works great and then you'll have the Catalyst Control Panel as well. From there you should have the correct access to all the display settings in Win7 and proper support for dual monitors.

Also make sure you don't have the monitors set for mirroring as the displays would have to be of equal resolution. Otherwise it uses the lowest resolution display as the common denominator for both screens. Set the desktops for "Extended" or whatever they call it on the Windows side. I have a dual monitor setup running just fine with Win7 on my new iMac, 27" with ATI 4850 and a Samsung 275T 27" external monitor. (using latest modded drivers as per above) Both screens are running perfectly at their native resolutions.

If you have an older iMac you can also try the above as well but only if you have ATI graphics. If you have Intel or Nvidia graphics then sorry, can't help you with that one. Cheers!

James
Click to expand...

i have an imac5,1 (late 2006) 17 inch with an ati x1600 graphics card. i am running windows 7 x64

its an ati! :)

so what do i do?

EDIT: i followed the guide and it works now! after it installed the ati software i adjusted the overscan to 0%

thank you so much everybody!
 
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