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How to fix picture quality with an external monitor on a MacBook

R

refund

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 26, 2010
15
0
Overall picture quality is fine, however, the font and windows are blurry. Is there a fix??
 
You're most likely in the mirroring mode. In the Monitors preference pane, you'll have the option between extended desktop and mirrored screen. Choose extended desktop, which will allow you to run the two displays at different resolutions (1280*800 on the MacBook, whatever it is on the external screen, most likely 1920*1080).
 
How are you connecting the external monitor? I used a displayport -> VGA adaptor and it looked blurry for fonts on my macbook. I then changed stuff around and used a displayport -> DVI and it was much better.
 
It's a Samsung P2770HD HDTV / Monitor. 27inch 1080p lcd. I have adjust the picture and that's fine. But reading a or looking at any window that is open is just blurry. There is glow around the font and the grey around isn't right.??
 
lewis82 said:
You're most likely in the mirroring mode. In the Monitors preference pane, you'll have the option between extended desktop and mirrored screen. Choose extended desktop, which will allow you to run the two displays at different resolutions (1280*800 on the MacBook, whatever it is on the external screen, most likely 1920*1080).
Click to expand...

I just updated to 10.6 today BTW. I see the option for mirror I don't see extended desktop. The external is 1920*1080
 
lewis82 said:
You're most likely in the mirroring mode. In the Monitors preference pane, you'll have the option between extended desktop and mirrored screen. Choose extended desktop, which will allow you to run the two displays at different resolutions (1280*800 on the MacBook, whatever it is on the external screen, most likely 1920*1080).
Click to expand...

While this is true, you can achieve the external monitor's resolution in mirror mode.

When I first connect my MBP to my external monitor, the resolution looks off because it is running the MBP's screen resolution on the external monitor. However, I then put my MBP to sleep, and when I wake it, it wakes in the external monitor's ideal resolution.
 
jim4spam said:
How are you connecting the external monitor? I used a displayport -> VGA adaptor and it looked blurry for fonts on my macbook. I then changed stuff around and used a displayport -> DVI and it was much better.
Click to expand...

mini-dvi adapter then dvi to hdmi cord.
 
lewis82 said:
How does it cope with the resolution difference then? By downscaling the image on the MBP's display?
Click to expand...

I run the MBP in clamshell, so its monitor isn't on.

I assume that the MBP determines the external monitor's optimal resolution and runs it at that on the external.
 
Surely said:
While this is true, you can achieve the external monitor's resolution in mirror mode.

When I first connect my MBP to my external monitor, the resolution looks off because it is running the MBP's screen resolution on the external monitor. However, I then put my MBP to sleep, and when I wake it, it wakes in the external monitor's ideal resolution.
Click to expand...

To everyone - this is my first experience with a tech forum before and this is a great source thanks!

I just tried that and the res is a little better. There is still a little weird glow around the font on safari?
 
Dumb question - what does mirror do exactly. And to operate in clam shell is there a setting for that or is that just closing the MBP
 
refund said:
To everyone - this is my first experience with a tech forum before and this is a great source thanks!
Click to expand...

Glad to help. :cool:

I just tried that and the res is a little better. There is still a little weird glow around the font on safari?
Click to expand...

Hmm, that I'm not too sure about. That doesn't happen when I connect my MBP to my LG monitor or to my Samsung HDTV.

Perhaps you need to adjust the settings on the actual monitor to correct that?

refund said:
Dumb question - what does mirror do exactly. And to operate in clam shell is there a setting for that or is that just closing the MBP
Click to expand...

Mirror just means that the external monitor's display will look exactly the same as what is on your MacBook's screen.

There is no actual setting for clamshell.... you just need to close the lid, wait for sleep, and wake it up.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

You may want to adjust the sharpness on the monitor. Reduce the sharpness a little bit.
 
Surely said:
Glad to help. :cool:



Hmm, that I'm not too sure about. That doesn't happen when I connect my MBP to my LG monitor or to my Samsung HDTV.

Perhaps you need to adjust the settings on the actual monitor to correct that?



Mirror just means that the external monitor's display will look exactly the same as what is on your MacBook's screen.

There is no actual setting for clamshell.... you just need to close the lid, wait for sleep, and wake it up.
Click to expand...

Without beating a dead horse - but - the safari browser in silver and there is this weird white glow around the black font?
 
My Mac mini looks strange if I connect it via HDMI, but it looks fine on the same monitor if I use DVI. No idea why, though. Just a thought. It's a Samsung 1080p monitor too--don't know the model right off.
 
Detrius said:
My Mac mini looks strange if I connect it via HDMI, but it looks fine on the same monitor if I use DVI. No idea why, though. Just a thought. It's a Samsung 1080p monitor too--don't know the model right off.
Click to expand...

Interesting - i will try that otherwise I think i will be sending this back. Spent to much to have it look like this. Of course now my laptop looks like a notebook.
 
You may have already done this, but putting this out there just in case:

Have you verified that the monitor is set "know" the HDMI source is a computer rather than something else?

When I hooked my mid-2010 MBP13 to my Viewsonic 24" panel I had to change a setting on the monitor to use HDMI-PC instead of HDMI-AV. When I did that the monitor scaled the 1080p image pixel for pixel instead of overscanning and ending up with some weird effects on text due to the scaling from the overscan.
 
deeddawg said:
You may have already done this, but putting this out there just in case:

Have you verified that the monitor is set "know" the HDMI source is a computer rather than something else?

When I hooked my mid-2010 MBP13 to my Viewsonic 24" panel I had to change a setting on the monitor to use HDMI-PC instead of HDMI-AV. When I did that the monitor scaled the 1080p image pixel for pixel instead of overscanning and ending up with some weird effects on text due to the scaling from the overscan.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you are a lot smarter than me on this stuff - but I thought I would put out there that I just bought the mini dvi to VGA adapter and it works. So to however it was that had that idea thanks!!
 
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