Monitor Help Please!

[therocket]

Hey,

so here is the rundown:

I own a 2010 i5 15" MBP screen res 1440x900
i just got a used Samsung 226BW monitor, screen res 1680x1050

I want this monitor to work better! Everything seems stretched on it. It doesnt matter whether I am in mirrored mode or not, it seems like the monitor is just a giant magnifying glass for my MBP. the quality is just not there.

I have tried different resolutions, but the max i can get is 1280x960(mirrored mode and not mirrored). When I try to use the monitors natural 1680x1050 resolution, the screen just stays black. I have tried this in both mirrored and non-mirrored.

I am currently using a MDP-VGA adaptor to connect to the display, but I could get a MDP-DVI adaptor because the monitor has DVI in-but would this make a difference? what is different between a DVI cable and VGA cable "transferring" a screen?

Also, HD video and games seem better to play on the MBP screen because it seems there is more detail, or it is less blurry. I think this is because I cannot get the screen to work with it's natural resolution, am I right?

So basically, I have this beautiful new screen, but I can't seem to get it to work up to it's full potential. Can somebody please help.

Thanks

 

[Alucardx03]

Hey,

so here is the rundown:

I own a 2010 i5 15" MBP screen res 1440x900
i just got a used Samsung 226BW monitor, screen res 1680x1050

I want this monitor to work better! Everything seems stretched on it. It doesnt matter whether I am in mirrored mode or not, it seems like the monitor is just a giant magnifying glass for my MBP. the quality is just not there.

I have tried different resolutions, but the max i can get is 1280x960(mirrored mode and not mirrored). When I try to use the monitors natural 1680x1050 resolution, the screen just stays black. I have tried this in both mirrored and non-mirrored.

I am currently using a MDP-VGA adaptor to connect to the display, but I could get a MDP-DVI adaptor because the monitor has DVI in-but would this make a difference? what is different between a DVI cable and VGA cable "transferring" a screen?

Also, HD video and games seem better to play on the MBP screen because it seems there is more detail, or it is less blurry. I think this is because I cannot get the screen to work with it's natural resolution, am I right?

So basically, I have this beautiful new screen, but I can't seem to get it to work up to it's full potential. Can somebody please help.

Thanks

Speaking from personal experience, VGA looks like absolute crap compared to DVI. Both are usable, but the difference is night/day.

 

[therocket]

Just incase anybody has the same issue, I just got my DVI adaptor in the mail today and now my monitor works flawlessly with my MBP. A whole lot better then the VGA. I have no black sidebars on either display when or when not in mirror mode. Picture quality is also a million times better and I am able to use the natural resolution of the display.

So morral of the story: use DVI if it is available for your monitor.

as a side note though, my VGA adaptor was very finiky when I would move my laptop around. Sometimes the screen would go black just from subtle movement. So after I got my DVI, I took apart the VGA adaptor it turns out that 2 little cables were loose, and one was pretty much disconnected from the MDP jack. Not sure if this had anything to do with the issues that I was having, but i thought that I would throw it in there that i may have just had a faulty product...