What must I do to get my external monitor to not blow things up in size?

[oxband]

I'm connecting an external monitor to my 17"MBP (I'm running Os 10.6.8)

It seems like everything is blown up on the external. When I drag something over to it, I need to drastically shrink it so that I can use it. I imagine there is some simple setting to change in System Preferences to change this, but I'm not sure what it is. Thoughts?

 

[WSR]

I'm connecting an external monitor to my 17"MBP (I'm running Os 10.6.8)

It seems like everything is blown up on the external. When I drag something over to it, I need to drastically shrink it so that I can use it. I imagine there is some simple setting to change in System Preferences to change this, but I'm not sure what it is. Thoughts?

Go to System Preferences then displays. An extra window should open up on the second monitor titled something like "VGA Display". Note it may have a different title if you aren't using a VGA connector.

So at this point you should have 2 windows, one for each monitor. Make sure the 1 for the second monitor has Display selected so that you are seeing different resolutions displayed.

I suspect your 2nd monitor is set to a low resolution. Try different resolutions.

If after changing resolutions the MBP screen comes back but the second monitor doesn't click on "Gather Windows" to get the second monitors display settings window on the MBP screen and try a different resolution.

 

[farmermac]

What's the resolution of your external monitor?

If it's low res (1024x768, 1280x1024) everything will appear big but it's the low resolutions fault.