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greendragon

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 28, 2006
104
0
everthing just different? i just hooked up my new dell 20 inch wide screen and things seem all stretched, my old regular 19 inch seemed fine. or, is it something i need to get used to?
thanks
 
Thats probably because it is stretched ;).

Look in System Preferences==>Display and choose one that doesn't say stretched and fills the whole screen (no black bars).

I'm going to bed now, so if that doesn't work to help others to help you what type of computer have you got, and what screen resolution are you using?
 
You need to change the resolution to what the display is meant to display at. For a 20" display its probably some where around 1680x1050. If you don't see that in the list then your computer doesn't have a video card strong enough to push video at the native resolution for that display. If thats the case you would have to live with it at that point unless you have a Mac with a removable video card.

What computer is this hooking up to?
 
You need to change the resolution to what the display is meant to display at. For a 20" display its probably some where around 1680x1050. If you don't see that in the list then your computer doesn't have a video card strong enough to push video at the native resolution for that display. If thats the case you would have to live with it at that point unless you have a Mac with a removable video card.

What computer is this hooking up to?

right now a dell 3000, in the coming weeks a macbook.
 
Yeah that is probably the problem then. The video in those cheap Dells suck, like the whole computer. Most of them won't use more than 8MB max for video. So it probably won't push a 20" display at full resolution. The MacBook should be ok for that. So you'll have to live with it for now.

BTW...You'll have to purchase a Mini-DVI to DVI adapter in order for that Dell display to work. If the display doesn't have a DVI port on it (which I'm almost 100% certain it does), then you'll need to purchase a Mini-DVI to VGA adapter. The MacBook doesn't come with those adapters like the MacBook Pro does. You can buy them off Apple's website or in any Apple Retail Store.
 
You need to change the resolution to what the display is meant to display at. For a 20" display its probably some where around 1680x1050. If you don't see that in the list then your computer doesn't have a video card strong enough to push video at the native resolution for that display. If thats the case you would have to live with it at that point unless you have a Mac with a removable video card.

What computer is this hooking up to?

1680x1050 is better but text is very small.
 
Its going to be small. The higher the resolution, the smaller the icons and text are on the screen because the pixels are smaller. You can adjust what text size but I can't remember off hand how to do it in Windows as like everything else in Windows, its more difficult than it needs to be.
 
Its going to be small. The higher the resolution, the smaller the icons and text are on the screen because the pixels are smaller. You can adjust what text size but I can't remember off hand how to do it in Windows as like everything else in Windows, its more difficult than it needs to be.

thanks mklos, i'll keep playing with it.
 
i decided to switch back to my 19 inch, it's a hyundai l90d+. are all wide screen monitors difficult? i figured i'd give one a try but wow, i didn't like it. now, i gotta return it... bummer.
 
i decided to switch back to my 19 inch, it's a hyundai l90d+. are all wide screen monitors difficult? i figured i'd give one a try but wow, i didn't like it. now, i gotta return it... bummer.

define difficult, you stated your 19" was a wide one.... im confused. i have a 19" widescreen LG monitor and its great on a mac, a friend of mine has both the 20" wide and the 24" dell displays with no problem, if the text is too small you can change that, or it just takes a while to get used to, when i first got my widescreen monitor it took time to get used to. is alot wider then you think it will be.

if i were you i wouldn't return it. SELL THE CRAPPY DELL! and get a mac that knows how to display a proper picture.
:apple:
 
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