External Lcd Panel Resolution

[PattayaDavid]

I have two older model lBM laptops.  One is a 3 1/2 year old IBM T40p and the other is a

7 year old IBM A20p.  The T40p has an ATI Mobility Fire GL 9000 video card with 64MB RAM.  The A20p has an ATI 128 AGP 2x with 16MB RAM.  Both computer displays have a native resolution of 1400 x 1050.  This is the maximum resolution found when I checked 

he Display

Panel settings.

I am interested in purchasing a 22" Samsung 226BW wide angle LCD panel to be used as a second monitor.  The native resolution for this LCD display is 1680 x 1050.  Can I use this

display with either or both of my laptops?  Will the Samsung LCD driver allow for my video cards to adapt (accept) the higher native resolutions?

If not, would the 19" Samsung 940BW wide angle LCD panel with a native resolution of

1440 x 950 better suit my laptop video cards?

Thanks,

Pattaya David

[Guest Reimar]

normaly should be ok but it's depend on the max the Graphic cardin the Laptop can do.

Why not take b oth laptop to check before buy? after checking make your decission!

[waldwolf]

PattayaDavid - Setting a display to a resolution lower than the native resolution will cause [a] the monitor to use a reduced visible area of the screen or it will have to do what is technically called "Extrapolation".

Using "Extrapolation", the system attempts to blend multiple pixels together to produce an image similar to what you would see if the monitor were to display it at the given resolution, however, this may result in fuzzy images. In other words, normally blank areas of a screen are filled (or stretched) using blended data, resulting in reduced sharpness, colour distortion and/or other undesirable visual errors.

As Reimer correctly suggests, it would be wise to test both laptops on the monitor(s) you fancy, as certain monitors are better than others at running "outside" their native resolution. Digital vs. Analog output/input may also aid (or hinder) the "viewable" image, when running outside the native specifications.

If you plan to do gaming, viewing videos or the like, be sure to test the monitor(s) by running such programs. Static content when displayed may look good, but constantly changing data may result in unacceptable "smear".

waldwolf

[solo siam]

No way monitors on laptops that old are running that resolution natively anyhow, The graphics cards in those old machines will likely struggle to run 1280x720 properly (for games etc...) although desktop work it might be fine.

[PattayaDavid]

No way monitors on laptops that old are running that resolution natively anyhow, The graphics cards in those old machines will likely struggle to run 1280x720 properly (for games etc...) although desktop work it might be fine.

I bought both of these laptops brand new.  They both were the top of the line models for their respective year at the time of purchase.  The A20p (p respresents the professional model for graphics & CAD users) has a 15" display and the T40p has a 14.1" display.  I own these laptops, used them for many years and can assure you that they indeed came with an WXGA native resolution of 1400 / 1050 32 bit color, predecessor to the XGA 1600 x 1200 resolution displays. Actually, when I bought the T40p, XGA 1600 x 1200 resolution displays were available on 15" displays from practically all manufacturers includeing IBM.  To date, they still look pretty good for their age and neither of them has a single dead pixel.

I guess I could take my laptop with me to try out the perspective monitor, but I'm not sure that they would let me install the drivers andconnect the brand n

w monitor for testing purposes.  I would think that they would be quite reluctan

 to do so, just my opinion.

Pattaya David

[A_Traveller]

If memory serves, the a20p will run external monitors at 1280*1024 under Windows. Not sure about the 40. Didnt these both come with the manual on-board [iBM ThinkPad access key] which would have external driver capabilities in it?

Regards

[ballbreaker]

I have two older model lBM laptops. One is a 3 1/2 year old IBM T40p and the other is a

7 year old IBM A20p. The T40p has an ATI Mobility Fire GL 9000 video card with 64MB RAM. The A20p has an ATI 128 AGP 2x with 16MB RAM. Both computer displays have a native resolution of 1400 x 1050. This is the maximum resolution found when I checked the Display

Panel settings.

I am interested in purchasing a 22" Samsung 226BW wide angle LCD panel to be used as a second monitor. The native resolution for this LCD display is 1680 x 1050. Can I use this

display with either or both of my laptops? Will the Samsung LCD driver allow for my video cards to adapt (accept) the higher native resolutions?

If not, would the 19" Samsung 940BW wide angle LCD panel with a native resolution of

1440 x 950 better suit my laptop video cards?

Thanks,

Pattaya David

Check the supported resolutions on each laptop by opening the display properties. You then select "settings" tab and then "advanced" button. Now select "adapter" tab and look for "list all modes" button and select. I suspect the older laptop will not support the display you wish to buy but the newer one might.

[autonomous_unit]

My three year old T41 has a Radeon Mobility 9000 (M9) graphics chip with 32MB video RAM and it definitely supports 1680x1050 on the external VGA as I did that recently for a few weeks. In my case, I had the same desktop on the internal 1400x1050 display and scrolled around the larger 1680x1050 space, but I am sure that was a driver option I selected (clone mode) and separate displays was also possible. This was with Linux, but clearly the hardware supports it.

You should check your own hardware info, but I suspect there is little difference between your T40p and my T41, unless yours had a better chipset. I don't think the graphics capabilities changed much (if at all) between T40-T42 series.

[waldwolf]

.........I guess I could take my laptop with me to try out the perspective monitor, but I'm not sure that they would let me install the drivers andconnect the brand new monitor for testing purposes. I would think that they would be quite reluctant to do so, just my opinion.

Pattaya David

Depending on your operating system, you may not need to install new drivers in order to run the 226BW. The following is a quote from Samsung Support:

You do not need to install Samsung drivers for your monitor in XP. The Plug and Play drivers provided in Windows XP work just as well. The only drawback is that you won't see the name of your monitor (for example, SyncMaster171v) in the Device Manager under Monitor. Instead, you will see something along the lines of Plug and Play Monitor.

If the store won't let you "test" your system on their display model, find another vendor who will.

waldwolf

[PattayaDavid]

My three year old T41 has a Radeon Mobility 9000 (M9) graphics chip with 32MB video RAM and it definitely supports 1680x1050 on the external VGA as I did that recently for a few weeks. In my case, I had the same desktop on the internal 1400x1050 display and scrolled around the larger 1680x1050 space, but I am sure that was a driver option I selected (clone mode) and separate displays was also possible. This was with Linux, but clearly the hardware supports it.

You should check your own hardware info, but I suspect there is little difference between your T40p and my T41, unless yours had a better chipset. I don't think the graphics capabilities changed much (if at all) between T40-T42 series.

From what I can tell, I do run basically the same Radeon Mobility 9000 graphics chipset except with 64MB versus 32MB due to its open GL design for CAD users.  I also have the 62P4551 mini-port replicator with (4) USB and a DVI connection so I should be able to connect the external LCD up digitally.  My concern is that the specifications for the DVI port says that it supports up to 1280x1024.  I'm assuming that the limitiation applies to the max resolution available during the time of manufacture more than 3 years ago.  At the time, I don't believe that higher resolution monitors were available or at least prevalent and that wide screen models were not available at all.  I would hope that the present version of Windows XP and/or the LCD driver software would extend that capability, what do you think?  I also think that the LCD would look and perform better connected via DVI versus VGA.  By the way, how did the external LCD perform on your T-41?

Thanks,

Pattaya David

[autonomous_unit]

It is possible that the older DVI link would have limited resolution and that the VGA output could go higher. Either the DVI link itself or the port it uses to get framebuffer data could conceivably be a limiting factor in terms of the number of pixels/second which eventually limits your practical screen size. I really don't know how to answer that except to try it out (if you aren't willing to believe the written specs).

It looked pretty good in analog. I was actually surprised, and even the LCD sub-pixel antialiasing looked OK except for an odd artifact here or there. Particularly given that it was a new LCD it looked better than the internal screen which has a pretty worn out back light! Well, except that the 1400x1050 display is a pretty fine pitch compared to most desktop LCDs... the analog inputs for LCDs have improved a lot since the last time I tried something like this, about 5 years ago.

[PattayaDavid]

Thanks for all of the informed replies. I guess, as some of you have already suggested, I will have to take my laptop to the computer shops and test it with the various LCD monitors. The bad thing here in Pattaya is that the main computer shops are located in Tukcom. The shops generally don't stock the larger and more expensive LCD panels such as the Samsung 226BW. They each tell me that I have to order it. This poses two problems. One, I don't know if it will work properly with my laptop and two, I can't examine the screen ahead of time to determine if it has an S or A panel or if it has any dead pixels. Before I order one, I will inform them that I will only accept the S panel with no dead pixels, otherwise I won't purchase it. Most likely they won't order it for me and I'll have to take a drive to Bangkok myself.

[A_Traveller]

Given what you are using to drive this, though you may have other kit/requirements unmentioned, have you considered the Benq FP222? About 9,800 in Bangkok presently, and in my view a good panel, especially if it's not being driven to warp factor 9 :-)

Regards

Spec.

Display Size: 22 inches

display_technology: LCD

display_resolution_maximum: 1680 x 1050

image_brightness: 300 cd/m2

image_contrast_ratio: 700:1

response_time: 5 Milliseconds

video_input: Digital Visual Interface (DVI), Analogue

Warranty: 3 years warranty

[solo siam]

Why not just buy a home PC?, I'm sure an under 10,000 baht PC would outperform both notebooks by about 400%.