another stupid tech question

[Osmer_Toby]

alright- here's another one for ya:

i want to connect my laptop to a desktop monitor to do my final edits- i tried it, seems that the image quality on the desktop mirrors that of the laptop, despite its greater res capability. is there some kind of setting in the control panel of the laptop i need to tweak?

 

[markc]

I think that will depend on the OS. Some have better multi-monitor support than others. What are you using? It can also depend on the hardware. Some laptops can control the two outputs seperately, but others will treat them the same.

 

[tr0gd0o0r]

When you connect the laptop to the monitor does the screen on the laptop go away does it go into multi-monitor mode where you can see stuff on both monitors. If you can see stuff on both, is one of them empty and you only have one mouse cursor that can go b/t both monitors, or is it a mirror image.

If you seem to have two seperate monitors you need to configure the multi-monitor output somehow (don't really know how cuz i'm in linux
) but if you do a little looking around as i recall its not too hard to find.

 

[havoc]

You might be running into a limitation with the video chip in your laptop. The chip is designed specificlly for a laptop screen, so when you hook it up to a real monitor it may show its limitations. Also are your settings in the control panel set right? If you right click somewhere on your desktop, (not on an icon) then scroll down to properties it will show you your video settings.

 

[Osmer_Toby]

ya, i've gone with multi-mode in both ways- i configured it such that i had a primary and secondary, together giving me a contiguous workspace. was pretty cool, and can see the awesome possibilities if only the quality were better. i then configured it such that the extra monitor exactly mirrored the laptop screen. same lack of quality.

so, i think probably havoc is right, unless i can further tweak something in a video chip setting somewhere, but that perhaps begins to get tedious, which is what i was trying to avoid in the first place.

thanks all :thumbsup:

 

[Harpper]

Osmer, what do you mean when you say lack of quality? Do you mean it's not as sharp, colors wrong, or do you mean it's flickering/blinking? I was curious as to why you are having problems so I hooked up my Dad's PC laptop to my monitor.

The only problem I had was the flickering which is caused by a low refresh rate. My Dad's video card can only handle 60 hertz refresh rate, which is very low. As a reference, I don't like my refresh rate going below 75. A low refresh rate causes your eyes to become tired quicker. As for display quality, it was pretty good. It was a lot better than the one on the laptop screen at any rate. My Dad's laptop is also about 2 years old and it was the base model too, so your laptop's video card should be better.

Try changing the refresh rate and while you are there make sure the CRT option is checked. Also on my Dad's laptop there is a sub menu to change the brightness, gamma, hue, etc. Try to see if your laptop has that feature too if you are having color or brightness problems.

The only other thing I can think of is that it maybe the external CRT monitor itself. I noticed you didn't say it was the same one you use at home. Was this monitor you are using hooked up to a desktop? If it was then compare the desktop with the quality of your laptop hookup. If it's drastically different then it's probably your laptop.

 

[TheProf]

Yes its your graphic card. Most laptop cards can only do about 60 refresh unless you have a new Nvida card or something with atleast 32mb on board. Also you might not be able to set to true color. Lastly is your resolution you might not br able to go above 600x800.

Ofcourse to check all this you need to go to your display properties and look in advanced settings.

 

[Harpper]

Most laptop cards can only do about 60 refresh unless you have a new Nvida card or something with atleast 32mb on board.

I kind of assumed that was the case because that's almost the same for low end desktops with integrated graphics cards. My old PC desktop only got about 70Hz until I installed a better graphics card. I thought Osmer went with a decent or at least mid level graphics card.

Osmer, I thought you went with a Dell Inspiron 5150, or did you go with the base model laptop with an integrated graphics card? The 5150 comes with an Nvidia GeForce card with 32mb minimum memory.

Hooking up a laptop to a CRT has different requirements. Here is an article about refresh rates as it relates to CRT and LCD monitors. LCD monitors don't really have refresh rates so that's why they can get away with a very low refresh rate on cheaper graphics cards.

If you don't want to read the whole article, here's the paragraph that pretty much sums it all up:

Since LCD monitors do not employ phosphors, refresh rate is not a concern. Basically, the transistors in the LCD remain open or closed as needed until the image changes. This can be a point of confusion for some consumers, however, since most graphics cards still "ask for" a refresh rate setting. This is due to the analog nature of existing graphic cards (see "Inputs" section) and their support for CRT displays. While refresh rates do not apply to LCD monitors, most LCDs are set up to accept any settings from 60Hz and above.