Alethea said:
I am looking for some assistance regarding my Acer 19" Widesreen monitor. I
just bought this wonderful monitor and when I tried to set it to the
resolution 1440X900, well, it dosen't exist. My operating system is Windows
XP home edition version 2002. I am going to assume that my computer has all
the updates.
My question is; would this be a video card issue or if this is a computer
hard drive issue. Some assistance would be greatly appreciated!
Video interfaces have programmable resolution options. Sometimes
the driver does not provide a mode the user is looking for, in
which case, a later driver might include it. Tools like Powerstrip,
from Entechtaiwan, make it possible to set custom resolution values,
but this does not work for every video device, and is more
likely to work with ATI or Nvidia video cards.
In some cases, this is an issue with the DVI versus the VGA connector.
Some video cards are known to not support high resolutions on DVI
digital output properly (due to the DVI output being non-compliant
and unable to operate at the full 165MHz pixel clock rate). So the
driver may be modified, to hide the fact that the hardware is
inferior. The VGA analog is more likely to be able to do it, when
the DVI digital cannot. (One of the reasons, if I'm shopping
for an LCD monitor, I want both VGA and DVI on it, so I have
the flexibility to choose if there is trouble.)
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1367922,00.asp
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/tft-connection,931-18.html
The monitor is a plug and play device. The EDID information, which
comes across the DDC/CI serial interface on the monitor cable,
carries plug and play information from the monitor. Sometimes, the
driver for the video, is not using the information properly or
doesn't seem to see it. In those cases, sometimes the symptoms
change, when a "monitor driver" is used. This consists of a
tiny download, from the LCD monitor manufacturer. One thing
it has, is a registry entry for the maximum monitor resolution.
It also contains a color management file, intended to make
pictures render in their true colors, in applications
like Photoshop.
Not every monitor maker provides the drivers. Some insist,
that the plug and play interface on the monitor, is all
that the user could possibly need. They are wrong of
course, because otherwise, we would not be looking
for the stupid monitor driver.
On my own computer, the video driver did not "recognize" the
monitor initially, treating it as a generic monitor. Once
I installed the 6KB download from NEC for the monitor
driver, at least the monitor brand name and model number
are now displayed in the Display control panel.
Since you've provided neither the model number of the
Acer monitor, nor details about the video card (or
in the case of integrated motherboard video, the
motherboard model), it isn't possible to provide
further comments.
To see the EDID information coming from the monitor,
you can use this application from Entechtaiwan.com .
It should be showing the 1440x900, and if so, then
at least the monitor is telling the computer, what
it is capable of.
"Monitor Asset Manager"
http://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/moninfo.shtm
HTH,
Paul
