i845G and 1440x900

[pimpom]

My wife's been complaining that images on the LCD monitor of her
office computer are stretched horizontally - obviously a case of
aspect ratio mismatch. She gave me the model number of her
monitor over the phone and the specs say that its native
resolution is 1440x900. But when I tried to guide her through the
display settings, she said that 1440x900 is not among the
available resolutions (she'd been using 1024x768). I got her to
check Device Manager (Win XP) which told us that it's an i845G
graphics controller. Driver version unknown (it's night here and
she's at home now).

I have much less experience with Intel systems than with AMD. So
can anyone please tell me if the latest drivers can enable
1440x900 with this chip?

 

[noi ance]

My wife's been complaining that images on the LCD monitor of her office
computer are stretched horizontally - obviously a case of aspect ratio
mismatch. She gave me the model number of her monitor over the phone and
the specs say that its native resolution is 1440x900. But when I tried
to guide her through the display settings, she said that 1440x900 is not
among the available resolutions (she'd been using 1024x768). I got her
to check Device Manager (Win XP) which told us that it's an i845G
graphics controller. Driver version unknown (it's night here and she's
at home now).

I have much less experience with Intel systems than with AMD. So can
anyone please tell me if the latest drivers can enable 1440x900 with
this chip?

she should make sure the monitor pre-loaded resolution matches to the vga
card resolution. i845G should match most monitor res.

 

[Paul]

My wife's been complaining that images on the LCD monitor of her
office computer are stretched horizontally - obviously a case of
aspect ratio mismatch. She gave me the model number of her
monitor over the phone and the specs say that its native
resolution is 1440x900. But when I tried to guide her through the
display settings, she said that 1440x900 is not among the
available resolutions (she'd been using 1024x768). I got her to
check Device Manager (Win XP) which told us that it's an i845G
graphics controller. Driver version unknown (it's night here and
she's at home now).

I have much less experience with Intel systems than with AMD. So
can anyone please tell me if the latest drivers can enable
1440x900 with this chip?

You're really at the mercy of Intel and whatever they provide for
drivers.

http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-028366.htm

You can start with the downloadcenter, then read the release
notes to see what they decided to support.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Default.aspx

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=9034&ProdId=757&lang=eng

(Release note for that driver)
http://downloadmirror.intel.com/9034/ENG/relnotes.htm

I tried looking in the download package itself, but don't see a
list of supported resolutions in there. Your wife could try updating
the 845 graphics driver, and that is about the best you can do
(short of plugging in a separate graphics card).

Paul

 

[pimpom]

You're really at the mercy of Intel and whatever they provide
for
drivers.

http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-028366.htm

You can start with the downloadcenter, then read the release
notes to see what they decided to support.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Default.aspx

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=9034&ProdId=757&lang=eng

(Release note for that driver)
http://downloadmirror.intel.com/9034/ENG/relnotes.htm

I tried looking in the download package itself, but don't see a
list of supported resolutions in there.

That's the problem. I'd already checked those pages before
posting my question here, but they weren't much help. I can't
make a trial installation at home as all my computers are
AMD-NVidia.

Your wife could try updating
the 845 graphics driver, and that is about the best you can do

I didn't think of checking the dates of those drivers earlier. I
just did and the drivers and release notes are dated June 2005!
I'm pretty sure her computer is not that old. Which means that
there's a good chance she already has the latest (2005) driver.

(short of plugging in a separate graphics card).

I mentioned that to her today and she said that she will order a
graphics card from supply. I'll have to walk her through the
process of identifying her motherboard tomorrow. ATM I don't know
if she has AGP or PCI-E. Or is the 845G limited to either AGP or
PCI-E? If so, which one?

 

[Paul]

I mentioned that to her today and she said that she will order a
graphics card from supply. I'll have to walk her through the
process of identifying her motherboard tomorrow. ATM I don't know
if she has AGP or PCI-E. Or is the 845G limited to either AGP or
PCI-E? If so, which one?

It is AGP.

To be clear here, there can be motherboards with 845G and 845GV.
The difference would be, 845GV ("graphics value") has no AGP slot
on it. The 845G would have an AGP slot. The manufacturer saves
a few pennies, by using the 845GV. A quick visual check inside
the computer, can clear up whether an AGP connector is available
or not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_chipsets

If the chipset is actually 845G, the AGP slot can run at 4X speed.
And that would be operating at 1.5V. You can get more information
here, about which cards will work with that.

http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html

Not all modern AGP cards are listed there. The author of that page,
has not added the "bridged" AGP cards that have been developed
more recently. There are two bridge chips, Rialto from ATI and
HSI from Nvidia. Those chips convert a PCI Express graphics chip
to operate with an AGP slot. Nvidia has stopped production of HSI,
so any cards available at this date, would be using stockpiled
HSI chips. (It is possible that IBM was making the HSI chips for
Nvidia.) The equivalent at ATI is the Rialto.

This would be an example of a bridged ATI card:

ATI Radeon X1950 Pro Universal 1.5V AGP 3.0 Card

This would be an example of a bridged Nvidia card:

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GS Universal 1.5V AGP 3.0 Card

An 845G motherboard would be "AGP 1.5V Motherboard" and works
with "Universal 1.5V AGP 3.0 Card" cards. So you can use
bridged cards if you happen to find some. So if the motherboard
has the elusive AGP connector, you can plug just about
anything in there.

On a bridged ATI card, Rialto is on the back of the card, and is
surrounded by pink colored protective material. The pink material
may be covering resistors or capacitors on the chip package surface.
It is there to prevent damage, when the card is placed on a table.

http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/14-102-862-Z04?$S640W$

Nvidia cards place the HSI on the front. The HSI bridge in this
example, is under the rectangular heatsink.

http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/14-143-102-S03?$S640W$

There are still a number of older Nvidia AGP chips used on
video cards. Those are real AGP chips, which don't use the
HSI bridge. You won't find the additional heatsink on the
front of the card. But in terms of performance, they would be
many generations older than the current stuff.

The main concern with really old cards, is DVI interface rate.
Chances are, if your wife's computer has a VGA connector, then
you have nothing to worry about. But a lot of cheap LCD monitors
now, are DVI only. Some of the oldest graphics chips, have DVI
interfaces that run at 135MHz max. The specification says they should
run up to 165MHz, for full resolution. Cards with the "defective"
interfaces, have a limitation in the driver. The supported
resolution may not be stated in the documentation. In the
examples I picked here, the odds are good that any card can
do 1440 x 900 on DVI.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Visual_Interface

WXGA+ (1440 x 900) @ 60 Hz (107 MHz)
UXGA (1600 x 1200) @ 60 Hz with GTF blanking (161 MHz) <---- substandard card
can't do this on DVI

Now, if we move forward, and look at the most modern (bridged)
AGP cards for sale, the issue with those, is driver quality.
In some cases, you can only get one decent driver for the card.
One point of view, is that is good enough. But the level of
support for modern AGP cards, doesn't particularly give me
a warm feeling.

Reading the comments from customers, about the AGP cards, will
give you some idea how hard a particular card is to work with.
This would be an example of a high end ATI bridged card. The DVI
connector on some of these newer cards, is dual link capable,
which means they can run an Apple 30" DVI monitor. That is, as
long as you don't have driver problems.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16814161284

So that is a basic overview of what to expect.

Paul