External monitor problems!

I finally got my new M17x R2 the other day and plugged my Samsung P2770 monitor into the HDMI port (which has been running & looking awesome on my old desktop PC via the DVI input) but I seem to be having some pretty bad issues with my picture quality.

I get a picture but it looks blurry, kinda like the monitor isn't set to it's native resolution (even though it is set to 1920x1080 @ 60hz) and it has a black bar surrounding the image.

I "fixed" the black bar by adjusting the overscan setting in the CCC but all it did was stretch the bad quality image a little bit more to fit the screen.

I plug it back into my desktop PC and it looks awesome & sharp still.

I remember having a similar problem when plugging a PC I built into the hdmi input of a Samsung LED TV - it would look exactly like the problem I am having now until I set that HDMI input to "PC" in the TV's setup menu. After that, it came up perfectly sharp and filling the display properly - I can only assume something similar is happening here now... I can understand the HDTV needing some setting changes to be connected to a PC but this P2770 is just a standard LCD monitor, there aren't any settings to adjust the device connected to each input, it always assumes it's going to be a PC.

I found another thread here that sounds similar but the info in there didn't help the overall display quality issues I'm having.

Has anyone had the same issues running an external monitor on their M17x?

 

The configuration settings I know will differ between operating systems and configuration utilities such as Catalyst Control Center.

I wonder if the settings in the computer's BIOS might have something to do with it, too. I say this because if the display setting is set to LCD & Monitor or LCD & TV it will try to duplicate your native LCD screen resolution to the external display. First try in Windows to disable the internal display after connecting the external monitor and then set the 1920x1080 res. If that doesn't do it, you might try to check in your system BIOS for display settings and change them there as well.

Also try settings in CCC to not force screen expansion or to not automatically set or maintain the aspect ratio of the screen during screen expansion.

 

I can't see anything in the BIOS that looks like it might affect display settings, I'm in the process of trying to find a HDMI->DVI cable/adapter or maybe the same for the VGA output on the M17x to see if it's an issue with the monitor making assumptions about what is plugged into it's HDMI port.

I noticed the CCC seems to detect my monitor as a "DTV" instead of an LCD monitor, could it be changing it's output in any way thinking it's plugged into a TV instead of a monitor? This is the first PC I've had with ATI graphics so I'm not sure of the capabilities of the CCC.

 

It can happen that a monitor cant handle the subtle frequency diffrerence coming out of another computer. There are monitors in my house that wont even let my computer boot if they are plugged in, but work just fine on others! Try multiple setups like plugging it in after loading windows, running the laptop without the battery, and running with Windowsy VGA drivers to see what combiniations work. Most likely the power of the cards in the laptop simply isnt enough to power a clean enough signal for your monitor to handle. Consider trying another cable and a different port with adaptor. Good luck!

 

I solved it!!!! YAAAAY!

I had to resort to something UNTHINKABLE to fix it though, I hope you guys don't think less of me.... I read the manual.... EEEEK lol

There was a hidden option in the setup menu of this monitor that switches the current "digital" display (DVI or HDMI) between "AV" and "PC" mode - I switched it over to the HDMI input and had a look at what that option was set to and, low and behold, it was set to "AV" mode.

As soon as I changed it over to "PC" mode, the overscanning problem and all my blurry edge issues disappeared - obviously that is the monitor's equivalent of the "PC" setting in the HDTVs I've used as monitors in the past.

If anyone else out there has/is getting a Samsung P2770FH 27" monitor, beware of this setting if you want to use the HDMI input.