Using External Monitor with G50VT-X1

Hi all,

I'm new to the boards so thanks in advance. I recently purchased a G50VT-X! (which is excellent btw). My question is using an external LCD monitor with it.

Running Vista 64. The on-board resolution is that funky 1366x786 which is fine but I would like to hook up to a larger external monitor and bypass using the on-board. My old LCD max res is 1280x1024, so it looks kinda funky, so I dont want to use that.

My question is - if I purchase say a widescreen 22" monitor which has a higher resolution than 1366x786 that the laptop has, when I plug that badboy in, will the laptop detect that the new monitor is capable of a higher resolution and adjust the display settings to allow for setting the resolution to the native on the 22"???

Would I have to download the vid drivers for that monitor onto the laptop and if so, will the laptop handle both sets of vid drivers for 2 different displays??.


Hope this doesn't sound dumb, and thanks in advance


Mike

 

Yea it will handle pretty large resolutions -- you can run an external monitor at native resolution plus the LCD with no problem. You won't need new video drivers for that, but it's best to be on the latest anyway. You can set up multiple monitors or just choose which display to use as your primary in the nvidia control panel. You can also use Fn+F8 to toggle between displays. Hope this helps.

Also -- your video driver is only for the video card, each monitor has a driver (usually the generic windows driver - 'PnP Monitor') but that almost never requires separate installation -- it'll be automagic -- windows will "see" it once it gets plugged in or turned on.

 

hey thanks very much..... I appreciate the help... yeah I meant the monitor drivers before btw... but I gotcha....

tks again

 

Yea, rare to need a driver for the monitor, but it does happen sometimes.

Here's the latest nvidia drivers for vista 64, they do improve the performance quite a bit, make sure to uninstall the existing nvidia drivers and reboot before installing the new ones. Your resolution and whatnot will be out of whack until you reboot after the new driver install.

http://us.download.nvidia.com/Windows/179.28/179.28_notebook_winvista_64bit_beta.exe

 

Even with your old LCD monitor, 1280x1024 should be supported through VGA out. Check your display settings, you should be able to go crom 1366x786 to 1280x1024. You dont need to update your drivers.

And yes, if you get a new 22 inch lcd the new res is gonna be supported too.

Cheers

 

Thanks all...


One more silly question... I have a work laptop with XP pro, and when I get in to work I hook up an external 17" monitor... when I close the lid on my work laptop (an HP series)... the output goes immediately to my work 17" monitor at the proper resolution.

In playing with my G50vt-x1 and my Samsung SyncMaster 930b (1280x1024).. when I close the lid on the laptop, It shuts down (or maybe is hibernating) the laptop. Is there a setting somewhere I need to change on the G50 to prevent this from happening??.. seems like in XP it's pretty cookie-cutter , or maybe I'm just lazy... I'd like the output to appear on the external monitor when I close the laptop lid.... and turn that (the laptop monitor) off...



tks again

 

Yeah, go to the control panel to power options, to 'edit plan settings' and then 'change advanced settings' and set the lid action for your current power profile (and repeat for any other profile that you use -- I know, it's annoying).

What you're looking for is under 'power buttons and lid'

 

Random related question. Would it be better to go trough a HDMI-DVI converter than the stock VGA?

 

Well as I see it you are going from digital to digital, VGA is analog... So in my opinion it would still be better going HDMI-DVI...

 

Absolutely, go digital whenever possible!