M1330 External Monitor Resolution Reset

I have a 22 inch external monitor that I use with the m1330 at home. It works great until I lock windows, close the m1330 lid, or reset the computer, then the external one's resolution changes to the max resolution of the laptop.

That's down from 1680 by 1050 to 1280 by 800

As you can imagine, that doesn't look very good. I have the 8400m in my m1330, and the monitor is a relatively cheap chi mei from newegg, if that helps, does anyone know why it keeps changing its resolution? Or even better, does anyone know how to fix it?

Is the laptop to blame or the monitor? I'm using an hdmi to dvi cable to connect them, is that the issue?

 

I've actually seen it go the other way from an W-SXGA+ (1680x1050) screen in my old Inspiron connected to a Dell 1280x1024 19" LCD. I've seen the notebook's internal LCD step down in resolution to match the Dell external LCD.

I think the first thing to check is to see if your monitor is recognized as plug-and-play, or something generic of the sort, or as a Chi Mei whatever it is. In your display properties, under resolution settings, it will either say "pnp monitor" on "Graphics Card name", or, preferrably, "Chi mei xxxx" on "Graphics Card Name". You want the latter. The drivers should be on the CD (do Update Driver in Device Manager under the monitor's properties and point it to the CD).

 

It is recognized as a PNP Monitor, the CD has no drivers and there don't appear to be drivers anywhere else on the intarwebs.

There's nothing on the CD except an engrish manual and adobe acrobat reader of all things.

Did you mean update my graphics card drivers?

 

I'm doing the standard pre-purchase Googling for potential issues before getting an M1330 and just wanted to check whether Bassem88's problem is an isolated case, since I'm going to be using mine with an external display a lot of the time.

Can any other M1330 w/ 8400GS owners confirm no problems connecting an external display through HDMI>DVI and running at the external display's native res? No issues when opening/closing the lid or rebooting as described above?

The external monitor I'll be using is a Dell 1905FP with the laptop closed most of the time (won't be using extended desktop or or anything like that).

I noticed other posts like this one suggest it should be fine, but I just wanted to double check before spending a lot of money

 

I got the problem fixed ages ago, I don't remember how though . Called XPS tech support and they helped me sort it out.

 

Punch your monitor. That should fix it.

 

Thanks for the swift reply

Strangely enough after having had the M1330 at the top of my list for the past week, minutes ago I just started reading about the whining problem - that's a deal breaker for me. Pity because the M1330 looks pretty darn good otherwise. Think I'm gonna upgrade the RAM in the old Compaq I'm typing on now and keep it for a while longer.