vostro 1500 external LCD grainy

Just got a new vostro 1500, 2gb/80gb/1.6GHzDuo/WinXP to replace my old Inspiron 1100 1gb/40gb/2.4GHzP4/WinXP. I'm loving the new lappy. However, I just noticed that when I output to my 20" Dell LCD WS VGA with 1680x1050, the Vostro quality is much worse (grainy text) than the older inspiron. Here are Gcard spec's...

Inspiron 1100: Intel 82845G Graphics Controller
Vostro 1500: NVidia GeForce 8400M GS

Can somebody help explain the quality degrade with what I thought was a much better 128Meg NVidia graphics card? Cheers.

 

are you running your external monitor at native res?

 

Graininess is a property of the LCD, it has nothing to do with the VGA card. I think what you are referring to is a blurred (unsharp) image. To get a crisp image, you have to run at the native resolution. Check your resolution and make sure that it is set to 1680x1050 (if thats the native res of your monitor)

 

Thanks for the responses. Yes, Dell 2005FPW native is 1680x1050. I'm running both cards with this resolution through the VGA, and the Vostro is much worse (much less crisp) than my 4 yr old Inspiron 1100. I'm disappointed with the 128M NVidia because of this, and am hoping there's some settings I can use to improve.

 

im not sure about this...ive ran my lcd on 2 video cards...mx440 (years back) and then for years a 6600gt. ran beautiful. with my vostro pluged into it, it is grainy. it really is. i switch back to my desktop, and its perfect. Its a sony lcd btw.

 

So graininess can be due to the video card? And maybe some of those who've had their screen replaced and still had grain actually had a faulty video card?

 

I'm thinking its possible.

 

What the..........

 

think this thread got off track... same LCD, two graphics cards (e.g., laptops). At same resolution, old Inspiron (Intel GC) looks much better (crisper) than my new Vostro (NVidia).

I believe it's a driver difference. I'm going to check Dell for new NVidia Vostro driver. The Intel Driver on my old Inspiron 1100 could be better.

 

there are no new drivers. and the modded drivers look the same also.