Need help setting up my monitor, wont detect native resolution on my notebook

I just bought a new Samsung Monitor model 2333sw. I hooked it up to my tablet pc, a Toshiba R400 and its driving me mad. The Toshiba R400 has the 950 GMA chipset so it should be able to run the native resolution just fine, which is 1900x1080.

I'm connecting this via VGA and the best it'll let me do is 1600x1050. If I uncheck the box that says "hide resolutions monitor can't do" it'll open the option for 1900x1200.

I connected the monitor then ran the windows update,btw I'm on Vista business 32bit, and the monitors drivers popped up. I installed those, rebooted, and still nothing. I went to device manager and I picked my chipset and told it to look for the latest drivers and it says its up to date.

I was thinking the monitor was broken so I decided to hook it up to my old desktop which I hadn't used for about a year now and it works just fine! I picked the native resolution and it looks great. This thing has an intel extreme graphics 2. It's about 6 years old and was bought on budget, an emachine.

The monitor isn't broken, but something is wrong, obviously. Anyone have some hints? I'm going nuts here.

 

vga will not do 1080p!!!!
lol try HDMI or possible DVI...
VGA will limit you to 1600x1050...

 

Then explain how I was able to take the same cable and plug it into my old desktop and do 1080p no problem.

 

Did you do a virus scan lately? What antivirus software do you use? I suggest Kaspersky!!

 

The nature of this forum does not allow me to express my feelings... IT'S THE MONITOR NOTHING HAVING TO DO WITH A VIRUS (and NOD32 is way better). Please provide info only if you have some POSSIBLE cause in mind. How old are you?

Jeez... anyway on the matter now...

According to the manufacturer's website, the 950 GMA can run to resolutions up to 2048x1536. However it's annarguably weak so I don't know how good it would run at those resolutions.

However, if your external screen supprots the resoolutions you mentioned you should first use the "Extend My Desktop to this monitor" (and set as main monitor) option having the external screen selected in the Display Settings.

Is your external monitor just "mirroring" your laptop monitor (showing the same stuff at the same resolution)?

If your external screen is just duplicating what you see in your laptop screen then the external screen is limited to your laptops screen native resolution. You must make the 2 screens function separately making the 950 GMA sending a different signal to both screens than the same one.

Try experimenting a bit and you'll get it...

 

I've been experimenting for 6 hours and I'm about to destroy the monitor. I already tried every possible combination from mirroring to extending. That's not it. The computer refuses to accept the monitor as a 16:9 input. The 950 gma is weak but handling a 1080p resolution should not be a problem for it.

 

Don't worry about destroying the monitor, monitors dont get destroyed that easily

Indeed, it SHOULD be able to reach that resoltuion for normal operation without a problem... That's the only thing that came to my mind...

Can you please state if your monitors are "mirrored" as I said before?

 

Try throwing the monitor off a building

"Dodge this!" - Trinity, The Matrix

 

I'm not running it mirrored because that would obviously limit me to the resolution of my laptop's screen. I've tried running it as my main monitor and as an extended monitor and no dice.

And I'm not worried about destroying the monitor from missing with the drivers or resolutions, I'm worried my fists might try reasoning with it.

 

lol about the destruction thing

well... I can't think of anything else my friend... :S

 

I figured out the problem. I need to give the guys at Toshiba who wrote the bio video drivers a kick in the nuts. They put in a check that makes sure I can't use a 16:9 monitor. If this was a 16:10 monitor with a 1920x1200 resolution I wouldn't have wasted 8 hours of my life.

Instead I used a program that lets you write custom drivers for intel machines and I'm now running my monitor at 1918x1080.

I can't believe someone would restrict what aspect ratio your monitor can run at, ridiculous.

 

I have a Dell D430, which spec-wise is very similar to the R400. Like you I wasn't able to use 1920x1080 at first, until I updated to the latest GMA950 drivers from Intel.com. Not sure how up-to-date Toshiba updates their drivers, but you may want to give Intel.com a try.

 

Second this. Uninstall your current drivers before you install the Intel ones or the installer will tell you to get Toshiba drivers.