TZ external monitor resolution?

There have been several posts in other TZ threads (particularly the really long ones so the posts are 'hidden' by now...) on this topic but after reading the statement about the TZ being able to support higher than 1600x1200 external display resolution (see link/thread below), I made the decsion to go ahead and buy one.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=2092143#post2092143


Well, much to my dismay, I am only able to get up to 1600x1200 when connecting it to my Dell 24" display whose native resolution is 1920x1200.

BIG DISAPPOINTMENT.

Wondering if any other TZ owners have been successful at getting higher resolutions?

I've tried everything so far short of installing a monitor profile/driver (inf) for this specific monitor but wouldn't think that should be necessary with Vista...?

Thanks.

 

Have you tried this application?

http://entechtaiwan.net/util/ps.shtm

EDIT: Also take a look at this

http://forums.entechtaiwan.net/viewtopic.php?t=5726

and

http://isnwiki.jot.com/WikiHome/Articles/111111431

 

I didn't realize that Entech had a beta version of Powerstrip that has some support for internal Intel graphics (didn't use to support it at all). I'll give it a try and see if it works (fingers crossed!).

Thanks for the lead.

 

I would like to know if this is possible too. dwhitney, would you be willing to post your findings if you try inderteminate's suggestions?

 

Sure.

I actually downloaded and installed powerstrip (the referenced beta version) and have only had 5 minutes to tinker with it so far. Powerstrip has never been an easy tool to use/figure out and I'm still scratching my head. I'll keep trying and post what I find out.

 

Agreed. Powerstrip looks to be somewhat intimidating. Good luck sorting through it. That EDID driver hack Indeterminate linked to looks even more complicated I'll be interested to know how you make out. Thanks for being the pioneer on this one. If it works out I imagine it would tip quite a few people's TZ buying decisions for whom external monitor resolution is paramount.

 

For any TZ owners wanting to see if they can get high resolutions working on external displays with the TZ, there is a good walk-through on how to use Powerstrip at http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/powerstrip.html

Indeterminate also suggested (see above) an alternative method that seems like it would take more advanced skills, but looks like it might work. The link that explains it is: http://isnwiki.jot.com/WikiHome/Articles/111111431

I would be interested to know if anyone is able to get over 1600x1200 flowing to an external display from the TZ. I bet others would too judging by the number of views of this thread, so if you make any progress please post back your findings or let us know what you've tried.

 

Just a quick update... I haven't had a chance to continue tinkering yet as I'm out of town and won't be back to where my 24" monitor is until 8/13. I'll give it a shot then and report back.

 

I just got my TZ today and have successfully connected to my Dell 20" (2007WFP) monitor at 1680x1050. It is on external monitor display only. Regular word processing is fine, however I do detect a slight framerate drop when playing DivX avi fullscreen. Its so small that I think it might even be psychological. I tested a DVD movie and it was worse than the avi file. It is only very slight, but its there.

Oh and this is with just installing the TZ160C graphics drivers from sony usa. Didn't need to use powerstrip or anything like that, just default stuff.

 

thanks for testing it out on your Dell 20". How's the performance on dual monitor mode using your monitor?

 

Um, guys. 1680x1050 is SMALLER than 1600x1200, so it's no wonder that it worked on his 20" monitor.

1900x1200 = 2280000 Pixels
1600x1200 = 1920000 Pixels
1680x1050 = 1764000 Pixels

 

Just tried dual display (clone, not extended) and it was fine. Because of the lowered resolution 1366x768 on my 20" videos/dvd did not get the framerate drops I was experiencing with single output at 1680x1050.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think I can dispaly 1366x768 on notebook while outputing 1680x1050 on external.
Since 1680x1050 single display video playback was borderline acceptable with slight jitters, I'd imagine 1600x1200 or above would be worse.

 

Will the TZ support my 22" 1680Z1050 Samsung display?

 

Yes it will.

 

Partial success to report....

With the beta version of Powerstrip, I have been able to get my TZ to run a 24" Dell external monitor at 1920x1200 pixels and do it well. However what I can't seem to do is to get it to boot up and run it - I have to fiddle with Powerstrip everytime (and it is a lot of work). It could be that I am not doing something right but I'm not sure.

Given that Powerstrip is such a difficult tool to understand, I'm not sure I can accurately even portray what I have done to get this far but I'll make an attempt.

Loaded powerstrip - have to rightclick it (I'm running Vista unfortunately...) and run as administrator to get it to be able to make the necessary changes to the OS.

I loaded the settings that were defined already in the EDID info on the custom resolutions screen. Rebooted. Still didn't work. However while I was tinkering with Powerstrip after rebooting, I also opened up the standard Windows display properties and went into the advanced settings and unchecked the box that says to hide settings that aren't compatible with the monitor. When I did that, I was able to change the display resolution to the full 1920x1200 (note this option wasn't available until I ran Powerstrip...).

HOWEVER... and this is where things still seem to be a bit screwy... Windows shows the settings to be 1920x1200 @ 90Hz refresh rate. A refresh rate that is obviousy WAY too high for the LCD monitor (should be down in the <65 range for this set). However it appears that when I change it to this resolution, it is actually running at an acceptable refresh rate. When I reboot however, the display pops up the error that it can't display at the requested settings so I think it is only actually trying to set the refresh rate at 90Hz upon a system reboot. I have to go back in an reset everything and start all over to get it to work for that working session again.

I've been unable to figure out where in Powerstrip I can change the refresh to be something like 60Hz (the same as all the other standard resolution settings are for other resolutions in the display properties...). There are lots of locations for different refresh rate settings but they don't seem to coorelate directly to the one setting that Windows is reporting using so I am kind of stuck at this point. If could just get this resolution setting definition to use whatever refresh rate that it currently is when I first set it in Powerstrip (PS reports 59Hz but Windows Display control panel lists the mode as 1920x1200 @ 90Hz...!) all the time, I believe that I would have this resolved but I am unable to figure out how to do that.

Any suggestions?

 

What about the quality of the signal coming out of the TZ?

I am going to connect it to my plasma hdtv, wich is very critical with signal quality.

 

Picture quality on my dell @ 1920x1200 is very crisp (much more so than I would expect from a non-digital connection).

 

Update... it now appears to be working properly and may have been all along. What appears to be occuring is that when the computer first boots up (or goes to the system log in screen after the display has shut off due to inactivity), the display is unable to display *only* the Windows log-in screen (whatever resolution/settings it is trying to run at) but I can easily get around that by simply logging in (blindly - I'm using the TPM so I just swipe my finger...) and voila! Once the actual Vista desktop loads, the 1920x1200 screen appears as normal.

I'm calling this one good for now and will report back if I encounter any further problems/issues.

 

This certainly seems like good news. Anybody try running HD video at 1920x1080 or more to an ext. display from the TZ yet? Can it handle it? Can a good result be obtained?

 

dwhitney,

That sounds great, I'm having a problem to run my 24" @ 1900x1200.
I was testing Powerstip before I found this thread but I never succeeded to go above 1680x1050.

I've done a XP downgrade (included a BIOS update) on my TZ. After that I was able to set the resolution to 1680x1050 but when running Vista I could only set it to 1600x1200.

I've uncheked "hide unsupported resolutions" but I never came as far as you so I uninstalled Powerstip.

What's said about this is that the Sony rep. that I spoke to before I bhought the TZ, he told me that it wasn't a problem. My nx7400 is running the same chip but with slightly more VRAM and it supports 1900x1200. So I bhought the notebook with the belive that it should work straight out of the box .

If you got some time to give some pointers on how you did it. That would be really helpful.

Thanks

 

EDIT:

I had forgotten what native resolution my LCD supported.

When I changed to 1920x1200 it worked!

Thanks for driving me to test powerstrip again

EDIT:

Another edit, the signal from the tz is not that clear when running 1920x1200 on my 24" Dell monitor
However, I'm not 100% sure if it is the 945GM chipset or my monitor. When the monitor is doing an auto adjustment of the picture I can see that it produces a nice signal. When the adjusment is ready the picture gets a bit blurry.

I'm considering to downgrade my LCD to a 20" or a 22" screen :/

 

I am having a different problem...

When I connect an external monitor to my TZ I can get it to display at its native res of 1680 x 1050. When I open up a game like counter-strike, I can set the option for widescreen at 1680 x 1050.

However, when I try to play the game on the TZ's 11" screen, it only allows me to use 1024x768 and the displaymode option to select widescreen is grayed out.

I downgraded to xp, but am not sure why the TZ lcd isnt letting me run the game at that res. Any help? I have 1366 x 768 working fine within windows... its just when playing the game.