M14x Can?t Get Monitor?s Native Resolution

Just got delivery of M14x (a week early!), and I’m trying to get it to play nice with my monitor (which has worked flawlessly with my old Dell laptop for a couple years). The monitor’s native resolution is 1920x1200. When I select that with my M14x, I get a desktop that is missing about the first 3” from the left. IOW, I cannot see the Start button nor the first two icons on the task bar, and anything on the desktop is shifted to the left. Otherwise, it looks fine. The right edge of the desktop (with Notification Area, etc) is properly aligned with right edge of screen. It’s as if the graphic being sent to the monitor is about three inches wider than the screen, and is being aligned with the screen’s right edge.

I’ve piddled with every adjustment on the monitor and in both the Intel & Nvidia control panels (although I’m not confident what I see while fiddling with Nvidia is being delivered by Nvidia).

M14x’s screen is the 1366x768 (which works fine), and Nvidia GT555M has 1.5GB.
Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 2493HM (24”).

The monitor’s only about 2 years old and I’ve been happy with it. Don’t recall anything in Alienware’s lit suggesting it might not work with reasonably current monitors. Any ideas what I’m missing?

 

It sounds like your monitor is mirroring the laptop's display. You have screen missing on the side because the laptop's display has a wider aspect ratio than your monitor and the image won't all fit horizontally.

I don't have the settings in front of me so I can't suggest an exact fix, but I know that you can make it output to the appropriate resolution. The video cards are capable of doing so. Like I said, it's an issue with some current setting restricting it to the resolution and/or aspect ratio of the m14x's screen.

 

SOLUTION: Replaced my VGA cable with an HDMI cable.

Interestingly, that resulted in the disappearance of all the Intel graphics menu items from a right-click of the desktop. The only option now is the Nvidia control panel (fine with me).

Alienware’s phone help support gets credit for the fix. After less than a half-hour of investigation and fooling around, he suddenly had 100% confidence he had the fix (as if someone messaged it to him). Pleasing to think they don’t each operate in a vacuum.

While investigating this, I stumbled across a similar problem titled “Unable to use the native resolution” that Intel is wrestling with. If the native resolution you want to select isn’t even offered, look here.

 

The Intel graphics dont support HDMI. You need a dedicated gpu for HDMI, so thats why

 

Intel graphics do support HDMI, just not on the m14x, maybe you had your aspect ratio set on 16x9, which is 1920x1080, 1600x900, 1366x768 resolutions. 1920x1200 is 16x10, maybe you have to change it to that aspect ratio and then choose 1920x1200? See if that works.

 

Really? Is that just for sandybridge? I thought they only supported VGA and composite video out

 

niko, I have not found any place that lets me set an aspect ratio -- not in the Intel HD nor Nvidia control panels, nor in my monitor's OSD settings (nor in the monitor's User Manual, which I re-read). My only available setting are resolutions in the control panels. My monitor does have a Size setting, which accepts only two values: "Auto" (defined in UM as display exactly as received from computer, and "Wide" (defined as stretch whatever is received to fit the screen). Neither value solved my problem when using the VGA cable. Running well on Auto now.

The Nvidia FX GO5200 on my old Dell worked fine with this monitor & VGA cable. That's why I expected it to work fine with the new gear.

Anyhow, my problem's solved. Everything displays correctly. Whitelisted pgms get the Nvidia; others don't.

Thanks to everyone for all the info. I lurk here when I need to, and have picked up lots of useful stuff.