laptop cant get over 60Hz with attached CRT

[Felecha]

I've had a laptop at work for a couple of years, and they gave me a lovely 19" flatpanel monitor for it. Good for them.

I actually run several machines here, and the laptop has recently been so problematic that I said Hell, I'm gonna move one of the desktops i use for testing over and make it my regular work machine, and move the laptop back in the corner to run as my test machine. they are similar in power, and I can still take the lappie home if I need.

Long story short, I find that the CRT that the desktop machine was hooked to and worked fine with it, now cant seem to go over 60HZ when plugged into the monitor connector on the back. We have lots of extra CRT's kicking around since folks have been acquiring flatpanels. I've hooked to about 10 of them and all will only show me 60HZ as an option in Desktop/Properties/Settings/Advanced/Monitor.

I have to conclude it's the video card in the laptop, but then it ran the flatpanel fine.

I thought maybe I needed to explicitly install a monitor driver, so I looked up E771p at Dell (for the one currently hooked up) and did the driver install, and now Dell E771p shows in the Monitor tab dropdown, instead of Default Monitor, but still the only choice below is 60.

The box for Hide modes that the monitor cant display is grayed out.

Any clues?

 

[Foxery]

If this model displays the same picture simultaneously on the laptop's builtin screen and the CRT, then it can't set seperate refresh rates (or resolutions, for that matter) as they are being fed the same signal. You would need to specify that the monitor is the "Primary" display, which might not be possible in this scenario.

Maybe someone who works with laptops more than I do has a better idea, though.

 

[Felecha]

yes, they both show the screen, I always have had it that way. I dont know how to turn that off. You mean the laptop screen is only at 60? Wow, it'a always looked razor sharp and I never noticed any flicker

 

[Felecha]

Well, I'm a dope. I never realized that where the two icons show on the Settings screen, the 1 and 2 in little boxes, that I needed to select the 2 and THEN click Advanced. So when I did it shows lots of refresh rates FOR THE SECOND MONITOR which is the Dell. So all is well now.

Doh ....

 

[thilanliyan]

LCD screens don't have that flicker even at 60Hz because they work in a different way to CRTs.

 

[Felecha]

I had kinda wondered if that was the case.

Live and learn

Thanks all