New GPU, monitor won't display native res over DVI, but VGA works

I just put together a new build, more or less - all new except both of my HDD's and the case.

ASUS mobo with i5 Ivy Bridge processor, and EVGA GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB graphics card.

I'm still using the same 21" ViewSonic 1680x1050 monitor that I bought back in 2006. It's had some issues with the DVI connection on some of my old graphics cards, so for the past couple of years I had the monitor connected to my old mobo with the VGA cable, using the on-board graphics.

So now that I've installed all this new stuff, I was looking forward to going back to a DVI connection on this monitor. The display just looks better to me over DVI than it does on VGA. Problem is that when I first booted the machine and went into the BIOS setup, I couldn't see all of the BIOS interface. It extended off the screen along the bottom and right side.

When booted into Win7, even with the latest nVIDIA drivers, the reported native resolution was 1024x768 which of course looked stretched and pretty crappy. I tried connecting the DVI cable to both the DVI-D and DVI-I outputs on the GTX card, with no change in behavior.

So I finally connected the DVI/VGA adapter to the DVI-I output, used the VGA cable as I had been before, and everything works perfectly. BIOS interface looked fine, and when Windows booted it was already set to the correct 1680x1050 resolution.

So what's the deal with the DVI connection? Does it sound like the monitor itself? In the nVIDIA control panel it listed 1920x1080 resolutions along with others, but did not list any 1680x1050 resolution settings. I tried to manually add it, but that gave me letterbox bars at the top and bottom of my display, with the desktop still looking stretched left to right. Is my monitor just too old or something? Would love to have a 1920x1080 HD display at some point when I get the money.

Hi Patrick,

What is the exact model of your monitor? Might be worth doing a Google search for your monitor along with DVI issues to see if anyone else has had the same problem. (Something like "xxxx monitor not displaying correctly when connected via DVI")

Paul.

Sounds like a fubared display...you probably should have returned it the first time it was having trouble. Too late now

Nah I think it was too late the first time it started having trouble.

Obviously the DVI connector is bad on that monitor, use VGA cable or replace (I assume being 2006 that is only 2 choices on it).
I bought a monitor 6 months ago that STILL only had DVI/VGA ports.
Monitors are so cheap now, fortunately, I have a higher end LED I have to sadly trash myself.
Silver lining, you can jump to 23" now at least for less than that 2006 one cost.