Force DVI/HDMI resolutions and refresh rates

This topic is amazing and I can't thank baarod, bobdynlan and the other contributors enough for the work they've put into this! The service you're offering everyone with these problems is astounding.

Before finally admitting defeat and registering to post here, I have probably ground a millimeter off my teeth and am missing large clumps of hair due to resolution/driver/EDID problems with my monitor. I could really use the help of someone who knows their stuff. I have read all 24 pages, grasping to understand as much as I can in my attempt to fix my own monitor problems. Despite having learned a ton, I simply can't seem to get it to apply to my situation, so after days of trial, error and frustration with PowerStrip, MonInfo, RegEdit, SoftMCCS, PED, Refresh Force and different Catalyst and monitor drivers, I registered here to see if anyone can help.

My problem is that I can ONLY get my 16:10 external monitor to work properly at the native resolution or non-16:10 resolutions. At 1920x1200, my Samsung SyncMaster 2433BW looks beautiful, connected by a 1.5 meter VGA cable to my notebook's ATI Radeon Mobility HD 3650. However, especially for gaming, I would like to be able to use other resolutions, such as 1280x800. Unfortunately, at all other resolutions, the screen either has vertical bars of blurriness (not sure if that makes sense - the screen is blurry due to the lower resolution but is blurrier at regular horizontal intervals) or worse, it states that the mode is not optimal and turns off after 60 seconds, which is the case for 1280x800.

The monitor was hooked up via DVI to an HDMI port on a notebook that recently died (coincidentally with the same GPU), but my replacement only has a VGA connection. On the previous notebook, it also had the "not optimal mode" problem, but that went away after changing the GPU scaling option in the Catalyst Control Panel. This is a DVI-only option, so no dice with this VGA setup.

The problem seems to be that if I set the resolution to 1280x800, the refresh rate goes up to 75, causing my monitor to display the warning. If I manually change this to 60Hz (either through Windows' advanced display properties dialog or the Catalyst Control Panel) the warning goes away. It always defaults back to 75Hz after any resolution change, though. Making it impossible to use.

Furthermore, aside from 1920x1200 and 1280x800, I can only choose from 4:3 resolutions. These are pretty useless to me since the screen is 16:10, so I would like to have 16:10 options as well (or instead), so the resolutions I need working are 768x480, 1024x640, 1152x720, 1280x800, 1440x900, 1680x1050, and 1920x1200 (which is the only working resolution in the list).

I extracted my EDID successfully with softMCCS, MonInfo, and from the registry with PED. These are all identical (no surprise there). In MonInfo I was able to select the monitor identified as SAM0466 either as "Real-time 0x0011" or as "Registry Active"

My system:

Code:

System:         Toshiba Satellite A300 Notebook
OS:             Windows 7 Professional x64
Graphics Card:  ATI Radeon Mobility HD 3650 (with VGA connection only)
Driver:         Catalyst 10.10
Display 1:      LG-Philips LP154WX4-TLC8 @ 1280x800 @ 60Hz (works fine)
Display 2:      Samsung SyncMaster 2433BW @ 1920x1200 @ 60Hz (the problem!)

The SyncMaster 2433BW's EDID

Code:

EDID BYTES:
0x   00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F
    ------------------------------------------------
00 | 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 4C 2D 66 04 34 32 4D 43
10 | 0C 13 01 03 0E 34 20 78 2A 9F C1 A6 56 4B 9A 25
20 | 13 50 54 BF EF 80 A9 40 81 80 81 40 71 4F 01 01
30 | 01 01 01 01 01 01 28 3C 80 A0 70 B0 23 40 30 20
40 | 36 00 06 44 21 00 00 1A 00 00 00 FD 00 38 4B 1E
50 | 51 11 00 0A 20 20 20 20 20 20 00 00 00 FC 00 53
60 | 79 6E 63 4D 61 73 74 65 72 0A 20 20 00 00 00 FF
70 | 00 48 39 58 53 33 30 32 34 38 35 0A 20 20 00 72

And the information from MonInfo:

Code:

Monitor
  Model name............... SyncMaster
  Manufacturer............. Samsung
  Plug and Play ID......... SAM0466
  Serial number............ H9XS302485
  Manufacture date......... 2009, ISO week 12
  -------------------------
  EDID revision............ 1.3
  Input signal type........ Analog 0.700,0.300 (1.0V p-p)
  Sync input support....... Separate, Composite, Sync-on-green
  Display type............. RGB color
  Screen size.............. 520 x 320 mm (24.0 in)
  Power management......... Active off/sleep
  Extension blocs.......... None
  -------------------------
  DDC/CI................... Supported
  MCCS revison............. 2.0
  Display technology....... TFT
  Controller............... Mstar 0x1000
  Firmware revision........ 0.1
  Firmware flags........... 0x00000001
  Active power on time..... Not supported
  Power consumption........ Not supported
  Current frequency........ Not supported

Color characteristics
  Default color space...... Non-sRGB
  Display gamma............ 2.20
  Red chromaticity......... Rx 0.650 - Ry 0.337
  Green chromaticity....... Gx 0.296 - Gy 0.604
  Blue chromaticity........ Bx 0.147 - By 0.074
  White point (default).... Wx 0.313 - Wy 0.329
  Additional descriptors... None

Timing characteristics
  Horizontal scan range.... 30-81kHz
  Vertical scan range...... 56-75Hz
  Video bandwidth.......... 170MHz
  CVT standard............. Not supported
  GTF standard............. Not supported
  Additional descriptors... None
  Preferred timing......... Yes
  Native/preferred timing.. 1920x1200p at 60Hz (16:10)
    Modeline............... "1920x1200" 154.000 1920 1968 2000 2080 1200 1203 1209 1235 +hsync -vsync

Standard timings supported
     720 x  400p at  70Hz - IBM VGA
     640 x  480p at  60Hz - IBM VGA
     640 x  480p at  67Hz - Apple Mac II
     640 x  480p at  72Hz - VESA
     640 x  480p at  75Hz - VESA
     800 x  600p at  56Hz - VESA
     800 x  600p at  60Hz - VESA
     800 x  600p at  72Hz - VESA
     800 x  600p at  75Hz - VESA
     832 x  624p at  75Hz - Apple Mac II
    1024 x  768p at  60Hz - VESA
    1024 x  768p at  70Hz - VESA
    1024 x  768p at  75Hz - VESA
    1280 x 1024p at  75Hz - VESA
    1152 x  870p at  75Hz - Apple Mac II
    1600 x 1200p at  60Hz - VESA STD
    1280 x 1024p at  60Hz - VESA STD
    1280 x  960p at  60Hz - VESA STD
    1152 x  864p at  75Hz - VESA STD

Report information
  Date generated........... 02/11/2010
  Software revision........ 2.53.0.861
  Data source.............. Real-time 0x0011
  Operating system......... 6.1.7600.2

Raw data
  00,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,00,4C,2D,66,04,34,32,4D,43,0C,13,01,03,0E,34,20,78,2A,9F,C1,A6,56,4B,9A,25,
  13,50,54,BF,EF,80,A9,40,81,80,81,40,71,4F,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,28,3C,80,A0,70,B0,23,40,30,20,
  36,00,06,44,21,00,00,1A,00,00,00,FD,00,38,4B,1E,51,11,00,0A,20,20,20,20,20,20,00,00,00,FC,00,53,
  79,6E,63,4D,61,73,74,65,72,0A,20,20,00,00,00,FF,00,48,39,58,53,33,30,32,34,38,35,0A,20,20,00,72

As you can see, the included resolutions are all 4:3 and pretty low, so none of the resolutions I need are there. Why I have the option to change my resolution to 1280x800 (@ 75Hz) in the Windows resolution options is a mystery to me.

Before tackling PED, I gave Refresh Force 1.10 a try, adding the resolutions I wanted and changing the 1280x800 refresh rate from 75Hz to 60Hz.

Unfortunately, that did nothing that I'm aware of, so I opened the EDID in PED. Here is where things start getting into rough territory for me and I don't really know what I'm doing. For the most part, everything looks right, except the established timings and standard timings. The only thing I could think of was manually editing the standard timings to change one field to H. Active pixels: 1280, Refresh: 60, Aspect Ratio: 16:10. I saved this, generated an inf and used the Have Disk method to install the driver. This resulted in my screen blinking on and off non-stop and being obviously borked.

Unplugging the monitor, booting into safe-mode and trying to show hidden devices did nothing, so the only way to get rid of the driver was by using System Restore. This is where I am now - and after 3 days of this, I'm pretty worn out. I could really use a more knowledgeable person's help!

I also took a look at the driver for the monitor and see that it only includes information for the 1920x1200 (@ 60HZ) resolution, so that could explain why Windows (and games) don't know what to do at lower resolutions. I have attached that driver's inf file as well. If I could put together an improved driver, I would love to provide this to the entire community of SyncMaster 2433BW owners!

Hi guys not sure if anyone can help,

I just got a new laptop MSI GX740 which has the ATI 5870m gfx card, I would like to connect it to my Samsung 2233rz, I have a Dual Link DVI > HDMI cable, I'm using ATI 10.11 drivers

I would like to be able to use 120hz at 1680x1050 and 800x600 are the main resolutions anything else is a bonus :), I've had a look through but cannot see anyone with this monitor so was not able to get any information about EDID.

Ok i've just been playing with Phoenix and I can get 75hz at 1680x1050 and I can get 75hz at 800x600 but my monitor always moans "not optimum mode, recommended mode 1680x1050 ?", when I increased the pxl clock I could see 120hz as a option for 800x600 but 1680x1050 res had completely disappeared.

Here is my EDID attached


Thanks in advance

Dan

Bozy said:

Thank you very much for your solution!!
Thanks to you, my Philips 109s can run again in 2010!

What, they didn't support EDID?