Monitor issues

[Archibald Nixon]

I recently purchased an Acer X223w monitor to use off of a fairly old (2003) Sony VAIO laptop (PCG-V505EX), which uses an ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 for graphics. I've connected larger plug & play monitors to this before, with no trouble for the most part. In that case the monitors were Dells with a slightly different aspect ratios than the laptop screen. After some fumbling around with the display properties in the ATI, I got clean, crisp, pixel-perfect transference, through both a VGA cable and a DVI as well (the latter had to be run through a dock connection, and the image would occasionally black out for a second or two, but this was rare.) I should state here that the laptop's screen is 12.1" XGA (1024 x 768) at a 4:3 aspect ratio, and the Dells were both 17" SXGA (1280 x 1024) at 5:4.

The Acer screen is much wider: 22" WSXGA+ (1680 x 1050) with an 8:5 (16:10) ratio. Even though it is plug & play, and supposedly has the proper information on the DDC protocol, the ATI doesn't seem to recognize it, or interprets it wrong (for all I know the DDC itself has the wrong info on it.) Somehow it comes up as a UXGA (1600 x 1200), which is a completely wrong aspect ratio for the Acer --but the right one for the laptop screen: 4:3. The WSXGA+ format, which is listed everywhere as the proper one (including the manual), doesn't even come up as an option on the ATI monitor tab, and as far as I know, you can't just type it in. I should add that I had more that the usual trouble trying to run this through the DVI cable and eventually switched to VGA...not sure if that's a refresh rate issue or something else. In any case, the end result is an image on the Acer that is hopelessly stretched out and fuzzy, even though the desktop is aligned properly (no wallpaper, icon or taskbars getting cut off.)

So is it at all possible that the DDC info is incorrect? (it actually comes up on the ATI tab listing the wrong info.) Is the ATI not able to recognize that format and "translates" it to the closest one it does recognize? Do I need to install some new drivers from ATI, or disable the drivers for the old Dells?

I'm at a loss at this point. Any help would be greatly appreciated --and if I've left out any crucial info, please let me know. It might clarify things if I screen-cap certain tabs/windows that befuddle me, so I'll post some of those soon.

So that's my sitch. Posted this on a couple tech sites...we'll see if I get a response. Working late tonight, so I'll have to make those screencaps I mentioned tomorrow.

 

[Archibald Nixon]

In the meantime:

Some of the terms/dimensions are contested...Wiki's got a talk page a mile long:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vector_Video_Standards2.svg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_talk:Vector_Video_Standards2.svg

And yes, I AM winding my way through those related entries, looking for an answer...