Black Mage Posted January 31, 2009 Share Posted January 31, 2009 I just bought a new laptop (2.2gHz core-duo, 4GB RAM, 512 MB nVidia 9600M GT, 350 GB HDD, 15.5" (1680 x 1050 res) screen, etc.) with the intention of, when at home, hooking it up to my 21.5" widescreen monitor (1920 x 1080 res) and using a dual monitor setup. It is essentially working, but I noticed when I was trying to adjust my big monitor, that it is experiences a lot of horizontal shimmering while at full res. Ive tried to adjust the in-monitor fine (clock) settings, but no dice. The only thing that seems to help is reducing the resolution to match my laptop screen, which of course results in a blurry display. Is there any way or any programs that will allow me to use my two monitors at different resolution? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OverCoat Posted January 31, 2009 Share Posted January 31, 2009 I use UltraMon for my two monitors [1360x768 and 1280x1024], works great. http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Mage Posted January 31, 2009 Author Share Posted January 31, 2009 I use UltraMon for my two monitors [1360x768 and 1280x1024], works great. http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/ Good, good, my big monitor is nice a crisp again. Hm, it is an improvement. The shimmering is noticeably less, but is still noticeable. It is, however, still less noticeable when I have a light colored screen. It's not a solution, but it's a bit better than it was previously. Thanks OC! You wouldn't have much experience in dealing with LCD shimmering, would you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meeting_Gman Posted January 31, 2009 Share Posted January 31, 2009 Most information seems to point towards a faulty cable: http://www.howtomendit.com/answers.php?id=74259 http://www.ocforums.com/archive/index.php/t-237377.html Or video card http://ask-leo.com/the_images_on_my_screen_seem_to_shimmer_or_flicker_and_give_me_a_headache_is_there_anything_i_can_do.html Hope that was helpful. Always try the simplest and easy solutions before you move on to the harder, dirtier stuff! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Mage Posted February 1, 2009 Author Share Posted February 1, 2009 Most information seems to point towards a faulty cable:http://www.howtomendit.com/answers.php?id=74259 http://www.ocforums.com/archive/index.php/t-237377.html Or video card http://ask-leo.com/the_images_on_my_screen_seem_to_shimmer_or_flicker_and_give_me_a_headache_is_there_anything_i_can_do.html Hope that was helpful. Always try the simplest and easy solutions before you move on to the harder, dirtier stuff! I hope it's just the cable. I actually just ordered another VGA cable (one with a right-angle connector to make a more elegant at-home setup). I hope that's it. If not I'll take to my friend's store (who made my system) and see if they can make sure the video card is okay. It can't be that the card is not powerful enough, it is an nVIDIA 9600 with 512mb...so it's a good 6x more powerful than the video card in my old compy, which uses my widescreen with out a problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phill Posted February 1, 2009 Share Posted February 1, 2009 have you tried just swapping the cables between the monitors? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted February 1, 2009 Share Posted February 1, 2009 shimmering generally points to an issue with the refresh rate, doesn't it? at least, if it's not the cable. wait, 21.5" monitor, and it's a 1920x1080 res? which one is that? i thought that you had to go past 22" to get a monitor with full hd resolution standard. if you're forcing it beyond standard res (probably 1680x1050, like my 22"), then the shimmering could be the monitor trying to update pixels that aren't there, or trying to keep up with a high refresh rate when it's not built for that res. phill, he's using a lappy with a secondary monitor attached, so there's only one cable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phill Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 phill, he's using a lappy with a secondary monitor attached, so there's only one cable. damn, and I read that too, but the underlying point still applies. Find yourself another monitor and hook it up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Mage Posted February 2, 2009 Author Share Posted February 2, 2009 shimmering generally points to an issue with the refresh rate, doesn't it? at least, if it's not the cable.wait, 21.5" monitor, and it's a 1920x1080 res? which one is that? i thought that you had to go past 22" to get a monitor with full hd resolution standard. if you're forcing it beyond standard res (probably 1680x1050, like my 22"), then the shimmering could be the monitor trying to update pixels that aren't there, or trying to keep up with a high refresh rate when it's not built for that res. phill, he's using a lappy with a secondary monitor attached, so there's only one cable. The think is that I was using the widescreen at 1920x1080 on my old HP (athlon 3200+, 1.25GB RAM, 64MB nVidia, etc) without a problem. It looked great and had no shimmering. Phill, I'll give it a try with another monitor, next, while I await my new cables to arrive. I suppose it would be the next step in the scientific method, so to speak. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 stretching out, it could theoretically be an issue with the 9600 internal fx card, since they've had issues of every kind during their short lifespan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Mage Posted February 2, 2009 Author Share Posted February 2, 2009 stretching out, it could theoretically be an issue with the 9600 internal fx card, since they've had issues of every kind during their short lifespan. Let's hope not. I'll try installing the updated drivers. I'm running 175.61, and nvidia released 179.28 in December. I'll see if that has any impact on the shimmering. Edit: I've just had another thought...my laptop has an HDMI port, and my monitor has a DVI port...perhaps an HDMI to DVI cable would be the better answer? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 dvi's ALWAYS a better answer. the quality is like a hundred times better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Mage Posted February 3, 2009 Author Share Posted February 3, 2009 dvi's ALWAYS a better answer. the quality is like a hundred times better. Good to know. I've already ordered the cable off amazon. I found one on there for a little over $10 w/ shipping, verses spending $60 at BestBuy. Damn, retail computer components are such a ripoff! If that doesn't fix the problem then I think we're down to considering the video card itself as the culprit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 buy all cables at monoprice.com - they're by far the cheapest site i've ever found for that stuff, and they sell pretty good quality stuff, too. don't mind their terrible website =) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Mage Posted February 4, 2009 Author Share Posted February 4, 2009 buy all cables at monoprice.com - they're by far the cheapest site i've ever found for that stuff, and they sell pretty good quality stuff, too. don't mind their terrible website =) Wow, you weren't kidding about the prices. I'll keep them in mind for future wiring needs. It never ceases to sicken me how much retail stores jack up the prices of simple things like cables and adapters. My dad actually spent a good $30 on a Sony i-Link cable, once, for a mere 5 feet at RadioShack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Mage Posted February 6, 2009 Author Share Posted February 6, 2009 The HDMI to DVI cable did the trick. No more shimmering, and now I can use my widescreen monitor in all it's HD glory! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 i guess that vga's got a bandwidth limitation, then...i'll try to find some info on that online, i've never heard that before. of course, it could have just been a crappy cable too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Mage Posted February 6, 2009 Author Share Posted February 6, 2009 Here's a photo of my present setup. I'm quite pleased, thus far! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jago Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 Heh, that's actually pretty cool. I never thought of using my laptop like that....sorta like a Nintendo DS on crack setup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Mage Posted February 7, 2009 Author Share Posted February 7, 2009 Now my next challenge is trying to figure out how best to manager my color settings between the two. My widescreen likes to be more yellow than my laptop screen, which is in turn more magenta than my widescreen, so it makes photo editing on the two a bit annoying. I can't say I'm certain which is the more correct! I'd like a Pantone Huey, but don't really want to spend $70+ on the thing. But just using the Adobe Gamma wizard is too subjective and the two still don't match. I think that while at work today I'll print off one of the photos I'm working on in Lightroom (I work both sales and lab at a Ritz Camera) and compare it with both monitors to see which of the two is closest, then go from there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phill Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 If you do figure out a decent way to get the colors to match, let me know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dhsu Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 This helped me a bit, but I think your print-out idea is probably better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Mage Posted February 9, 2009 Author Share Posted February 9, 2009 I think one of my main problems is that I have numerous competing apps that are trying to manage my settings: nVidia, this WOW video thing that came packaged with my laptop, Adobe Gamma, UltraMon, and my monitor's physical setting buttons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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