Font issue on extended monitor

Glowing

Hi all,

Having major annoying issues with the font on one of my extended monitors and am hoping someone could shed some light for me.

I got a new work laptop (HP Elitebook) and I use it with a HP L1908wi 19" LCD monitor in an extended display setup running Win7.

The font and resolution on the laptop is fine, but the font is all very grainy and overly-sharp on the monitor and it tends to give me a headache! I used to have this setup perfectly with my old laptop but since i've upgraded to Win7, I can't seem to sort it. The font on the laptop in comparison is softer and more rounded, like it's been anti-aliased or something.

The DPI is set to 100% (font at 'smaller' setting) - the resolution is native on the monitor, set to 1440*900. Clear type is also set to 'on'.

Can anyone please shed some light on this? I've tried all resolutions and combinations of font size and settings and am just tearing my hair (and eyes) out at this stage!
Thanks a lot

yoyo

Glowing wrote: »

Hi all,

Having major annoying issues with the font on one of my extended monitors and am hoping someone could shed some light for me.

I got a new work laptop (HP Elitebook) and I use it with a HP L1908wi 19" LCD monitor in an extended display setup running Win7.

The font and resolution on the laptop is fine, but the font is all very grainy and overly-sharp on the monitor and it tends to give me a headache! I used to have this setup perfectly with my old laptop but since i've upgraded to Win7, I can't seem to sort it. The font on the laptop in comparison is softer and more rounded, like it's been anti-aliased or something.

The DPI is set to 100% (font at 'smaller' setting) - the resolution is native on the monitor, set to 1440*900. Clear type is also set to 'on'.

Can anyone please shed some light on this? I've tried all resolutions and combinations of font size and settings and am just tearing my hair (and eyes) out at this stage!
Thanks a lot

Sometimes the video card will have a driver control panel which overrides the choices specifed in the Windows display panel. I would look for Intel Graphics Properties, ATI Control Centre, Nvidia Control Centre etc and play around with settings in there

Nick

coylemj

Glowing wrote: »

The DPI is set to 100% (font at 'smaller' setting) - the resolution is native on the monitor, set to 1440*900. Clear type is also set to 'on'.

First, make sure that you're running the latest video driver for your laptop, that's independent of the external display.

Your laptop may struggle to support two displays at the same time, often it involves a compromise whereby one of the displays is less than satisfactory.

Try the external display at 1280 x 1024 at a refresh rate of 75 MHz which is the best non-interlaced setting which that display supports. At the higher resolution you mentioned, the display is running at only 60 Hz which will give you headaches.

And run the laptop in 'External display only' mode, you may get a better image when the built-in screen is disabled.

Glowing

coylemj wrote: »

First, make sure that you're running the latest video driver for your laptop, that's independent of the external display.

Your laptop may struggle to support two displays at the same time, often it involves a compromise whereby one of the displays is less than satisfactory.

Try the external display at 1280 x 1024 at a refresh rate of 75 MHz which is the best non-interlaced setting which that display supports. At the higher resolution you mentioned, the display is running at only 60 Hz which will give you headaches.

And run the laptop in 'External display only' mode, you may get a better image when the built-in screen is disabled.

Thanks a million, I'll try all that tmw.

Unfortunately I can't run the laptop in 'External display only' as I use the two screens! It's a fairly powerful laptop (with 8GB ram) so I'd be very surprised if this was being caused by a lack of resources.

I'll try the new settings tmw, thanks a lot

Glowing

Hey all
Okay i'm some of the way there. Looks like reducing the screen resolution while increasing refresh to 75 seems to improve things a lot. Font is a lot softer, but the screen resolution is too big!
Am I stuck with these two options now or is there a way of forcing 75 on 1440*900 (this is the recommended setting)
Thanks again

coylemj

Glowing wrote: »

Am I stuck with these two options now or is there a way of forcing 75 on 1440*900 (this is the recommended setting)
Thanks again

No you can't, I checked the spec. sheet for that monitor and at the high resolution it's 60 Mhz only, 1280 x 1024 is the highest non-interlaced resolution it can manage....

Native Resolution 1440 x 900 @ 60 Hz

Preset VESA Graphic Modes (non-interlaced)

1280 x 1024 @ 60 Hz and 75 Hz
1024 x 768 @ 60 Hz and 75 Hz
800 x 600 @ 60 Hz and 75 Hz
640 x 480 @ 60 Hz and 75 Hz