I decided to take the plunge and get myself one of these nice shiny new dell monitors. But when i try to set it to its native reolution (2048 x 1152) the reolsution is bigger than the screen - in effect i have to scroll right to see the right hand end of my desktop! 1680*1050 fits all on one screen. Have I got a duff monitor or is it just that my geforce 7800GTX can't output that high a resoltuuion on one screen? That seems fairly unlikely given it outputs that much of a display, it just doesn't all fit on one monitor. Running at 2048 x 1152 looks right in terms of screen proportion while sizing it down gives the "not running in correct resoltuion" look to everything. I'm running 2 monitors - this and a 1600*1200 dell 2001FP - each off a separate DVI head. the 2001 is fine, and I've tried disabling it and just havig the widescreen but still getting no joy.
The native res of that screen seems a little odd ball to me, and as the 7800 is a pretty old card now the res may not be supported by it. Lots of people have had the problem with strange size monitors such as 23.5 inch displays, the native res cannot be displayed because the card simply doesn't support it. Make sure you have the latest drivers for your card, and install any drivers for the monitor too.
installed the monitor drivers? are you extending your desktop or mirroring? tried hitting the auto button? just a thought, am sure you have tried this just the Dell SP2903W attached and Nvidia drivers set to single display? might need a reboot +1 to updating drivers, suppose the 7800gtx must support 2048 x 1152 else it wouldn't give you the option but it might not be able to support 2048 x 1152 AND 1600 x 1200 concurrently.
Thanks for the suggestions: Driver update was the first thing I thought of so I am running the latest drivers. Monitor didn't come with drivers, except for the webcam, but those have been installed anyway. Desktop is extended, but I have tried with the other display disabled and have the same problem. Haven't done the complete uncabling yet. However what I have found - my old cable and the one that dell supplied are only single-link DVI. Single link DVI doesn't handle the resolution - it only goes up to 1920 x 1200, which could result in the effect. I am fairly sure the card is capable of generating it because the windows desktop sizes to the resolution, the display just scrolls. So I have ordered a dual-link cable from ebuyer on next day shipping and will be trying with that and the other monitor unplugged tomorrow. The other thing I have found some googling is that the 7800GTX series are dual-link capable GPU's, but not all manufacturers choose to support it, so have to find out which card i bought and is it DL capable. Will post back when i get results, any other suggestions welcome.
would have thought the monitor came with a dual link cable if it required one (mine did...) other ideas... where did you set the res, have you set the monitor manualy, have you checked you've got the right monitor..
Funny you should post this, I have literally 10 minutes ago booted up my PC with a shiny new Samsung 2343BW (same idea as the Dell, 2048*1152, 23"), and it works fine with a single-link DVI-D. In fact that's what came with it.
And so the plot thickens! Thanks for the info. It is "definately" the right monitor, by which the packaging is correct, the features are correct, the big screen protector it came with in transit had the right resolution on it. Resolution has attempted to be set through windows desktop proterties and NVidia Nview which after a few minutes put an entry in with the resolution and (native) after it. Nview also recognised it as an SP2309W. Will probably give it another go this evening.
Not sure if it's much help but I have the same monitor and it worked fine straight out of the box with the supplied DVI cable on both a Dell laptop running integrated graphics and a MBP with a 8400GT. If the new cable doesn't work I'd suggest giving Dell a call?
Cheers. It's definately helpful - the plan is a complete computer upgrade in the coming month, done the monitor first to split up the pain on my credit card, so the goal is to narrow down the point of failure to one of: 1. monitor 2. cable 3. GPU 4. Drivers/Settings/me being an idiot. If I can conclusively prove it is any of the latter 3 then all is well as the rest of the PC is going to be replaced soon. So plan is: 1. Fiddle with cables, drivers and attachments tonight. If this fails: 2. Dual link DVI cable arrives tomorrow. Repeat step 1 tomorrow. If this fails I have conclusively taken the cable out of the equation. 3. Have some mates with more modern PC's, get monitor round theirs and plug in. That should give me the final answer: if it works fine for them then it's my GPU and I can just live with it till I upgrade. If they have the same problem then it looks likely that I have a shonky monitor. Anyone see a flaw in the plan?
quick google shows the maximum supported res for the 7800gtx is 2048x1536 so you shouldnt have any problems there, Im not familiar with the dell model but are there and picture settings in the monitor menu, maybe its set at the wrong aspect ratio or similar? EDIT: apparently the 7800's only have a single dual link connector, not both on te card, theres some threads on other forums about not being able to use 30" dell monitors with them.
Ok we are looking like option 4: me being an idiot: Unplug everything. Replug 2309W into other socket and run it on its own: monitor displays full res WOO!. Reboot, plug 2001 back in: both display at their full resolutions. So looking to be one of the old cable, or more likely - only 1 DVI socket on the card able to support higher resolutions. When things were booting up it made me realise i should have tried this as soon as things were squiffy because i had always noticed that during bootup (what was) my secondary monitor display always displayed things a half second earlier than (what was) the primary display - indicating which was the primary output port on the GPU. Anyway, all is working now, so in true bodgejob style I'm not touching ANYTHING! Until I come to replace it all anyway. Thanks for all the help.
