i845G and 1440x900
in [Hardware]
|
Prev: My daugther's hard disk become unallocated !
Next: Call for papers (Deadline Extended): HPCS-10, USA, July 2010
From: pimpom on 25 Mar 2010 10:51 My wife's been complaining that images on the LCD monitor of her office computer are stretched horizontally - obviously a case of aspect ratio mismatch. She gave me the model number of her monitor over the phone and the specs say that its native resolution is 1440x900. But when I tried to guide her through the display settings, she said that 1440x900 is not among the available resolutions (she'd been using 1024x768). I got her to check Device Manager (Win XP) which told us that it's an i845G graphics controller. Driver version unknown (it's night here and she's at home now). I have much less experience with Intel systems than with AMD. So can anyone please tell me if the latest drivers can enable 1440x900 with this chip?
From: noi ance on 25 Mar 2010 13:38 On Thu, 25 Mar 2010 20:21:07 +0530, pimpom typed this message: > My wife's been complaining that images on the LCD monitor of her office > computer are stretched horizontally - obviously a case of aspect ratio > mismatch. She gave me the model number of her monitor over the phone and > the specs say that its native resolution is 1440x900. But when I tried > to guide her through the display settings, she said that 1440x900 is not > among the available resolutions (she'd been using 1024x768). I got her > to check Device Manager (Win XP) which told us that it's an i845G > graphics controller. Driver version unknown (it's night here and she's > at home now). > > I have much less experience with Intel systems than with AMD. So can > anyone please tell me if the latest drivers can enable 1440x900 with > this chip? she should make sure the monitor pre-loaded resolution matches to the vga card resolution. i845G should match most monitor res.
From: Paul on 25 Mar 2010 14:15 pimpom wrote: > My wife's been complaining that images on the LCD monitor of her > office computer are stretched horizontally - obviously a case of > aspect ratio mismatch. She gave me the model number of her > monitor over the phone and the specs say that its native > resolution is 1440x900. But when I tried to guide her through the > display settings, she said that 1440x900 is not among the > available resolutions (she'd been using 1024x768). I got her to > check Device Manager (Win XP) which told us that it's an i845G > graphics controller. Driver version unknown (it's night here and > she's at home now). > > I have much less experience with Intel systems than with AMD. So > can anyone please tell me if the latest drivers can enable > 1440x900 with this chip? > You're really at the mercy of Intel and whatever they provide for drivers. http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-028366.htm You can start with the downloadcenter, then read the release notes to see what they decided to support. http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Default.aspx http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=9034&ProdId=757&lang=eng (Release note for that driver) http://downloadmirror.intel.com/9034/ENG/relnotes.htm I tried looking in the download package itself, but don't see a list of supported resolutions in there. Your wife could try updating the 845 graphics driver, and that is about the best you can do (short of plugging in a separate graphics card). Paul
From: pimpom on 25 Mar 2010 15:46 Paul wrote: > pimpom wrote: >> My wife's been complaining that images on the LCD monitor of >> her >> office computer are stretched horizontally - obviously a case >> of >> aspect ratio mismatch. She gave me the model number of her >> monitor over the phone and the specs say that its native >> resolution is 1440x900. But when I tried to guide her through >> the >> display settings, she said that 1440x900 is not among the >> available resolutions (she'd been using 1024x768). I got her >> to >> check Device Manager (Win XP) which told us that it's an i845G >> graphics controller. Driver version unknown (it's night here >> and >> she's at home now). >> >> I have much less experience with Intel systems than with AMD. >> So >> can anyone please tell me if the latest drivers can enable >> 1440x900 with this chip? >> > > You're really at the mercy of Intel and whatever they provide > for > drivers. > > http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-028366.htm > > You can start with the downloadcenter, then read the release > notes to see what they decided to support. > > http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Default.aspx > > http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=9034&ProdId=757&lang=eng > > (Release note for that driver) > http://downloadmirror.intel.com/9034/ENG/relnotes.htm > > I tried looking in the download package itself, but don't see a > list of supported resolutions in there. That's the problem. I'd already checked those pages before posting my question here, but they weren't much help. I can't make a trial installation at home as all my computers are AMD-NVidia. > Your wife could try updating > the 845 graphics driver, and that is about the best you can do I didn't think of checking the dates of those drivers earlier. I just did and the drivers and release notes are dated June 2005! I'm pretty sure her computer is not that old. Which means that there's a good chance she already has the latest (2005) driver. > (short of plugging in a separate graphics card). I mentioned that to her today and she said that she will order a graphics card from supply. I'll have to walk her through the process of identifying her motherboard tomorrow. ATM I don't know if she has AGP or PCI-E. Or is the 845G limited to either AGP or PCI-E? If so, which one?
From: Paul on 25 Mar 2010 19:01
pimpom wrote: > >> (short of plugging in a separate graphics card). > > I mentioned that to her today and she said that she will order a > graphics card from supply. I'll have to walk her through the > process of identifying her motherboard tomorrow. ATM I don't know > if she has AGP or PCI-E. Or is the 845G limited to either AGP or > PCI-E? If so, which one? > It is AGP. To be clear here, there can be motherboards with 845G and 845GV. The difference would be, 845GV ("graphics value") has no AGP slot on it. The 845G would have an AGP slot. The manufacturer saves a few pennies, by using the 845GV. A quick visual check inside the computer, can clear up whether an AGP connector is available or not. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_chipsets If the chipset is actually 845G, the AGP slot can run at 4X speed. And that would be operating at 1.5V. You can get more information here, about which cards will work with that. http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html Not all modern AGP cards are listed there. The author of that page, has not added the "bridged" AGP cards that have been developed more recently. There are two bridge chips, Rialto from ATI and HSI from Nvidia. Those chips convert a PCI Express graphics chip to operate with an AGP slot. Nvidia has stopped production of HSI, so any cards available at this date, would be using stockpiled HSI chips. (It is possible that IBM was making the HSI chips for Nvidia.) The equivalent at ATI is the Rialto. This would be an example of a bridged ATI card: ATI Radeon X1950 Pro Universal 1.5V AGP 3.0 Card This would be an example of a bridged Nvidia card: NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GS Universal 1.5V AGP 3.0 Card An 845G motherboard would be "AGP 1.5V Motherboard" and works with "Universal 1.5V AGP 3.0 Card" cards. So you can use bridged cards if you happen to find some. So if the motherboard has the elusive AGP connector, you can plug just about anything in there. On a bridged ATI card, Rialto is on the back of the card, and is surrounded by pink colored protective material. The pink material may be covering resistors or capacitors on the chip package surface. It is there to prevent damage, when the card is placed on a table. http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/14-102-862-Z04?$S640W$ Nvidia cards place the HSI on the front. The HSI bridge in this example, is under the rectangular heatsink. http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/14-143-102-S03?$S640W$ There are still a number of older Nvidia AGP chips used on video cards. Those are real AGP chips, which don't use the HSI bridge. You won't find the additional heatsink on the front of the card. But in terms of performance, they would be many generations older than the current stuff. The main concern with really old cards, is DVI interface rate. Chances are, if your wife's computer has a VGA connector, then you have nothing to worry about. But a lot of cheap LCD monitors now, are DVI only. Some of the oldest graphics chips, have DVI interfaces that run at 135MHz max. The specification says they should run up to 165MHz, for full resolution. Cards with the "defective" interfaces, have a limitation in the driver. The supported resolution may not be stated in the documentation. In the examples I picked here, the odds are good that any card can do 1440 x 900 on DVI. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Visual_Interface WXGA+ (1440 x 900) @ 60 Hz (107 MHz) UXGA (1600 x 1200) @ 60 Hz with GTF blanking (161 MHz) <---- substandard card can't do this on DVI Now, if we move forward, and look at the most modern (bridged) AGP cards for sale, the issue with those, is driver quality. In some cases, you can only get one decent driver for the card. One point of view, is that is good enough. But the level of support for modern AGP cards, doesn't particularly give me a warm feeling. Reading the comments from customers, about the AGP cards, will give you some idea how hard a particular card is to work with. This would be an example of a high end ATI bridged card. The DVI connector on some of these newer cards, is dual link capable, which means they can run an Apple 30" DVI monitor. That is, as long as you don't have driver problems. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16814161284 So that is a basic overview of what to expect. Paul |