Help on monitor setup needed......

a_hnaua_hnau
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Hi, all. Long story short; my wife's Powerbook (ageing Titanium G4) screen started to flake out (think the hinge connector is failing). So I bought a new external monitor to use, a ViewSonic VA1916W. It's a lovely monitor, but I'm struggling to get it to work on my iBook G4 - at lower resolutions, the display fills the screen but is pretty fuzzy, on the recommended resolution (1440x900) the display sits in the centre of the screen with a large black border. I don't mind this, but the colours and brightness seem out of whack. I've tried manually adjusting the brightness and contrast on the monitor itself, and running the "Calibrate" routine (setting the gamma to a much lower value helps a lot) but it's still nowhere near as readable as my old dependable 15" no-name external monitor was (my wife has this as she didn't want to give up too much desk space). It seems too 'bright' but lowering the monitor brightness doesn't help.



I haven't tried looking on the CD that came with the monitor yet (not too sure if they will have included setup files that work with OSX), but if anyone has successfully calibrated this monitor or one like it I'd really be grateful to get some advice....... \

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    utisnum1utisnum1 Posts: 138member
    Could it be a problem with the Video card? It is an older PowerBook after all and that could be the problem.
  • Reply 2 of 5
    futurepastnowfuturepastnow Posts: 1,772member
    iBooks were designed to only mirror the internal display (1024x768) onto an external. There's a hack to enable actual dual display, but without it, any monitor you plug into that machine is going to look like crap.



    And with the dual monitor hack, it still may not be able to drive a 1440x900 display properly. That's, what, a Radeon 9200?
  • Reply 3 of 5
    a_hnaua_hnau Posts: 26member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by FuturePastNow View Post


    without it, any monitor you plug into that machine is going to look like crap.



    Succinctly put. Time for Plan B; take our old G3 iBook to work, and find a workstation with an older monitor that looks OK with the G3, then 'donate' some lucky soul a brand new 19" screen and use theirs with the G4 at home. Goodness, reminds me of the old days when I actually worked in hardware and you could get a whole MicroVAX in the boot of a small car to take home and work on at the weekend - those were the days
  • Reply 4 of 5
    dobbydobby Posts: 797member
    I have a friend with one of the first Titanium mac book pros (single 1.5 Ghz I think).

    He also has a 20" mac LCD and the it runs sweet as.



    Check that the default resolution for the macbook is the same as the monitor.

    Most LCD monitors perform best at their default resolution.



    Dobby.
  • Reply 5 of 5
    a_hnaua_hnau Posts: 26member
    Well, I finally got it to a useable state (i.e. it doesn't make my eyeballs bleed!). I have a calibration file if anyone would find it useful



    I would have just given up and replaced my Mac, it's getting a bit long in the tooth, but I'm waiting (aren't we all?) to see what if anything really does turn up to replace the current Mac Mini
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