Cannot get max resolution on Dell U2711 monitor with Latitude E6520

Question

up until recently I was using the U2711 with a Lenovo T410 via a DP output. This allowed me to use the max resolution of 2560x1440. The U2711 is used as my second extended monitor, my laptop screen is my main display.

I now switched laptops to a new Latitude E6520 (with an Nvidia NVS 4200M graphics card) that does not have a DP output nor a DVI output. I was wondering if the HDMI output would allow me to use the max resolution anyway, either via a custom resolution or a cable adapter.

I already tried setting a custom resolution in the Nvidia control panel to 2560x1440 through HDMI. This seemed to work the first time, but whenever I hook up the monitor now via HDMI, the whole laptop becomes unresponsive and the monitor goes into save mode.

So a couple of questions here:

1. Can I use the custom resolution with HDMI? Would this have any negative impact on the monitor's lifetime/performance?

2. Can I somehow reset the custom resolution to the native HDMI one in the control panel, as I think this would prevent my laptop from becoming unresponsive?

3. As an alternative, is there a cable adapter that I could use to go from HDMI to DP or DVI?

Answer 1

HMDI is meant for video output and the U2711 supports 1080p which is 1920x1080 which is far off the 2560x1440 which the monitor supports.

But what you are actually doing is that your videocard downscales the image to 1920x1080 and your monitor is displaying the 1920x1080 on the 2560x1440 screen, thus rescaling it again.

See http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvs_techspecs.html for details on output capabilities of your videocard.

The VGA output will go up to 2048x1536, only the Displayport output will go up to the resolution of your external monitor; 2560x1440.

Downside is that your laptop doesn't have a Displayport output.

A lot more information on this issue can be found at http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1479962. If using Linux, please check the reply of Ictogun.