What resolution does the monitor support?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Amigosdefox

Posts: 103   +15
I have an old IBM Thinkpad 310 laptop which hard drive recently stop working and so i had to buy a new one. It originally shipped with windows 95 but now I have updated to windows 98 se. Im using windows drivers and most of them are working fine, but I can´t change the monitors settings to 800*600 with 16 bit colors, it only accepts 640*400 at that colour depth. The driver that windows is using for the monitor is a "default monitor driver" and the video card driver is the most updated version from ibm. I think I remember the laptop supporting 800*600 @ 16 bit before but now I do not know which monitor driver to install and IBM doesnt have monitor drivers and it is no longer supporting that model. Is there a way to find out if the monitor actually supports those resolutions?
 
New hard drive or laptop? :confused:
Are we still talking about the IBM Thinkpad 310?
Look for some old reviews on the web and they will most likely mention the resolutions that it runs.

ThinkPad 310/315 information at IBM.com
ThinkPad 310E/310ED Features
THINKPAD 310E/310ED FEATURES

LCD DISPLAY

This systems come with an SVGA 12.1-inch (measured diagonally) TFT or DSTN or an 11.3-inch (measured diagonally) TFT display, which provides superior viewing capability and helps lessen the glare indoors.

1) DSTN (VRAM : 1MB)

LCD External Monitor

Resolution DSTN 85Hz 86iHz 75Hz 60Hz 56Hz
640 x 480 64K 64K na 64K 16M na
800 x 600 256 256 64K 64K na 64K
1024 x 768 256* 256* 256 256 256 256
1280x1024 16* 16* na 16 na na

*: Virtual Screen
 
Sorry me inglish is not good. Its the hard drive I replaced not the thinkpad. I noticed that even at 256 colors the monitor really seems blacked out, its very hard to distinguish text or to find the cursor, i tried messing around with the brightness and color controls but it doesnt help much. I took the laptop to a used computer store to have the hd changed and now it has an orange spot on the monitor so im thinking that maybe it got damaged and thats why its not bright enough.
 
Is it a single pixel element that is Orange? i.e. one element on the TFT screen?
I would check to see if you have a function key combination to increase the screen brightness and/or contrast. Did they swap over all your files or was it a fresh install of Windows on the new disk?
 
I think you need the proper driver for the TFT screen, or try using the "Plug and Play" Monitor driver, this should allow you to use higher resoultions, and may fix the brightness/contrast problems.
 
The screen also looks really dull in the bios screen, could this mean that this is not a driver issue or do windows drivers also control what happens in the bios?
 
Another forum member suggests you may be able to help me:

I have a 2nd hand ThinkPad 2600-8TA (aka 315ED = 310ED). The "hardware Manual" lists diagnostic and maintenance floppy disks:

Diskette Part, Form Number:
ThinkPad 310 Diagnostics Diskette 05L1936, S05L-1936
ThinkPad 310 Maintenance Diskette 05L1770, S05L-1770

IBM tells me that these are no longer available. Can anyone email them to me please ? If so, please reply and I'll send you my email address.

The basic problem is that the CD drive is recognized by the OS but when I try to read it the error message says there is no disc inserted. It won't boot from a bootable CD so it appears to be a hardware problem, not a software one. Any ideas ??

BTW I found a neat device which turns one PCMCIA port into two USB2.0 ports. So I can use my 128MB thumb drive to install stuff. But I'd much prefer to use the CD drive.

Would you, by any chance have these floppy disks? If so could you email them to me at xkarzid@bigpond.com ?

Milliones de gracis :))

[I lived in Venezueala in the 1960s]
 
Dear Amigosdefox,

I have the same problem. Could you help me please ?
If you finally could set 800x600 16 bit color, I would ask you for the drivers to reinstall my LCD monitor.

Por favor, realmente estoy desesperado.
ggleb@yahoo.com
 
Well it seems that if your monitor is appearing blurry or faded, it might partially be a problem of the screen going bad. I've got an old thinkpad layin around and its screen also is blurred. But in response to the driver issue, i would reccomend searching for it on www.driverguide.com You can register for free if you want, but either way, the username will be "driver" and the password will be "all" so there is no need to register. Best of luck!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back