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external monitor .. SORRY FOR THE 'hello' POST

M

mynameismatt89

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 19, 2005
276
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hey, i accidentally posted before i even got to write my question... im sorry. I went back to my post and started to edit it and posted it but it was sent to the wasteland, so i will repost what i was going to say


hello all,

i just recently saw on the apple.ca site about the new cinema external monitors. once i read this i started to research weather i could hook my ibook G4 up to an external monitor cause i recall reading several times that this was not possible, or you had to hack something to make it work. Well the other day my dad bought my sister a new computer for going away to university and it came with a 19" viewsonic flatscreen. So i came up to his office to look at the computer when it was all set up and wondered if i could hook my ibook up to the screen. So i went to my room and found the cable that i thought might work to hook the monitor up. so sure enough i set it all up and it works. It is a wide screen monitor so the picture looks a LITTLE stretched. It also said that i had to change the resolution to get a better picture. Do i have to change the resolution on my ibook, or the monitor? cause i tried to do it through the menu settings on the monitor but i couldnt find what to do... here are the monitor menu settings : auto image adjust, contrast/brightness, input select, audio adjust, colour adjust, information, manual image adjust, setup menu, memory recall.

So why am i able to do this.. i thought the ibook specifically could not hook up to an external monitor?? am i doing something wrong?? am i actually damaging my ibook having it hooked up to the monitor?

Also, if i purchase one of the new cinema displays from apple... will it work the same?? all i have to do is use the connection that came with the ibook and simply hook it up? Also, i was wondering if changing the resolution like it said to get the best picture, will it fix the small amount of stretch?

Thanks, Matt
 
i should probably say what i saw when i hooked up the monitor:

my ibook seemed to do some type of refresh when i hooked everything up. it changed my background to the classic mac background. I was able to see what i was doing (moving my mouse, typing) on my ibook, and on the monitor. i beleive i remember someone calling this "mirroring"??

again, im looking for how i can get the best picture quality on the monitor.

thanks again, Matt
 
Yes, you can hook up an external monitor to an iBook as you did...it's just fine. The issue is that, as you have seen, it only supports "mirroring," where you see the same thing on your iBook's screen and on the external monitor. Most people like to use "extended desktop" mode where you have different things on each screen, giving you more screen real estate. In order to do that on the iBook, you have to install a screen spanning hack...use at your own risk.

As for adjusting the resolution settings, that is done in System Preferences --> Displays. If you install the hack and have your displays set up in extended desktop mode, activating this is System Preferences should bring up a window on each display where you can set the resolution.
 
oh alright, thank you very much. all i was looking for is to do the mirroring because i just want a larger screen to watch movies on, view blueprints, and stuff like that. thanks.
 
well i was reading the specs on the new cinema displays and it listed all the macs that it will work for... powerbook, imac, mac mini.. etc. does this mean these new displays will not work for my ibook?
 
mynameismatt89 said:
well i was reading the specs on the new cinema displays and it listed all the macs that it will work for... powerbook, imac, mac mini.. etc. does this mean these new displays will not work for my ibook?
Click to expand...

Someone else can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they won't work without some expensive (as in hundreds of dollars) adapters. The iBooks use a VGA connection that enables you to connect to analog sources like TVs, projectors, and older monitors. Newer Apple machines and displays use DVI, a digital connection that allows for much higher quality. Converting the VGA analog VGA signal coming from your iBook into a digital DVI signal requires an adapter that can run $300.

Anybody else have a simpler/cheaper way to work around this that I don't know about?
 
ahhh noooo, really? well this sucks. and an expensive adapter is the only way? then i suppose ive got to purcahse a different display... perhaps dell. i hate bad news.
 
mynameismatt89 said:
wait, perhaps i can just get something like this:

http://sewelldirect.com/dviaftovgam.asp

????

i look at other ones that look like boxes rather than just 2 simple connections and they are hundreds of dollars. what is the difference between these?
Click to expand...

Again, not an expert, but here is what I think. As it says on that page, the adapter only works for DVI-I monitors and graphics cards. The Apple Cinema Displays accept DVI-I input, so that's fine, but the iBook can't output DVI-I at all. This adapter would work on a machine with a VGA port that is also capable of sending a DVI signal.
 
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