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Subject Author Date
Sony VAIO laptop: wrong resolution after mobo replacement Gary 07-28-2006
Posted by Gary on July 28, 2006, 10:12 pm
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 Hi everyone,

I have a Sony VAIO PCG-GRT260G laptop. The motherboard has died
recently, so I replaced with the identical model (MBX-86), identical
revision, identical part number, but from a different model,
PCG-GRT270. Every other laptop component (including the NVidia GeForce
Go 5600 graphic card) is from the PCG-GRT260G (except for the
motherboard).

Everything in the laptop works perfectly fine, except for the display:
Windows XP will not allow the native PCG-GRT260G resolution of
1400x1050, sticking to the PCG-GRT270 1600x1200.

I tried re-flashing the BIOS, installing signed and unsigned Windows XP
drivers for a Viewsonic 1400x1050 LCD monitor, hacking up a custom
monitor .inf file for, using various Windows XP software packages out
there to dynamically change resolution - all to no avail. Windows
XP/NVidia driver will stick to the geometry reported by the
motherboard, and that's it.

Anyone has any ideas? I'm at my wits end and I am getting close to
ripping a perfectly good laptop apart and selling it for parts :).

G.


Posted by MegaMad on July 29, 2006, 6:20 am
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 Gary wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I have a Sony VAIO PCG-GRT260G laptop. The motherboard has died
> recently, so I replaced with the identical model (MBX-86), identical
> revision, identical part number, but from a different model,
> PCG-GRT270. Every other laptop component (including the NVidia GeForce
> Go 5600 graphic card) is from the PCG-GRT260G (except for the
> motherboard).
>
> Everything in the laptop works perfectly fine, except for the display:
> Windows XP will not allow the native PCG-GRT260G resolution of
> 1400x1050, sticking to the PCG-GRT270 1600x1200.
>
> I tried re-flashing the BIOS, installing signed and unsigned Windows XP
> drivers for a Viewsonic 1400x1050 LCD monitor, hacking up a custom
> monitor .inf file for, using various Windows XP software packages out
> there to dynamically change resolution - all to no avail. Windows
> XP/NVidia driver will stick to the geometry reported by the
> motherboard, and that's it.
>
> Anyone has any ideas? I'm at my wits end and I am getting close to
> ripping a perfectly good laptop apart and selling it for parts :).
>
> G.
>

Hi!

So you looked in the laptop BIOS, you installed the Sony video driver
and/or the Nvidia video driver?
The videocard is properly recognized in WinXP?

And what if you hook it up to an external monitor? Can you change settings?


Good luck,

MegaMad - Leo

Posted by Gary on July 29, 2006, 8:19 am
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Hi Mad,

Thanks for the reply.

> So you looked in the laptop BIOS

Yes, I re-flashed the BIOS with the PCG-GRT260G version from Sony's
website, confirmed version number change for BIOS and EC BIOS, but the
laptop still reports in as PCG-GRT270 when it boots. Something else on
that motherboard is telling the BIOS that this is a different model.

> you installed the Sony video driver
> and/or the Nvidia video driver?

Yes, tried both the original Sony NVidia driver, and a generic NVidia
driver. Same results, 1400x1050 is not listed as an option in Windows
XP Display Settings.

> The videocard is properly recognized in WinXP?

Yes.

> And what if you hook it up to an external monitor? Can you change settings?

Yes, but settings for an external monitor will not allow 1400x1050,
either (which is ok, this is not a standard external monitor setting).

The funny thing is that if I set the display at 1600x1200, the screen
is properly aligned top-left -wise and is as sharp as the (previous)
native 1400x1050 resolution mode (no blurring), but Windows XP desktop
is, of course, too wide and too high. If I could tell Windows to
scale-down the desktop somehow, it would look perfect.

I've always thought that it was a hardware driver's job to tell Windows
about the hardware's capabilities, and not some part of a motherboard.

Gary


Posted by zwsdotcom on July 29, 2006, 9:48 am
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Gary wrote:

> I've always thought that it was a hardware driver's job to tell Windows
> about the hardware's capabilities, and not some part of a motherboard.

The driver interrogates some configuration info on the motherboard.
Unfortunately, finding it is a bit of a chore. The info about which LCD
is fitted is usually stored in the LCD "half" of the computer, often on
the inverter board. However obviously Sony puts it on the mainboard.
Take the boards out and compare them, you might get lucky and see an
area that is jumpered differently on the new board.

Unfortunately the info may be in an EEPROM and hence not visible.


Posted by Quaoar on July 29, 2006, 11:03 am
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Gary wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I have a Sony VAIO PCG-GRT260G laptop. The motherboard has died
> recently, so I replaced with the identical model (MBX-86), identical
> revision, identical part number, but from a different model,
> PCG-GRT270. Every other laptop component (including the NVidia GeForce
> Go 5600 graphic card) is from the PCG-GRT260G (except for the
> motherboard).
>
> Everything in the laptop works perfectly fine, except for the display:
> Windows XP will not allow the native PCG-GRT260G resolution of
> 1400x1050, sticking to the PCG-GRT270 1600x1200.
>
> I tried re-flashing the BIOS, installing signed and unsigned Windows XP
> drivers for a Viewsonic 1400x1050 LCD monitor, hacking up a custom
> monitor .inf file for, using various Windows XP software packages out
> there to dynamically change resolution - all to no avail. Windows
> XP/NVidia driver will stick to the geometry reported by the
> motherboard, and that's it.
>
> Anyone has any ideas? I'm at my wits end and I am getting close to
> ripping a perfectly good laptop apart and selling it for parts :).
>
> G.
>

There is a bank of dip switches on the MB that adjust the video for
whatever version of LCD is supplied. Set those switches on the new MB
to the same positions as on the original MB to restore the correct LCD
resolution. If this does not work, then work through the switch
settings according to a binary number sequence.

Q

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