Don't make the mistake I made (new laptop)

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Giles Orr <gilesorr-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>

| I just bought a Toshiba P850-057 - specs are a bit hard to come by as
| this model is "exclusive" to Future Shop.

I assume that you know that Future Shop has a really great return policy?
If it is within 2 weeks (15 days?) of purchase, you can return a
computer for even stupid reasons (I think that you have to state
reason).

Of course it sometimes takes more than two weeks to figure out that
you have an intractable problem with a device.

|  More on other configuration
| challenges in email(s) to follow.

Thanks: we can all learn from this.

| My mistake was in assuming that because it had a good Nvidia card
| (GeForce GT 630M) with 2GB of RAM that driving my Dell U3011 at its
| full resolution of 2560x1600 wouldn't be a problem.  Because, after
| all, HDMI 1.4 supports 3840x2160.

That is the theory.  Under what conditions does it actually work?  (I
don't just mean on your particular computer.)

Does the U3011 support full resolution via HDMI?

The magic gateway to higher resolution appears to be DisplayPort these
days.

My (old) 2560x1600 monitor only supports dual-link DVI but that
appears to be obsolescent.  A DisplayPort to dual-link DVI adapter
costs about $100 and needs a USB connection to supply power.  Yuck.

|  But.  In looking at documentation
| (after I made the purchase) for various P850 type laptops with varying
| Nvidia cards, the max resolution out through the HDMI port is always
| noted as being 1920x1200.  And that's all that appears to be supported
| by Windows or Linux on this machine.
| 
| Looking at the HDMI specs, the max resolution of HDMI v1 is 1920x1200.
|  Of course HDMI v1.3 is getting long in the tooth now and almost all
| devices (claim to) support v1.4.  But I'm getting a bit of Bill Gates
| syndrome here: "1920x1200 should be enough for anyone!"

Consider yourself lucky that it isn't limited to 1920x1080.  That
seems to be the universal assumption.
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