Enable ~4K (3840 X 2160) resolution on Windows 7 with Intel HD Graphics card

Question

I have a DELL E7450 laptop connected via an HDMI cable to a DELL UP3214Q monitor (which can display 3840x2160 @ 60Hz with a DP1.2 cable) . Ubuntu 14.10 uses the 3840 X 2160 resolution just fine - although @ 30Hz (which I don't mind). No drivers required. xrandr shows:

HDMI1 connected 3840x2160+1920+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 698mm x 392mm
   3840x2160      30.0*+   25.0     24.0     30.0     24.0  
   1920x1200      60.0  

But Windows 7 64-bit only sees 1920x1080 as the maximum resolution. The Intel HD Graphics 5500 settings allow for custom resolutions, but the maximum I could set was 2560 x 1440 @ 30Hz. Beyond that, everything would error with

The custom resolution exceeds the maximum bandwidth capacity

This error is obviously completely bogus!

Also, I accidentally managed to get 3840x2160 @ 30Hz as a regular resolution in Control Panel after I booted back from Ubuntu into Windows once. This trick didn't work after rebooting windows once again to install some updated. I hadn't installed anything else in Windows, or changed any settings. Before booting into Ubuntu, I had rebooted Windows several times, so I'd rule out rebooting itself as a solution. Could Ubuntu have written some information to the graphics card or the monitor?

Other things I've tried - nothing worked:

• Installed the Dell Display Manager: it can't do anything about resolutions
• Installed Entec PowerStrip. It detects the maximum resolution but can't set it, even after adding it from Custom Resolution.
• tried to install Intel's native HD Graphics driver, but is says "The driver being installed is not validated for this computer. Please obtain the appropriate driver from the computer manufacturer."
• updated Dell's Intel HD video driver
• I've already installed the monitor driver and the monitor shows correctly by name in Device Manager. Still, no native resolution shows up anywhere.
• Custom Resolution Utility allegedly doesn't work on Intel graphics cards. I've run, and it gave no error about the graphics card being Intel. It flickered the monitor and ultimately reset it 1920x1080, but didn't help at all with 4K.
• Display Changer - seems to just pick up whatever resolutions are in the Registry
• disconnect the laptop's internal display, and only "connect to projector"

There's an Intel Community thread on the buggy "The custom resolution exceeds the maximum bandwidth capacity", but the Intel rep there isn't listening.

This is a nearly $2000 4K monitor that doesn't display 4K in Windows 7.

What else can I try?

Solution 1

The only thing that has worked so far was buying a Mini-DisplayPort to DisplayPort 1.2 cable. 3840x2160 @ 60Hz works great now.

It's disappointing that the Intel folks refuse to acknowledge the "maximum bandwidth exceeded" bug.

Solution 2

The Intel HD Graphics 4000 drivers for Windows allow the creation of custom resolutions. (I know, why on earth would it not recognize the 4k standard like Linux does!?) Anyhow, on this dialog box create a 3840 x 2160 pixel resolution at 24Hz AND(!!) Select CVT-RB as the Timing Standard. It should ask you to confirm, then close that app. Next time you plug in the monitor (it does have to be rediscovered by Windows) and open up the Windows Display Settings dialog box, pick the 4k monitor, in resolution, you will have the option to pick 3840x2160 - it should even have the tag 'Recommended'.

Comments

[MC10]

This says maximum resolution is HDMI: 4096 x 2304, 3840 x 2160 @ 24 Hz / 24bpp. Not sure why it would be different in Ubuntu. Was the 60Hz actually there?

[Dan Dascalescu]

@MC10: actually I didn't explicitly see 60Hz (added a screenshot), but never saw anything slower than I'm used to. By comparison, the 30Hz custom resolution in Windows was just bad - even the mouse moved visibly more slowly.

[Dan Dascalescu]

@BalaSivakumar: what do you mean? On the exact same hardware combination, Ubuntu handles the resolution just fine. I simply want the same in Windows.

[MC10]

Hmm that's weird. I wonder if there's some limitation of Windows that Ubuntu does not have. What does xrandr output for the Ubuntu? It should show a Hz value.

[Daniel B]

@MC10 As indicated by the xrandr line, it’s 30 Hz. Which is what you could expect over HDMI 1.4. Sadly, I couldn’t get that resolution to run with my Sandy Bridge notebook. :(

[Dan Dascalescu]

@DanielB: would a different cable help? Mini-DisplayPort to DisplayPort, or HDMI 1.4a?

[Yorik]

I see people saying that having dual screens in clone mode limits the choices to the lowest common choice. Can you set your laptop to single display mode with the monitor as the display?

[qasdfdsaq]

Windows 7 has some peculiar problems with mixed refresh rates. Are you trying in clone, extend, or external-display only mode? And what's listed in the "Show all modes" box in Windows?

[Daniel B]

@DanDascalescu: No, it’s a driver problem. There are patches to remove the Pixel Clock limit from NVIDIA and ATI drivers, but there’s none for Intel. This limit is to protect users from themselves.

[ganesh]

@Dan Dascalescu Mini-DisplayPort to DisplayPort should not do anything. The mini DP port is identical to the regular DP connector (well, except for its size). OP: Almost certainly not the desired solution, but up to now all (both) problems I had with DP and resolutions went away when I replaced DP to HDMI resp HDMO to DP cables with single straight Dp to DP cables. Might be worth testing. (Though I actually would prefer a good answer which does not require that).

[Dan Dascalescu]

@fixer1234: I'm so incredibly frustrated by this.

[fixer1234]

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." :-)

[Alex S]

@DanDascalescu - Im not sure if this is one of the speed breakers but both DP & HDMI standards for 4K is kind of in flux these days - video cards, cables etc. Maybe that HDMI cable has limitations and is not compliant to the higher than 1080p spec or querying Display via it had issues . And maybe Ubuntu bypasses the querying. lots of such stuff on overclock.net forums

[Scott - Слава Україні]

You seem to be saying what to do but not how to do it. How does one create a custom resolution? (Also, the OP has already tried custom resolutions without success.)

[Mark van der Pol]

the OP did do a custom resolution - and set it to 30Hz. I am informing that the correct setting is 24Hz, and to tweak the timing standard to CVT-RB.

[wcndave]

This worked for me. Right click on Intel Graphics in system tray, choose options, and custom resolution. The trick is to use a lower refresh rate, 30fps worked for me. Windows 10 and the same problem exists....