How to get monitor resolution of 1680x1050 using ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO in a dual monitor setup

Question

I have Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO graphics card in my Windows Server 2008 x64 machine. It has two outputs a VGA and a DVI. I have connected the DVI to my Dell 24" monitor with 1900x1200 resolution and it works 100%. The VGA I have connected to my second monitor a Samsung 22" with native resolution of 1680x1050. But the ATI driver and Catalyst control centre doesn't show this resolution as an option. If I choose a lower resolution like 1280x1024 it looks really bad and fuzzy. I searched in google and downloaded the powerstrip tool that allowed me to create a custom resolution of 1680x1050 and then this option shows up in Catalyst control centre and my 2nd monitor works fine now.

But I don't want to pay for an application to choose a display resolution. Why doesn't ATI show me that option by default even though it has no problem in actually supporting the display at resolution. Is there a way to get 1680x1050 resolution using ATI drivers only ?

Solution

I had a similar problem with my 1680 x 1050 monitor.

I found that I had to use the "Desktops and Displays" section of the ATI Catalyst Control Center software and click on the "Detect Displays" button. Thereafter, it showed the 1680 x 1050 resolution as an option under "Desktop Properties".

Comments

[MDMarra]

From the "about" section on the site "I do this hobby in my spare time, since I have a personal life and a day work, so don't expect me to be up-to-date with everybody or everything..." That doesn't sound like a driver package that I'd want to install.

[donut]

When I was running I had no troubles whatsoever. Didn't notice any difference in performance, either. They're easy to uninstall if it doesn't work. Worth a shot if nothing else is working.

[Leo]

I had to go to Desktop and Display > Display 2 > Configure and uncheck "[ ] Use Extended Display Identification Data (EDID) or driver defaults". After unchecking, I was able to force 1680x1050 as the maximum resolution for the monitor. This added it to all the appropriate dropdowns.

[JustAMartin]

Unfortunately that EDID option is available only for VGA. I have a similar issue with DVI - Catalyst thinks that my monitor does not support 1360x768 and enables GPU scaling which makes everything look blurred. Only on VGA the image is crisp even at 1360x768, but I have to uncheck that EDID box, or else Catalyst GPU scaling kicks in again and makes things blurry.