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I've got a Dell Latitude D830 laptop and its docking station, with Vista Enterprise running. I'd like to connect a HP LP3065 30" display externally, but can't see the higher resolutions in the settings.

The native resolution of the display is WQXGA (2560x1600), but when connected Windows only sees capability up to WXGA (1280x800). The laptop display goes even higher than that, so I think something is wrong, possibly with drivers. It's got the Nvidia drivers installed... Is there something else I can try to get this working?

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I had this issue with the Latitude 630. It is a driver problem. You need to use the drivers from nVidia, not the ones from Dell. And before you install them, you'll probably need to update the BIOS (at least I had to). So what you need are the latest nVidia drivers from the nVidia download page (not the Dell ones) and the BIOS update from dell.com. For drivers, make sure to get the ones for a mobile chip (mine is a Quadro 135M. Yours may be higher. This is not the same as a Quadro chip without an M behind the number, those are rendering/CAD workstation chips and there is a difference in the driver package)

Install the BIOS first (make a backup first, just in case), then the drivers. Then connect the external display over the DVI output of the docking station. You should be able to get 2560x1600 (at least I got 2560x1440 that way). Remember, VGA won't go

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  • Thanks, I tried the steps you outlined: updated BIOS, grabbed Nvidia drivers (from Nvidia), installed -- and no luck. It feels like the docking station is the limitation, like maybe it doesn't support dual-link DVI at all. Will test further tomorrow...
    – colemanm
    Commented Jul 26, 2010 at 22:13
  • Now it starts getting really strange. I started thinking if I'd gotten the laptop to go to the real 2560x1440 or only to something which I'd considered "good enough". So I looked at the specs. nvidia.com/object/quadro_nvs_notebook_techspecs.html says that this card shouldn't be supporting more than 160x1200 but I am definitely running a 1920x1200 on the DVI right now. /n Booting from a live Linux CD could eliminate the hardware limitation hypothesis. But booting from Linux and being unable to choose the max resolution doesn't confirm it.
    – rumtscho
    Commented Jul 26, 2010 at 23:41
  • Yeah... my Latitude has a NVS 140M, which Nvidia says supports 1920x1200, but I can't get it to go higher than 1280x800. I'm confused. I need to try it without the dock to eliminate that from the discussion...
    – colemanm
    Commented Jul 27, 2010 at 11:56
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Have you visited the Dell driver site and entered the service tag to be sure you have the latest drivers? You say you have the nVidia drivers installed. Are these from Dell or nVidia? I suggest only using the Dell provided drivers.

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