How to run a Dell 2209WA at 75Hz

evilsofa

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I'm seeing in the 2209WA megathread that it's possible to run it at 75Hz, but it takes a little technical work to do. I'd like to start this separate thread to put together clear instructions on how to do so for both nVidia and ATi users, and also to find out if all 2209WA monitors can do it, or only some. I don't own these monitors myself, but my brother-in-law has two, so I'll quote what's been said on this topic so far that I can find:

myshkinbob said:
At least with nvidia drivers, to get my 2209wa in 1680x1050 @75Hz over DVI, you have to set up a custom resolution. When setting up the custom resolution you must select Advanced >> and change the Timing standard to CVT Reduced Blanking. If it's left on Auto then the GDI refresh rate is 75Hz but the "actual refresh rate" (as the nv control panel calls it) remains at 60Hz, verified still 60Hz in the panel OSD. The custom resolution won't actually use CVT reduced blanking by the way, it'll use DMT timing mode.

I've no explanation for why that is, it might just be a nvidia control panel bug with the auto timing mode. Either way, the panel's OSD and nvidia control panel will only report an actual refresh rate of 75Hz if you use the Advanced >> button to control the timings.

I had this behaviour in Vista x86 and Windows 7 x64 both.

Once the panel is getting a genuine 1680x1050@75Hz signal it works nicely. I did some tearing tests to verify the screen does physically refresh at 75Hz, i.e. the panel's internal signal processing doesn't reduce it back to 60Hz like some monitors will.

If anyone wants to double-check that, i used Portal with net_graph 3 enabled in console to see my current FPS, first with v-sync disabled to find a nice area where tearing is easily visible, then switched to v-sync enabled, checked the net_graph was locked at 75 FPS and verified the tearing was gone. If the screen was downsampling the 75Hz to 60Hz, then 75Hz v-sync would still show tearing, akin to 75fps at 60Hz without v-sync.

I only have a weakling 8800GTS 640MB so i often can't run the latest games with v-sync enabled to get rid of tearing, so i'm happy to say the jump up to 75Hz reduces tearing quite noticeably on this screen. It's still there a bit, and you can still tell a difference when v-sync is enabled, but it's definitely an improvement.

Aside from making tearing in games much less of an issue, it's also pretty good for removing judder from HD blu-ray movies watched on the 2209WA. 24fps into 60Hz always gives some ugliness on panning shots, but it's almost eliminated with 24fps into 75Hz. A 72Hz custom res is also an option, although personally i use Reclock to speed up the movie to 25fps and resample the audio, for perfect v-sync movie playback.

zod96 said:
When I set my to 75hz it the OS reports it as 75hz but on the OSD of the LCD it says only 60hz, so which is it? Is the OS reporting it wrong or the LCD?

ToastyX said:
With NVIDIA cards, you have to add a custom resolution using the advanced timing option, and use the CVT reduced blanking timing standard, otherwise the driver lies to the OS. The LCD is reporting the correct rate.

Malatesta said:
When I try this my monitor gives me an error on a black screen that says my timings are not supported by the monitor. Looks like the 75Hz no workie for me.

ToastyX said:
It should work. I don't know why it wouldn't. Maybe the timings it chose for you aren't compatible.

Try these manual timings:

Horizontal front porch: 48
Active horizontal pixels: 1680
Horizontal total: 1840
Horizontal sync width: 32
Horizontal sync polarity: -

Vertical front porch: 3
Active vertical lines: 1050
Vertical total: 1087
Vertical sync width: 6
Vertical sync polarity: +

Then set the desired refresh rate to 75 Hz.

It will actually accept up to 76.647 Hz using those timings. Going any higher causes it to intermittently reject the resolution, so don't go above that. The monitor will report 77 Hz since it rounds up.
 
Hi All. I've had success using the settings provided by ToastyX on a nVidia 8800GT, but have since changed to the ATI 4770 and im having trouble getting back to 75hz. I've read that powerstrip is the ticket to 75hz, but im unsure of the settings to get it over the line. Could someone post a screen grab of the correct powerstrip settings?

Cheers,

G
 
Creating a new custom resolution in the Nvidia control panel with ToastyX's settings worked fine for me with an 8800 GTS under Windows XP. It doesn't seem to support fractional refresh rates so I'm at 76Hz instead of 76.647, but I had no problems getting that to work. PowerStrip, on the other hand, did not work for me at all.

I'm also using RefreshLock to lock the monitor at 76Hz in games.
 
Hi All. I've had success using the settings provided by ToastyX on a nVidia 8800GT, but have since changed to the ATI 4770 and im having trouble getting back to 75hz. I've read that powerstrip is the ticket to 75hz, but im unsure of the settings to get it over the line. Could someone post a screen grab of the correct powerstrip settings?

Cheers,

G
You may want to read this thread closely, and give his software a whirl, just to be sure you're not wasting your time.

Much to my surprise, I was able to find out my monitor WAS NOT displaying all 75 frames when displaying a 75 hz input. It was only displaying 60 of those 75 frames, and dropping the rest. This created very jerky animation and was causing me headache. Now I know for a fact it can only display 60 hz inputs properly.
 
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1034028590

Shows that it does not skip frames.


http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=603714

There is a lot of info in this thread about different nvidia drivers and it's impact. Basically read nd4spdbh2's posts- some posts in this link are misleading.

edit.

Just tried it - it works - easy. A few pics seem to confirm that no frames are being dropped.


p.p.s.

But I can't seem to get refreshlock to work. When I run it it frops the refresh to 60. It only accepts 60 as "safe."
 
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hi there,
i tried to set it as described, but when i select 75Hz and open timings, i see ~81 Hz refresh rate, is that safe? Or i should set in upper selectbox so much Hz to have 75Hz on bottom?
 
I am running Windows XP with an Nvidia GTX260, and used to be able to get the monitor to run in 75hz, through the instructions. Well today I updated my drivers as it had been a little while since I had done so. And now with the newest drivers (195.62), I am not able to get this monitor to 75hz.

The layout of the control panel has changed slightly since I last updated (it had probably been a solid 2 or 3 months since my update). But I found the "custom resolution" menu, added the settings by ToastyX, which have worked up until this point. Now I click test, screen goes black for a second it comes back, the option "click yes to keep settings" pops up. During this time, according to my monitor, the 75hz is in effect. So I click yes to keep settings, the screen goes black again for a second. In the graphical settings I can still see it is 60hz, and on the menu of the monitor I see "1680 x 1050 @ 60hz" as well.


http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/175/nvidiax.jpg

I am sure it is a problem with the thing sitting between the chair and the keyboard, but I have tried multiple times all resulting in failure.
 
Thanks for consolidating this information. My 2209WA should arrive soon, and I'm definitely interested in seeing if I can get 75hz working properly with my 5770!
 
Disconnect, what settings did you use in Phoenix? I'm not sure which ones in the first post correspond to what's showing in the "Detailed Timings" tab, if that's even the correct place.

Great, now I feel like a moron. ;-(
 
Yes, but you can check the 2209 thread and look at what others are doing to reduce the risk.
Prerequisites

* Read and understand both linked documents above.
* Post questions if anything is unclear before you proceed.
* Don't blame me when you ruin your $3000 HDTV. Smoke can happen.
* Read up on what your displays true capabilities are stick close to them.
* This is more of a coffee tutorial than a beer tutorial...
 
That driver's finally got me running at 75hz, yay! Apparently I'm too much of a lazy, moronic schlub to figure out which settings to change in Phoenix on my own. Thanks for the link!
 
For those running ATI, itll work for sure. NVidia, no guarantees. I currently use it without issue.

http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php?p=6280080&postcount=159


This worked for me after a reboot. No need for additional programs = hooray :D

I DO have a question, though...if this is part of the official specs of the monitor, why does it require hacks to activate 75\76hz? Certain other monitors let you, so why not this one?
 
It's not a part of the official specs - it's a hack. The monitor _may_ be able to do 75 Hz, but it's not guaranteed. My monitor starts displaying corruption in the form of horizontal lines, and it also starts making a noise. I'm quite convinced that running *my* monitor on 75 Hz for a short while would destroy it. It works for some monitors, but not for others.
 
Still no issues running at 76hz, but I can't really be sure if there's much of a difference from 60. Still lots of tearing in games, but at least I can press the menu button for the OSD and see 1680x1050@76Hz at the bottom!
 
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So how do I run it at 75Hz? I have an ati card. I tried refreshlock, refresfroce and dxdiag value thingy. It just reports 60hz. Then I went to the timing settings in powerstrip and chose 75hz for vertical and there were artifacts all over the screen.
 
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So how do I run it at 75Hz? I have an ati card. I tried refreshlock, refresfroce and dxdiag value thingy. It just reports 60hz. Then I went to the timing settings in powerstrip and chose 75hz for vertical and there were artifacts all over the screen.

See sideeffect's post earlier in this thread (post #20).
 
The modded EDID from wsg most people are using bumps it up to 76hz. Don't know why 76 instead of 75, but 75hz isn't an option with the mentioned EDID.

75 and 76 hz are both options for me. I run an ati 5770.
 
Right. I'm a novice here, but on messing with this inf...

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6280080&postcount=159

I can see that the horizontal refresh is indeed set at 76, but the vertical refresh is still at default, whilst the spec for this monitor

http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/monitors/2209WA/en/ug/about.htm#Specifications

at 75hz is 86 khz.....

So this monitor, even with this inf is still running below system spec.

The bloke in the OC forum clearly knows what he's doing.....

I can create a dat file that reads

1680 x 1050p at 75Hz - VESA STD

But the detail timings is something different again.

So.....who is expert enough to get this pixel clock up to 187?

Edit- Some theory

http://www.mcamafia.de/mcapage0/timecalc.htm

"1680x1050" 146.250 1680 1784 1960 2240 1050 1053 1059 1089 -hsync +vsync Default

"1680x1050" 153.290 1680 1712 1744 1842 1050 1053 1059 1089 -hsync +vsync - killer's dat.

K
 
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What's the reason to bump it up to 75Hz?

Can someone explain to me the appeal of 75Hz? I understand why higher resolution is better back in the CRT days, but what's so good about 75 vs 60? Is it simply a matter of higher perceived FPS? Doesn't your eye lose the ability to see >30-40fps?
 
Can someone explain to me the appeal of 75Hz? I understand why higher resolution is better back in the CRT days, but what's so good about 75 vs 60? Is it simply a matter of higher perceived FPS? Doesn't your eye lose the ability to see >30-40fps?


The neuropsychologyists did not use fast paced FPS's in their testing methodology - perhaps they should. Gamers know that the scientists are wrong on this one.

Right on digging, the answer to why killer wrote his setings as he did is that the Dell settings with a 187mhz pixel clock can't work because a DVI connection has a 165mhz cap.

This monitor seems happy at 76, so why not go for the 1mhz extra.

So there we go.

The 76 dat works for me, and I can use it in BFBC2 - that's all I need!

The scientists can set up a clan game of counterstrike, one team with vsync set at 75, the other with vsync set at 40 so this can be settled once and for all.
 
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I'm having problems with the latest NVIDIA drivers on a 8800GT
Any updated info for Nvidia users? Never had a problem with my ATI card
 
^Mine works at 75hz, using an 8800GT SLI setup + 257.46 drivers IIRC.
Will check when I get home from work today.
 
Sorry for resurrecting this old thread, but I have jut tried to "overclock" my DELL 2209WA to 76Hz refresh rate. I did it with the help of manual settings, in nVidia Control Panel, with just a little change: Total vertical pixels at 1088 (compared to 1087 from a guide) and Polarity +/- (horizontal / vertical). And polarity is my question, because it seems to not change anything visible on the screen, and I can do 76Hz with +/- or -/+. What is the purpose of the Polarity? How is it affecting your panel/screen/its quality? Thank you...
 
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