Raspberry Pi Forums

Posted: **Sat Sep 06, 2014 11:29 am**

Dear all,

I am new to Raspberry Pi and a bit of a technophobe so excuse my ignorance!!

I am using my Raspberry Pi together with an old Dell Monitor from work - the Dell E1912H. Anyway, I've read that the max resolution on this monitor should be 1366 x 768 pixels.

I bought an HDMI-VGA converter for the monitor. Connected it to the Raspberry Pi, set up the SD card etc, and it didn't work.

Anyway I made some adjustments to the Config based on the information that I'd Googled and managed to get the monitor working.

The problem now, is that the resolution/icons are all huge.
I've tried to adjust a few things in the Config.txt but while this has made everything a more reasonable size, the resolution is now bad.

Please see my Command text below:

# uncomment if you get no picture on HDMI for a default "safe" mode
hdmi_safe=1

# uncomment this if your display has a black border of unused pixels visible
# and your display can output without overscan
disable_overscan=0

# uncomment the following to adjust overscan. Use positive numbers if console
# goes off screen, and negative if there is too much border
#overscan_left=16
#overscan_right=16
#overscan_top=16
#overscan_bottom=16

# uncomment to force a console size. By default it will be display's size minus
# overscan.
framebuffer_width=1366
framebuffer_height=768

# uncomment if hdmi display is not detected and composite is being output
hdmi_force_hotplug=1

# uncomment to force a specific HDMI mode (this will force VGA)
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=16

# uncomment to force a HDMI mode rather than DVI. This can make audio work in
# DMT (computer monitor) modes
hdmi_drive=2

# uncomment to increase signal to HDMI, if you have interference, blanking, or
# no display
#config_hdmi_boost=4

# uncomment for composite PAL
#sdtv_mode=2

#uncomment to overclock the arm. 700 MHz is the default.
#arm_freq=800

# for more options see http://elinux.org/RPi_config.txt

Can anyone help?

Thanks so much

Posted: **Sat Sep 06, 2014 1:31 pm**

You have a strange mix of resolutions in your config.txt.

Framebuffer 1366x768

hdmi_mode=16 1024x768 60Hz

What does the tvservice (see http://elinux.org/RPi_Configuration) tell about the capabilities of the display?

Choose a hdmi_mode that suits the capabilities and let framebuffer being choosen automatically.

Posted: **Sat Sep 06, 2014 8:45 pm**

If I read the manual of config.txt correctly, setting hdmi_safe=1 is the reason why icons become huge because it is designed to be a fallback. Pi is quite good at choosing the optimum resolution for the attached monitor if it is able to see the correct EDID of the monitor. As the monitor is behind the HDMI->VGA converter, it is likely that Pi gets kind of confused as it can only see the EDID of the converter rather than that of the monitor.

Maybe you could try out the default config.txt but change only the hdmi_group and hdmi_mode as follows:

hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=81 # 1366x768@60Hz

If there is still nothing showing on the monitor but the monitor looks a bit whitish as compared to when it is powered off, add another change to the file:

hdmi_drive=2

A power-cycle for the Pi and the monitor may be needed between these two steps. Afterwards, everything should be in order.

In case the monitor is unable to centralise the image automatically, make an extra change to the config.txt:

disable_overscan=1

Hopefully, after this 3-step configuration and power-cycles, everything is really in working order...

Posted: **Sun Sep 07, 2014 12:53 pm**

Expanding on @hansotten comments, FWIW, my notes on using the tvservice command to "optimise" display settings (ie. by using a "preferred" or "native" mode of the monitor/display) can be found here:
http://www.cpmspectrepi.webspace.virgin ... tings.html
Trev.

Raspberry Pi Forums

Using a VGA Converter - Icons showing as being too large!

Using a VGA Converter - Icons showing as being too large!

Re: Using a VGA Converter - Icons showing as being too large

Re: Using a VGA Converter - Icons showing as being too large

Re: Using a VGA Converter - Icons showing as being too large