Driving a 2560x1440 monitor with an HDMI-equipped laptop

FrankVardon · Sep 10, 2013

Hi, guys, any pointers on this would be much appreciated. I am purchasing a Dell U2713HM monitor (2560x1440, DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI).

I am considering one of two laptops: An Asus UX31a-DH51 (1920x1080, Intel HD Graphics 4000, micro-HDMI) and an Asus N56VJ-DH71 (NVIDIA GeForce GT 635M, HDMI). Neither has a DisplayPort or mini-DisplayPort.

Question: Can I achieve 2560x1440 resolution driving the monitor with either laptop? And if so, which connection on the monitor would work best?

Does Intel’s HD Graphics 4000 support 2560x1440 if I connect to the monitor using the UX31a’s micro-HDMI port? Or would it support that resolution only with an HD 4000-equipped laptop that has a mini-DisplayPort?

What about the Asus N56VJ, which does have a discrete video card? Can I obtain 2560x1440 using its HDMI port?

Thanks a mil.

Frank

getochkn · Sep 10, 2013

depends on the version of HDMI each laptop includes, if the cable you use supports that revision and if the laptop maker implemented the full HDMI spec for that revision into it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI

Look at version comparision down the page.

I would think the intel HD would be weaker at the higher resolution than the dedicted geforce one though myself.

FrankVardon · Sep 10, 2013

getochkn :

@getochkn: Thanks. I will verify which HDMI version each of the two Asus laptops has and post them here ASAP.

noidea_77 · Sep 10, 2013

HDMI 1.3 supports resolutions up to 2560×1600: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI but i couldn't find the supported version on the Asus site.

FrankVardon · Sep 10, 2013

Thanks, noidea_77. I just had a chat with Asus:
Me: Could you tell me which version of HDMI your UX31a-DH51 and N56VJ-DH71 laptops have?
Asus rep: The system doesn’t tell us the version of HDMI it has.
Me: Hmm. How could Asus themselves not know which version of HDMI their own laptops have? Any ideas how I could find out?
No ideas.

noidea_77 · Sep 11, 2013

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Asus-Zenbook-Prime-UX31A-Ultrabook.80135.0.html
"The Zenbook managed our office setup with two Dell 24" monitors (1920x1200) and the integrated display without trouble. The UX31A only hits its limit when it comes to high resolution external displays, because a DisplayPort interface would be required for resolutions of 2560x1600 pixels."
In addition i don't see the HDMI version, the Dell monitor supports.

FrankVardon · Sep 11, 2013

@noidea_77: Thanks. Are you saying in your final sentence that the HDMI-equipped Asus UX31a would/should be able to drive a monitor to 2560x1600?

noidea_77 · Sep 11, 2013

FrankVardon :

No! The review at www.notebookcheck.net says, they where able to drive a 24" with 1920x1200 on the hdmi port. 1920x1200 is above the 1920*1080 of plain old hdmi, so i THINK it must be hdmi 1.3.

I just found this and it says the resolution is not supported by the Intel HD4000 graphics: http://communities.intel.com/message/189170

FrankVardon · Sep 11, 2013

I tried a few experiments at Micro Center. Bottom line: The laptops equipped with the Intel HD Graphics 4000 that I tried could not achieve 2560x1440 on a Dell UltraSharp U2713hm monitor, regardless of which connections we tried: HDMI to HDMI, or mini-DisplayPort to DisplayPort. The maximum achievable was 1920x1200. “2560x1440” would not even appear on the resolution scale in the monitor’s onscreen control panel.

In contrast, when we connected an Asus N550JV-DB72T laptop with an Nvidia GeForce GT 750M discrete graphics card, the monitor achieved 2560x1440. Even so, this was possible only through DisplayPort. Connecting the laptop to the monitor from micro-HDMI to HDMI failed to go beyond 1920x1200 (it might have been 1920x1080, I forget). So there we have it. Thanks, everyone.

Frank

wonder_lee · Nov 18, 2013

I Bing-ed "asus ux31a 2560x1440" to get to this page, I have the exact same question as @FrankVardon did. After reading the responses, I just want to add more observation:

I can't achieve more than 1920x1080 from Asus UX31a-DH51 to a Dell U2713HM thru micro-HDMI to HDMI cable. The Intel HD Graphics doesn't list that resolution as an option.

However, I was able to get 2560x1440 from my Dell Latitude E5430 (with a dock) to the same monitor using Dual-DVI cable. This dell laptop has the same Intel HD 4000, and even though it doesn't list the resolution as a native option, I was able to manually add the resolution the list and use it. The trick is to lower the refresh rate to about 50Hz when add the customized resolution. I tried to use HDMI cable, but it doesn't work even with the trick.

I didn't try to add the customized resolution to the Asus laptop since I doubt even I'm able to do it, the HDMI from Intel HD 4000 still doesn't support more than 1080p.

I hope this helps anybody who has the same question and get to here by searching the question online.

tomstest · Jan 18, 2014

It isn't guarantied but Intel integrated GPUs (including Optimus) should work (as well as dedicated NVIDIA):
http://www.notebookcheck.net/2560x1440-or-2560x1600-via-HDMI.92840.0.html

megazone23 · Mar 7, 2014

The problem is most monitors report to the computer that it supports only up to 1920x1200 when HDMI is used for connection.
The computer then lists only up to 1920x1200 in selection even though both monitor and video card can support more than that over HDMI.
Some people have success in creating custom profile to override the selection to force higher resolution output over HDMI.
Monitor manufacturers should fix this issue to report the monitor's true capability.

thehutti · May 12, 2014

Hi guys,

the problem is that the monitor does not report a resolution of 2560x1440 over HDMI. I'm using an Asus Zenbook UX32V (HDMI out) and a DELL 27" Monitor. If I connect the Monitor to another PC via Displayport it does show the full 2560x1440 out of the box. To solve this issue I manually applied the resolution with all settings to the system (I'm using Xubuntu Linux by the way).

My monitor-settings shell script:

#/bin/sh
xrandr --newmode "2560x1440_41.00" 163.711 2560 2608 2640 2720 1440 1443 1448 1468 -hsync -vsync
xrandr --addmode HDMI1 "2560x1440_41.00"
xrandr --output HDMI1 --mode "2560x1440_41.00"
xrandr --output eDP1 --mode "1920x1080"
xrandr --output HDMI1 --left-of eDP1

That sets the resolution at startup. I'm sure there are some Windows-tools that can do the same for Windows users

slashrsm · Oct 24, 2014

Solution that @thehutti suggested worked for me (Ubuntu, Asus UX31a, Dell U2713HM). When I added resolution profile to HDMI output worked like a charm!

Thanks!

brookheather · Jul 1, 2016

I can confirm that the "StarTech HDMI to DisplayPort Converter with USB Power" (available for around £40 on Amazon) will allow you to display a 1440p @ 60Hz HDMI output on the Dell U2713HM monitor. I successfully connected the HDMI output on my Z97 motherboard to the DisplayPort input on the monitor. The converter should work with any HDMI port that outputs video at 1440p.

thehutti · Jul 2, 2016

brookheather :

1440p@60Hz is technicaly impossible over HDMI 1.4. The only way that could work is with fake frames (30fps output and the converter doubles it) or with the new HDMI 2.0 or at least 1.4b Standard that is present on new Hardware.

brookheather · Jul 2, 2016

thehutti :

No it works perfectly fine - HDMI 1.4 has sufficient bandwidth for 2560x1440 @ 60Hz - you may be thinking of 4K which it would only support at 30 Hz.

Driving a 2560x1440 monitor with an HDMI-equipped laptop

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