15" Powerbook and 20" Cinema Display

By Lomex
in Apple (macOS)

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Lomex

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Well my girlfriend is going all Mac crazy. Bought a powerbook several months ago and now a 20" Cinema display, and if that works out she'll exchange it for a 23" cinema display, but anyways...

She plugged in the cinema into the powerbook. What she wants, is if the cinema is plugged in, to take over as a primary display with the resolution set on the cinema display... I'm not that mac savy, so so far I figured out how to extend the desktop and to mirror the desktop. The problem we have with mirroring, is that when we mirror onto the cinema, the resolution of the powerbook is applied, therefore it looks like ****. And if we set the resolution on the cinema to the proper resolution, the desktop is still with the resolution of the powerbook, centered in the cinema, with black around evrything else...

Need your help guys!

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Grand Master

Fusion

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There are 3 methods you can use with the external screen.

1. Clamshell mode. Close the powerbook putting it to sleep then connect the display. Then wake it up with either a mouse or the power adapter. This will use the Cinema Display as the primary display with it's native resolution and the PowerBook screen will be off. This also means that the full resources of the video card are directed at the Cinema Display.

2. Mirror mode. You have already figured this out, and yes, you can only use the resolution of the PowerBook because you are mirroring. If the Cinema Display had the higher resolution there are things that couldn't be seen on the PowerBook which makes no sense for mirroring. As you have also figured out, on the Cinema Display, you can either have the PowerBook resolution stretched or centered.

3. Dual Display mode. My guess is that this is what you are trying to do, but you want the Cinema Display as the primary display and not the PowerBook. Open up the display preference pane and look at the monitor panel. You will see two light blue boxes next to each other. You can drag these around any way you want to change where they are in relation, i.e. if the Cinema Display is on the left, right, top, bottom, etc... You will also notice that in one of the boxes there is a small white bar at the top. This is the menu bar and signifies which screen is the "primary" screen. To change this, simply drag the white bar over to the other light blue box. These settings will be saved for when you reconnect.

I'd really recommend clamshell mode however, I find it much better performance when the entire GPU is directed at one monitor and it can be a hassle dealing with 2 monitors unless she is doing some really resolution intensive work with her machine.

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