Samsung 205bw SyncMaster

Question

So we purchased this 20" Samsung 205bw SyncMaster LCD monitor. It's got DVI and VGA inputs, supports a native resolution of 1680x1050 and has some pretty nice specs other than that (for a consumer grade monitor that is.) Now the only problem we're facing is that the native supported display resolution mentioned is not available in the Displays prefs panel. The highest I have is 1600x1200 and everything under that is all at a square ratio, no wide format options at all. The monitor is recognized by the OS as a SyncMaster and I've found the color profile on the install cd...
I've made a few calls to the Apple Protection Plan 800 number. Each time I was sent to a 2nd level tech who in turn said he would have to speak with the engineers about our issue. Actually the first call I made the tech hung up on me, but that's besides the point. The best answer Apple can give us is that we need to wait for a firmware update to the mini... This is very absurd and basically what they're saying is "Buy an Apple Pro Display."
I've read other posts in the forums here that state users seeing the mini hooked up to a 22" display running native resolutions at 1680x1050. Now if the Apple displays can handle this resolution there should be absolutely no reason we can't "trick" the mini into pulling these resolutions for the Samsung monitor.
My suggestion, do not buy a mini, also do not buy a Samsung SyncMaster 205bw if you have a mini. It's a waste of your time until Apple gets this issue resolved, and who knows when that will happen with the 10.5 rollout coming in less than 8 days, 7 hours, 6 minutes and 20 seconds...

Answer 1

Here's that report, you can see that the native resolution is not being sent by the display clearly. I have however noticed that you can add custom resolutions using this tool so let's do a reboot here and see if it worked. Thank you for your response Steely, I never knew this program existed and if it's worth it we'll purchase to use after the 10 day trial.
DDC block report generated by SwitchResX for display
SyncMaster
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
0 | 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 4C 2D AE 01 30 32 41 48
1 | 2A 10 01 03 80 29 1F 78 2A EE 95 A3 54 4C 99 26
2 | 0F 50 54 BF EF 80 A9 40 81 80 81 40 71 4F 01 01
3 | 01 01 01 01 01 01 48 3F 40 30 62 B0 32 40 40 C0
4 | 13 00 98 32 11 00 00 1E 00 00 00 FD 00 38 4B 1E
5 | 51 11 00 0A 20 20 20 20 20 20 00 00 00 FC 00 53
6 | 79 6E 63 4D 61 73 74 65 72 0A 20 20 00 00 00 FF
7 | 00 48 56 46 41 41 30 34 34 38 30 0A 20 20 00 23
Valid DDC block: checksum passed
EDID Version........1.3
Manufacturer........SAM
Product Code........44545 (AE01) (01AE)
Serial Number.......1212232*
Manufactured........Week 42 of year 2006
Max H Size..........41 cm
Max V Size..........31 cm
Gamma...............2.20
DPMS Supported Features:
Active off
Display type:
RGB color display
Input signal & sync:
Digital
Color info:
Red x = 0.640 Green x = 0.300 Blue x = 0.150 White x = 0.313
Red y = 0.330 Green y = 0.600 Blue y = 0.060 White y = 0.329
Established Timings:
800 x 600 @ 60Hz
800 x 600 @ 56Hz
640 x 480 @ 75Hz
640 x 480 @ 72Hz
640 x 480 @ 67Hz
640 x 480 @ 60Hz
720 x 400 @ 70Hz
1280 x 1024 @ 75Hz
1024 x 768 @ 75Hz
1024 x 768 @ 70Hz
1024 x 768 @ 60Hz
832 x 624 @ 75Hz
800 x 600 @ 75Hz
800 x 600 @ 72Hz
Manufacturer Reserved Timings:
1152 x 870 @ 75Hz
Standard Timing Identification:
#0: 1600 x 1200 @ 60Hz (A940)
#1: 1280 x 1024 @ 60Hz (8180)
#2: 1280 x 960 @ 60Hz (8140)
#3: 1152 x 864 @ 75Hz (714F)
Monitor Description blocks:
Descriptor #0 is Timing definition:
Mode = 1600 x 1200 @ 60Hz
Pixel Clock.............162.00 MHz Non-Interlaced
Horizontal Vertical
Active..................1600 pixels 1200 lines
Front Porch............. 64 pixels 1 lines
Sync Width.............. 192 pixels 3 lines
Back Porch.............. 304 pixels 46 lines
Blanking................ 560 pixels 50 lines
Total...................2160 pixels 1250 lines
Scan Rate............... 75.00 kHz 60.00 Hz
Image Size.............. 408 mm 306 mm
Border.................. 0 pixels 0 lines
Sync: Digital separate with
* Positive vertical polarity
* Positive horizontal polarity
Descriptor #1 is Monitor limits:
Horizontal frequency range.......30-81 kHz
Vertical frequency range.........56-75 Hz
Maximum bandwidth unspecified
Descriptor #2 is Monitor name:
SyncMaster
Descriptor #3 is Serial number:
HVF*****
Message was edited by: balanceiD