Refresh rates and the dangers of playing...

[cprincipe at mindspring.com]

Hello, all!  I am really excited because I finally was able to get X up and running on my old machine.  I had to do everything by trial and error because I have an old Compaq Presario with a built-in monitor and no monitor specs in the manual that came with the computer.

I am running 640x480 with a 800x600 virtual desktop.  I am pretty sure my monitor can handle 800x600, or maybe 1024x768, but because I am not sure of the refresh rates I have it set conservatively and most of the modes get deleted when the X server loads because the refresh rates for the modes haven't been defined earlier in the refresh rate section.

My question is, how dangerous is it to manipulate those refresh rates?  I can't track down any documentation to get what my montior's specs are.  Will I blow up my monitor if I play with the refresh rates in order to get a higher resolution?  The main drag is the size of everything and having to scroll around in the virtual desktop.  I would like to run a minimum of 800x600, and even 1024x768 if I could.

Are there perhaps any utilities that are a little deeper than SuperProbe that will enable me to find out this information?

Thanks in advance.
Colin

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