HP 2010i 1600x900 screen sizing issue - PCBSD 8.1

[Michael D. Norwick]

On 01/01/2011 10:25, Warren Block wrote:
> On Fri, 31 Dec 2010, Michael D. Norwick wrote:
>
>> I bought
<snip>
>>    Identifier   "Monitor0"
>>    VendorName   "HWP"
>>    ModelName    "HP 2010"
>>    HorizSync    24.0 - 83.0
>>    VertRefresh  50.0 - 76.0
>>    Option        "DPMS"
>> EndSection
>
> For a start, remove or comment out the HorizSync and VertRefresh lines.
>
>
Okay, closer.  Thank You.  I commented out the HorizSync and VertRefresh 
lines restarted the X session and the screen appeared to fill more but I 
still had a black bar to the left at 1600x900.  Going to Computer -> 
System Settings -> Computer Administration - Display -> Size and 
Orientation, I found it at;

Size  1600x900
Refresh  Auto

Changed it to

Size  1280x1024
Refresh  Auto

Still no full screen width.  In fact it got narrower.

Changed it to

Size 1440x900  (which had not been an option previously)
The screen appeared to resize to the full width of the display and 
'Refresh' now shows 59.9 Hz.

This is all quite non-intuitive.

I won't be pushing any buttons until I understand the effect.  I 
understand why HorizSync and VertRefresh settings would not be necessary 
for an LCD display but the xserver obviously knows what it's connected to.
Why does it set those?  And, where are those commented out option lines 
in my xorg.conf documented?

Thank You,

Michael