External monitor resolution is 1024x768 (cvt+xrandr distorts the output)

Question

I have a HP 2009v LCD monitor with VGA input which is plugged to my laptop with Intel graphics card. Windows recognizes the maximum resolution (1600x900) and displays the desktop correctly. Ubuntu 12.04, on the other hand, fails to recognize the maximum resolution and lists only 1024x768 and 800x600.

I tried to add a mode manually using cvt 1600x900 and xrandr --newmode. When I switch to this new mode, though, the output gets distorted and the visible area shrinks to the 2/3 of the actual screen.

I suspect that the mode parameters (generated by cvt) are incorrect for this specific monitor but I don't have a clue how to correct them.

Is there a way to guess these parameters? Can I steal them from Windows drivers? Is there any other solution that does not require fiddling these numbers?

Answer 1

Using -r option with cvt worked! I don't know what it means but it was the only command line option so I gave it a shot. With this option, cvt produced different parameters and those parameters produced a very crisp (even more than Windows) image.