Try different cables if you have some laying around, some cables can be bottlenecking

? this ain't it dude.

I've just found a fix for this but sadly it's not worked and now I can't find the page I found the fix to check I did everything correctly. It was to create a driver for the monitor to allow it to use the refresh rates it's capable of. Can anyone help me out here? 85hz sucks.

You didn't give much info but I'm assuming you're talking about NVIDIA Control Panel. In "Manage Custom Resolutions" you should check "Allow modes not exposed by this display" (may vary by driver versions) and then you should be able to use that mode in games, etc.

Thanks - I've tried this but the options are still capped at 85hz, my monitor will do 160hz at low res and 120hz at 1024 x 7xx.

Even if you don't see the mode in the resolution selection in Control Panel you should still be able to set the resolution in games.

You need to go to create a custom resolution in the nvidia control panel and fill out the res and refresh rate manually and set the timing to GTP. I had the same problem with a mitsubishi tube and this is the only way I've gotten it to work. Remember to check that box to allow custom resolutions again any time you update your drivers because for some reason it resets. I've tried writing a custom driver with no success and don't have the PIN to flash the EDID. I think the 160hz refresh rate value is actually outside of the max range you can write on an EDID anyway.

Sorted!!! - thank you so much, I tried this but didn't use the GTF setting. 120hz 8) Thanks dude!

Did you install the correct driver? Or tried another driver..?

On Win7 I have to do the following to get anything else than 85 or 60 Hz:

right click desktop
screen resolution
highlight the correct screen (if you have two)
click advanced settings
goto monitor tab
and uncheck "hide modes that this monitor cannot display"

And I have to repeat that every time I update nvidia drivers. Then I can use my custom nvidia resolution/refresh combinations again.