LCD monitor problem

[Laters]

I’ve been using my 19” Iiama CRT monitor for the last few years & had no problems.
I decided that because LCD flat monitors are supposed to be better for my eyes that I would change my screen.
I bought a iiyama 22” widescreen LCD panel.
Thats where the problems start.

The images are perfectly clear & its 10 times the picture of the crt monitor.

Then comes the problem. Some text is almost unreadable.
I downloaded the cleartype powertoy & played with the settings but can’t get it to my liking.
I even went down to pc world to look at all their screens.
I was getting more or less the same problems on the widescreen monitors in pc world.

The problem I’m having is that if there are two ll in a word they end up with a green hue & some letters end up with a red edging. Ive searched the net to see if I could find anything describing the problem but not found anything.

The normal square LCD screens are not as bad but the problem is still there slightly but not anywhere near as bad.

A couple of people have looked at the text & have said its ok on the widescreen lcd I have so it may be a issue with my eyes.

I had my eyes tested a few weeks ago with a all clear.

Anyone else come across this problem with lcd/tft flat screens?

 

[Rory]

Are you using the screen at its native resolution?

What are you driving it from, and is it analog or digital?

Perhaps your graphics driver needs updating?

 

[Laters]

Screen was in its native resolution.
Tried dvi & d sub.
Latest drivers.
Tried xp & vista.
Even tried another pc.
Looks like my eyes just cant cope with widescreen LCD screens for some reason.

 

[timskemp]

download the cleartype tuning tool. Cleartype works by subpixel antialiasing and some monitors have a different sequence of subpixels - for example instead of going rgbrgbrgb they go rbgrbgrbg and cleartype looks bad.

cleartype tuner on ms website

 

[whizzkid11]

I am not a fan of LCD's for this very reason - TFTs are so much better.

the widescreen option also takes a little getting used to. Looks like you have carried out the initial troubleshoioting steps.

I would make a note of the graphics card, drivers, OS, type of cable being used and current setup on the screen - then rais it with Ilyama - they used to make good monitors, so must be able to fix it. Personally, I still think it is an LCD panel issue.

 

[DieselE]

Last week I took delivery of a 19" Lliama LCD Monitor (not widescreen) and it's absolutely brilliant. None of the problems you experienced.

That doesn't help you and I'm sorry to hear of your problems.

 

[scotth_uk]

Hi there,

I suspect that the video card may not be able to actually drive the native resolution of the monitor. I've seen a couple of video cards that allow you to select the resoltion without actually delivering. As a result you get blockiness, particularly noticed on text.

There is no difference between a 16:9 and a 4:3 monitor when it comes to picture. Widescreen monitors do not produce anything different to a 4:3 monitor. There is just more room horizontally.

I know that there is a difference with TVs, but on PC flat panels - pixels are pixels.

Scott

PS - Are you getting something like this:
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g93/Mr_Pibb/IMG_2120.jpg
When you should be getting something like this:
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g93/Mr_Pibb/IMG_2119.jpg

 

[Laters]

The text is appearing a bit like the first image but it also seems to have a coloured (red/green) halo if that makes sense.
The video card is a geforce 5950ultra so is quite old.
The other pc I tried had a 7900.
The problem is the same with both cards.

I can make the text better with the xp powertoy but still not acceptable for long term use.

The only thing I can find that could be causing the problem is that the pitch of the pixels are wider apart on the widescreen panels so maybe my eyes are sensative to that.

 

[gaz_l]

The red/green halo you describe sounds a bit like a divergence problem, but that's only applicable to CRT's.

I'm guessing the panel you've got runs at 1680 x 1050 native. That's going to be quite heavy on bandwidth and will certainly show up any quality issues with your video cabling. I wouldn't bother trying to use a VGA cable at that resolution (unless you're using one with coax cores), DVI is the only way to go, and I'd expect to be seeing a quite thick cable (8-10mm diameter) with decent size chokes at both ends.

Although Iiyama used to make very good CRT's, I've seen a couple of their TFT screens and TBH they've been unremarkable. The market is so fiercely competitive these days everything is built to a price, and the temptation to save a couple of quid by using a cheap cable must be tempting.

HTH,

Gaz

 

[Laters]

I'm using a dvi cable, the supplied one is a bit weedy so went & got a better quality one.
Same problem .

Only reason for getting a Iiyama screen is both my crt monitors are iiyama & both are well over 5 years old.

Had a look at a few of the screens in the shop & some had the problem to some degree so it's obviously the way my eye's are seeing the screens.

Looks like its another trip to the optician.

The weird bit is I dont get the problem on any laptop displays (even widescreen) no matter how big or small.

 

[Parrot of Doom]

Your card is quite old but so is my Geforce 6800GT and it has no problems running my LG 21" widescreen LCD at 1680x1050.

Can I suggest you try feeding it with a pure monochrome image, and seeing if the hue is still there? If it is, I'd suggest you need to play around with the monitor settings.

Also I would install the NVidia control panel and have a mess around with the tweak settings.

Check your startup for any programmes messing with Gamma (Adobe stuff for instance).

I don't think the pixels are elongated on a widescreen monitor, I'm pretty sure they're still square - hence the native resolution.

 

[gaz_l]

Sorry, forgot to recommend my favourite (free) utility for monitor testing - Nokia's ntest.exe. A quick google search should sort you out a suitable download.

There's some blurb on it here:

http://www.behardware.com/articles/626-3/monitor-calibration-for-0-to-100.html

Cheers,

Gaz