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FireGryphon
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UPDATE-lines, flashing pixels on 2407 - confounded!

Mon Jan 28, 2008 9:32 pm

I've had the 2407HC for about a week now, and it's been great. Tonight I turn on my computer, and there are blue vertical lines dancing across the panel. Moreover, there are splotches of blue pixels flashing on and off all over the panel. I went to Dell's support site and it said to reset the monitor to its factory settings. That did fix the problem, but I the monitor was never changed from its default settings.

Should I return the monitor and get a new one? Has anyone seen this before? I'm concerned since this monitor was no small investment.

*UPDATE* Scroll down to see my update...
Last edited by FireGryphon on Wed Jan 30, 2008 4:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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blitzy
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Re: blue lines and flashing pixels on new 2407

Tue Jan 29, 2008 12:00 am

something that serious will probably re-occur soon if its going to, dell is normally pretty good about returns so just make sure you deal with it while youre still covered by warranty.

are you sure it is the monitor? it sounds like it is since resetting it fixed the issue, but i had video card problems recently which were causing the same sort of issues. Odd coloured pixels and sometimes lines of colour, easy way to check is by taking a screenshot (printscreen and paste into paint). Drag around the selection and you would see the errors staying static in their respective positions on the screenshot, which would show that the monitor is simply reproducing the error as it occurs in the video memory or whereever it is caused. This may not be the case for you as it was for me, but it's worth making sure.
 
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Re: blue lines and flashing pixels on new 2407

Tue Jan 29, 2008 8:24 am

blitzy wrote:
something that serious will probably re-occur soon if its going to, dell is normally pretty good about returns so just make sure you deal with it while youre still covered by warranty.


Maybe, maybe not. I have a samsung monitor that developed a pink line a day after I got it. After a week, it began to disappear. I haven't seen it ever since, over 2 years now.

That being said, he probably does want to return the thing just to be sure.
 
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Re: blue lines and flashing pixels on new 2407

Tue Jan 29, 2008 9:04 am

You have a three year warranty, right?

I would keep it and see if the issue recurs. If it happens a second or third time, then I would call Dell and inform them of the behavior, the number of times that it happened, what you did to resolve it and then stand firm that you will only accept a replacement.

On that note, keep in mind that after 30d you will be receiving refurbished parts.
I have nothing more to say about that.
 
FireGryphon
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Re: blue lines and flashing pixels on new 2407

Tue Jan 29, 2008 8:02 pm

I thought it might be a video card problem, but only after I fixed it, so I didn't experiment with the solutions any. Could this be a bad DVI connection or cable? Let's see if it recurs any time soon.
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FireGryphon
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Re: *UPDATE* lines, flashing pixels on 2407 - confounded!

Wed Jan 30, 2008 4:18 pm

Okay, this is completely bizarre. I came home today, turned on my computer, and lo and behold, I get the same active/flashing pixels with blue lines flashing horizontally across the panel. My background is this image of Adromeda Galaxy M31, resized for my desktop. I see the flashing blue pixels on many different parts of the screen, but a lot of them are around the area where the galaxy's border reaches space. Basically, there are splotches of empty space with flashing blue pixels, but the entire white border of the galaxy is surrounded by a ring of flashing blue pixels as well. Could the monitor be trying to dither the blue somehow?

When I take a screenshot and paste it into Photoshop, virtually the same array of lines and flashing pixels appear on the screenshot as on my desktop, though I can't compare exactly since the aberrations are dynamic. I brought up other pictures on the APOD website for comparison, and most of them also have blue flashing pixels and lines on them, many conforming to the same borders and random space as on the M31 pic (each picture has its unique design array of flashing pixels, though. It'd probably be cool to study the arrays on each picture, were this not a nearly $700 investment).

The horizontal lines shoot across all windows and colors I have opened (though they appear as yellow lines when they stretch across white areas such as the text box in which I'm writing this post). Strangely, the flashing pixels only appear in areas where there is blue! If I take the M31 pic in photoshop and remove all cyan and blue from shadows, midtones, and highlights, there are no flashing pixels (obviously, if I make the picture entirely cyan, I don't see them either); the lines in both cases are still visible.

This leaves two possibilities: either the monitor is broken or there's some corruption from the DVI cable or graphics card. The DVI cable I'm using was supplies by Dell. Is this problem commonly associated with bad DVI cables? Does this sound like a graphics card problem? I've had the monitor about two weeks, so I'd like to get some direction from you guys on what to do as far as replacing parts. The thought of picking up a new passively-cooled video card is enticing, but I'd rather hear your opinions first.

My graphics card is a Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro AGP, not overclocked.

EDIT: If I turn off either of the "reduce DVI frequency" or "alternate DVI mode" in CCC, there are fewer aberrations on the screen, but it does not disappear entirely if I turn both off. Turning either one or the other off seem to have the same effect. Both were enabled by deafult.

Changing the resolution to 16x12 fixed the problem. I'm now back at 1920x1200. This is obviously not a long tern fix, though.

Right before I switched resolutions, I noticed some yellow pixels aberrations, too. Interesting.

Could the fact that I'm running on an AGP bus be a problem?

It's also odd that this thread isn't showing up on the front page anymore. Oh well... I still hope everyone sees it, 'cause this is really strange...
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bitvector
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Re: UPDATE-lines, flashing pixels on 2407 - confounded!

Wed Jan 30, 2008 6:33 pm

FireGryphon wrote:
EDIT: If I turn off either of the "reduce DVI frequency" or "alternate DVI mode" in CCC, there are fewer aberrations on the screen, but it does not disappear entirely if I turn both off. Turning either one or the other off seem to have the same effect. Both were enabled by deafult.

Changing the resolution to 16x12 fixed the problem. I'm now back at 1920x1200. This is obviously not a long tern fix, though.
To me, that sounds like the TMDS transmitter in your 9800 Pro isn't up to par to push out the bandwidth required for 1920x1200. Technically 1600x1200 is the maximum resolution supported by single-link DVI without reduced blanking (or 1920x1080). With reduced blanking you can eek 1920x1200 out, but only if the TMDS transmitter can push out the full bandwidth of single link DVI cleanly. Many older TMDS transmitters aren't able to do so. In fact, nVidia's natively designed ones weren't able to do so until the 7-series cards. ATI was better, but I was unable to push 1600x1200 out of a 9600 Pro I had a long time ago without getting weird digital artifacts and flashing. Some monitors deal with it better than others, too.
 
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Re: UPDATE-lines, flashing pixels on 2407 - confounded!

Wed Jan 30, 2008 6:41 pm

I agree with Bitvector on this one. It sounds like the TMDS on your old Radeon 9800 Pro may be struggling. A better or re-routed DVI cable might help. If your graphics card had another DVI output, I might suggest swapping to it, but I believe that most Radeon 9800 Pro's only had one DVI output. Have you tried using the analog output and an analog cable yet?
 
FireGryphon
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Re: UPDATE-lines, flashing pixels on 2407 - confounded!

Wed Jan 30, 2008 9:09 pm

Thanks for the responses.

I haven't tried analog yet, and I'd rather go all digital for reasons of picture quality. I can test to see if the monitor exhibits the same behavior in analog mode, but ultimately I'd like to run on digital. After I post this, I'll switch to analog.

Do they make an ATi card that will have better TMDS and work on an AGP bus? If so, what card would you guys recommend?
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JustAnEngineer
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Re: UPDATE-lines, flashing pixels on 2407 - confounded!

Wed Jan 30, 2008 9:21 pm

FireGryphon wrote:
Do they make an ATi card that will have better TMDS and work on an AGP bus? If so, what card would you guys recommend?
They do, but if you must upgrade, I recommend making the leap to PCIe rather than sinking any more money into an AGP system.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814161208
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... =V261-4040
Last edited by JustAnEngineer on Wed Jan 30, 2008 9:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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FireGryphon
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Re: UPDATE-lines, flashing pixels on 2407 - confounded!

Wed Jan 30, 2008 9:29 pm

I'm running in 1920x1200 analog now. The image is visibly blurry. Maybe I'm just used to the DVI now. Let's see if the problem recurs...

JustAnEngineer wrote:
FireGryphon wrote:
Do they make an ATi card that will have better TMDS and work on an AGP bus? If so, what card would you guys recommend?
They do, but if you must upgrade, I recommend making the leap to PCIe rather than sinking any more money into an AGP system.


If I did get a new mobo for PCIe (my current one is AGP only), I'd want to get a new CPU and RAM as well. At this point I can only spend money on things directly related to the display. I know it's a hack from an enthusiast's standpoint, but my budget won't allow anything more now. If you can convince me that AGP is somehow inadequate to power the 2407HC, we can talk.

With that in mind, what's my best option for upgrading only the video board? Gaming isn't a concern; just image quality and stability.
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JustAnEngineer
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Re: UPDATE-lines, flashing pixels on 2407 - confounded!

Wed Jan 30, 2008 9:42 pm

Last edited by JustAnEngineer on Wed Jan 30, 2008 10:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 
FireGryphon
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Re: UPDATE-lines, flashing pixels on 2407 - confounded!

Wed Jan 30, 2008 10:05 pm

Intriguing. I presume that the built-in video on the M2A-VM is good enough to run the 2407HC. This goes against my every instinct of running off of built-in graphics with quality as the goal.

Food for thought.
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JustAnEngineer
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Re: UPDATE-lines, flashing pixels on 2407 - confounded!

Wed Jan 30, 2008 10:28 pm

Without a need for gaming performance, you could spend less, but you're still sinking more than $50 into AGP.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102081
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102085
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102709

Your artifacting could also be caused by overheating graphics memory.
 
FireGryphon
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Re: UPDATE-lines, flashing pixels on 2407 - confounded!

Wed Jan 30, 2008 11:09 pm

Why would my graphics memory overheat if I don't overclock?
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JustAnEngineer
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Re: UPDATE-lines, flashing pixels on 2407 - confounded!

Wed Jan 30, 2008 11:15 pm

Your heatsinks or fans might be clogged with dust bunnies.
 
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Re: UPDATE-lines, flashing pixels on 2407 - confounded!

Thu Jan 31, 2008 5:25 am

My 7900GT wasnt OC'd and its memory went bad, I don't have the screenshots from it anymore but basically if the problem is vid memory it should show up in a screenshot (i.e. it would be a static artifact in the image that can be seen no matter what display was being used). If the problem is related to the DVI output (TMDS) or the panel itself then obviously we wouldn't see that from a screenshot, you'd need to physically photograph it to show us.

I'm not entirely clear which is the case based on your description of the screenshot, any chance of trying another pc or laptop with the display? or even another video card? its a pain in the ass, not everyone has spares laying around as I was painfully reminded when I had issues
 
FireGryphon
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Re: UPDATE-lines, flashing pixels on 2407 - confounded!

Thu Jan 31, 2008 11:39 pm

Testing against other hardware is not possible; I don't have any other video card capable of pushing this monitor (at least anywhere near max res) nor do I have another LCD with DVI input (only one with D-SUB input).

If the aforementioned mobo/CPU/RAM combo would fix my problem, I could see my way clear to upgrading my system, but I'm always opened to other solutions. I'd be keeping my Antec Sonata (first gen) case with 380W PSU. The only problem would be the six IDE drives I have. Oh well. Time and tide wait for no byte.

As an aside, it's painful to use this monitor over VGA after using DVI. My eyes get blurry when I look at the screen.
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FireGryphon
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Re: UPDATE-lines, flashing pixels on 2407 - confounded!

Fri Feb 01, 2008 8:22 pm

So I'm running UT2k4 in 1920x1200, full detail on everything. The picture looks fine, but upon inspection, there are horizontal lines rushing all across the screen, creating a very subtle wavy effect. I do not notice this on the desktop. What I do notice on the desktop, however, is that when an icon's text is close together, like the combination of letters such as 'ili', there's an active, wavy effect across the borders of the letters.

I also notice that the left 35-40% of the screen is much brighter than the rest. It's only really noticeable when the screen is a solid color, like black.

So, with this new info, what's the verdict, guys?
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JustAnEngineer
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Re: UPDATE-lines, flashing pixels on 2407 - confounded!

Fri Feb 01, 2008 8:35 pm

I only suggested analog mode as a troubleshooting tool. If you see the artifacts on the DVI cable and not on the analog cable, it might help narrow down the problem.
 
FireGryphon
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Re: UPDATE-lines, flashing pixels on 2407 - confounded!

Fri Feb 01, 2008 8:41 pm

well, since there's stuff on analog, too, what does that mean? Does it now seem like more of a video card issue, monitor issue, or...?
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JustAnEngineer
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Re: UPDATE-lines, flashing pixels on 2407 - confounded!

Fri Feb 01, 2008 9:53 pm

If you see the same sparkly artifacts with either the DVI or analog output, it could be bad graphics card memory.
 
FireGryphon
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Re: UPDATE-lines, flashing pixels on 2407 - confounded!

Fri Feb 01, 2008 9:58 pm

JustAnEngineer wrote:
If you see the same sparkly artifacts with either the DVI or analog output, it could be bad graphics card memory.



It's not the sparkly artifacts, it's the lines. True to form, the lines over DVI are sharp whereas the lines over VGA are blurrier/waves. I'm probably going to order new stuff on Sunday, I just want as many educated opinions as possible on this.

Thanks a bunch for all the reccs, JAE.
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Re: UPDATE-lines, flashing pixels on 2407 - confounded!

Fri Feb 01, 2008 10:14 pm

I cant remember exactly what HSF the 9800Pro came with but can almost 100% promise you the fan is dying. Most of the video cards of that era had a small junk fan on them that didnt last very long at all. Me and 3 of my friends all bought 9700Pro's when they came out and not a single fan lasted for more than a couple of years. If the problem shows back up running the VGA cable see if you can round up a spare case fan of somekind and have it blow in the HSF on the video card. If the problem goes away its the fan. The look like they are turning fairly fast even when they are dying so fan turning doesnt = fan is ok in all cases.

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