I have a 19" Dell LCD connected via VGA and DVI cables to a Dimension 9150. I've noticed that on certain shaded desktop background images and on the window titlebar gradients, the color progression is noticeably blockier and rougher over the DVI connection than over VGA. The monitor has an input-switch button and when switching, the same image looks smoother color-wise when going over an analog connection than when I'm using digital.

I've checked my display settings and both are set to 32-bit colour, 1280x1024. I tried downloading the color calibration powertoy from MSFT but it refused to launch on my system (despite installing just fine).

Is this a simple matter of needing to remove the VGA cable due to it confusing some internal circuitry of the display, or is there some other setting I need to fix in order to get decent color quality over my DVI connection?

You mean you plugged BOTH cables at the same time?

Hehe, yeah, it wound up that way.

It was initially connected via VGA and I got around to asking if we had any spare DVI cables, which we did. I plugged it in and switched inputs, and noticed after a while that the colors didn't look as good as the VGA.

It's currently plugged in only on DVI, but disconnecting the one cable didn't seem to change anything (unfortunately).

Haven't rebooted yet with only DVI as I've been working on an auto-install with a virtual machine. I'll probably try a reboot next when I get a chance and see if that fixes the problem.

Okay, I got this one solved. Somehow the system seems to have lost its video driver (corruption maybe), as the video card had a yellow exclamation point in device manager. Grabbed the driver from Dell and all is peachy.

Thanks anyway, though.

Dual-input - great for working with two machines at the same time

Not from the same graphics card to a single monitor though...

Yeah. I get to wear the dunce cap for the rest of the day for that one.