blurry screen

[Asp]

I've got a PC and monitor both about a year old.

 

 

Monitor is LG Flatron W2043T  1600x900

Video is VGA port, Intel motherboard graphics.

 

OS is WinXP.

 

 

The problem is that sometimes, maybe 1/4 of boots, the screen comes up blurry. as if there is a resolution mismatch. But the settings are unchanged.

Usually if I wait a few minutes and power down and restart, then it's sharp as normal.

I haven't found any way to fix the video short of rebooting. Changing video properties and reverting, turning monitor on and off, nothing fixes it.

 

 

Attached:

1) a screencap

 

 

2) photo of "bad" screen

 

 

Notice text looks like excessive anti-aliasing or wrong resolution

 

2) photo of "good" screen

 

 

 

Anyone have an idea of what's going on?

Edited October 14, 2014 by Asp

[Kelsenellenelvian]

Sounds like cable issues how oldis your video cable?

[Asp]

Sounds like cable issues how oldis your video cable?

 

Came with the monitor.

Don't see how rebooting would fix a cable issue, but I'll see if I can find another cable and try it.

[Kelsenellenelvian]

Im thinkikg a broken (or partially so) wire or connection that only sometimes gets full signal, like a short in your cars wiring.

[jaclaz]

When you say "power down and restart" you mean:

1. the PC
2. the monitor
3. the PC and Monitor

If #1 or #3 it sounds like an issue  on the PC side (which more or less means the video card).

 

Is it an "onboard" card, right?

 

Which EXACT make/model?

Which EXACT driver are you  using?

Is the monitor recognized by its EDID or is it "generic"?

 

What I would do (in this order):

1. Clean throughly the inside of the PC. <- this won't make any harm, and actually is "good maintenance"
2. Try with another monitor <- (only if you have one handy)
3. Try running another OS <- (let's say a Live Linux, as long as it has a 1600x900 resolution, to exclude the OS/drivers)
4. Check the PSU (or change it temporarily with a new, surely working one <- I know this sounds "weird" but I have seen PSU's starting to degrade creating every kind of strange issues^[*}, the fact that once the PC is "warm" everything works may be connected with a power issue, like when "cold" booting some higher peaks of current are needed.

jaclaz

 

 

^[*] JFYI, most recent case was an old motherboard that ran NT 4 and Win2K for years, to which I reinstalled a "fresh" Win2K that developed (at random) a "phantom" Serial and a "phantom" Parallel port, creating a mess of IRQ's/resources conflicts (while the non plug 'n play NT 4.00 worked fine on it), a new PSU and hep! everything was back to "normal".

[Ponch]

the fact that once the PC is "warm" everything works may be connected with a power issue, like when "cold" booting some higher peaks of current are needed.

This is not clear from the description. He could test and restart (once fixed) a few times more to see if it has to do with temperature or power laziness. What I mean is that it might happen again (one in 4 times?) when warm.

What you could also try is to let the PC on Bios screen for a minute or two before starting XP to see if "warming up" really helps.

[jaclaz]

Yep, by "warm" I meant (as an example) that capacitors would still be charged if a reboot is done after the thingy is powered on a few minutes), still on the "pure anecdotal" style, I had once a PC with a PSU that simply could not bear the "spin up" current  of two internal hard disks when "cold" started, but that could "just make" it in a reboot.

 

jaclaz 

[Ponch]

I once had a notebook which network card would not work at cold boot. Warm boot F10 to Bios (HP) then Ctrl+Alt+Del would have it working. You can imagine how much reboots it tooke me to find this out... I "solved" the problem surely more than 10 times by reinstalling the driver, updating the bios, trying with/without docking station, trying from WinPE...I was getting mad, it was always working after reboot, of course but for hours it felt so random!

Edited October 15, 2014 by Ponch

[Asp]

Thanks for the responses.

I've made some progress, but not solved it completely.

I bought a new VGA cable, plugged it in today and no improvement. In fact, it was worse, as all day no matter how many times I rebooted, it came up fuzzy.

I was about to replace the old cable (even though the new one looked  to be higher quality, being 8mm thick as opposed to 5mm for the old one), but then I found a LCD monitor test program.  http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/software/lcdtest/

This didn't work properly at first, but in experimenting with it I finally got it to report that the resolution was 1440x900, when the full res is 1600x900, and that's what the Windows video settings have -- I have checked and reset those numerous times.

I used the monitor's "autoset" and it told me to "Use 1600x900 for best results". Again, that is the setting I had; obviously this wasn't working.

Anyway, I gave it a reboot not expecting much and as it did I saw the monitor's autoset coming up again. And when Windows appeared it was sharp again -- after all day reading blurry text it looked wonderful.

I changed the Windows screen properties to 1440x900 temporarily, and the appearance was indeed exactly what I had been complaining about. But now I could change it back.

I've been afraid to reboot or turn off since then, but when I do if it comes up 1440 again I'll try the autoset/reboot. If that fails I'll continue the story here.
Still not sure where the blame lies. It's distressing that Windows doesn't know what resolution it's really using.




 

[jaclaz]

By convention, sentences with a little hook sign "?" appended are meant as "questions".

It would be nice to have "answers" to them.

 

 

Is it an "onboard" card, right?

 

Which EXACT make/model?

Which EXACT driver are you  using?

Is the monitor recognized by its EDID or is it "generic"?

 

Examples of issues connected with wrong .inf or EDID:

http://superuser.com/questions/713487/getting-proper-resolution-with-windows-7-and-older-monitor

https://www.omnivex.com/support/kb/204

http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/cs-030332.htm

 

You could try updating (or downgrading) your video card drivers (or maybe even uninstalling and re-installing them might do)

 

Try checking the monitor with:

http://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/moninfo.shtm

and try making an EDID override .inf

 

jaclaz

[Asp]

 

By convention, sentences with a little hook sign "?" appended are meant as "questions".

It would be nice to have "answers" to them.

 

 

Normally, my response to a remark like that would be equally obnoxious. But you've helped in the past so I will overlook it.

 

 

 

Is it an "onboard" card, right?

 

 

That's where I stopped reading, since I'd already answered that in my first post.

 

But....let's see if it goes anywhere.

 

Which EXACT make/model?

Which EXACT driver are you  using?

Is the monitor recognized by its EDID or is it "generic"?

 

 

 

 

 

Mobo DH61WW

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/motherboards/desktop-motherboards/desktop-board-dh61ww.html

 

 

 

The Intel drivers  -- Intel HD Graphics version 6.14.10.5404

 

(Just checked and the latest version is 6.14.10.5437, so I will upgrade.)

 

In Device Manager, Monitor is just "Plug and play monitor".

 

But in Intel's tray "Graphics and media control panel" it has "Display : Monitor W2043". So I guess that can read the EDID.

 

Ar least now. I'll check again if it goes fuzzy again.

 

But in both control panels it has always had resolution at 1600x900, even when it was actually putting out 1440x900. That's the weird thing.

 

So while I'll look at making a custom INF, since the resolution is already correct in the settings, I'm not optimistic it would make any difference.

All the links you gave were about making changes to settings, i.e., unable to set the native resolution. I don't have that problem. Intermittent problems as I have smells more like a hardware than software issue to me.

 

 

 

===============

And how the hell do you edit BBcode here? It's impossible to make sense of nested formattting in this visual mode.

Can't find any setting in my profile to turn it off.

[jaclaz]

But in both control panels it has always had resolution at 1600x900, even when it was actually putting out 1440x900. That's the weird thing.

 

So while I'll look at making a custom INF, since the resolution is already correct in the settings, I'm not optimistic it would make any difference.

All the links you gave were about making changes to settings, i.e., unable to set the native resolution. I don't have that problem. Intermittent problems as I have smells more like a hardware than software issue to me.

That is the actual point to find out. 

For all we know, the "control panel" (software) may be showing a "proposed" setting which is in reality overridden (or whatever) by *something else*, possibly a lost/wrong EDID sent by the monitor (hardware)  or from a wrong interpretation of the EDID data from the driver (software again) or from any of the automagical "side apps" that the Intel graphics "full install" provides (again software).

 

Right now the only excluded thing is the VGA cable failing to "deliver" the EDID (hardware). 

 

The fact that it is recognized by the INTEL thingy as "W2043" but it is "generic Plug 'n Play" in Control Panel may mean *something*, but cannot really say *what*, just as a guess it is possible that the "normal" MS resolution setting is "fighting" against the Intel driver setting, and for *whatever* reasons sometimes one or the other "wins".

 

Removing the device and letting the OS re-recognize it and uninstalling/re-installing/updating/downgrading the driver may work to *somehow* reset the situation, but it is just an attempt.

 

 

===============

And how the hell do you edit BBcode here? It's impossible to make sense of nested formattting in this visual mode.

Can't find any setting in my profile to turn it off.

When you reply to a post you have a set of icons at the top, the first one on the left that *seem* like representing a paper clip, but cannot really make out what the heck it should mean, will toggle between "plain" BBCODE and senseless "visual style" .

jaclaz

[Asp]

Removing the device and letting the OS re-recognize it and uninstalling/re-installing/updating/downgrading the driver may work to *somehow* reset the situation, but it is just an attempt.

Well, as it's working now, I will follow the "if it's not broken don't fix it" rule. I have DTP work to do on this and need it to be clear.

But I have used the "Monitor Asset Manager" to make a custom INF and will try to reinstall using that if it recurs.

I thought that EDID only worked with digital connections, but that could read it via VGA.

Since I've never had a PC with digital video, I never worried about it.

 

When you reply to a post you have a set of icons at the top, the first one on the left that *seem* like representing a paper clip, but cannot really make out what the heck it should mean, will toggle between "plain" BBCODE and senseless "visual style" .

Thanks for that.

I was scanning through them trying to work out what the hell they did. I didn't even realise that was a button, it doesn't have a tool tip, all the other buttons do.

Forums that try to be WYSIWYG are more often FUBAR. And they also break the browser's spellcheck.

Edited October 20, 2014 by Asp

[puntoMX]

Just some questions; Did you play with clearview and how does it look when there are just straight lines on the screen, vertical and horizontal. Make the lines 1 pixel wide and check if it's showing one pixel. Let us know .

[Asp]

Just some questions; Did you play with clearview and how does it look when there are just straight lines on the screen, vertical and horizontal. Make the lines 1 pixel wide and check if it's showing one pixel. Let us know .

 

What /where is "Clearview"? Googling gives me a "clean burning wood and coal multi-fuel stoves" or "Clearview Towing Mirrors"?

Edited October 24, 2014 by Asp