Gateway FPD2485W - 24" HD LCD

God, you guys got me worried now. I ordered one of these from CC because I got it for about $575 shipped after all rebates. I was thinking that it would be a good option for my PS3 and xbox 360 till I get the new Sharp LCD coming out soon.

Now, I'm thinking I should just stick with my NEC 20WMGX2, esp. with CC's return policy of 15% restock fee. I'm really curious about this monitor though.

However, I did compare Gateway's 21 LCD against the NEC when I was buying that and just hated the Gateway after I viewed the NEC.

Oh well..... decisions... good thing I got this forum to make things harder... :D

Thanks guys for all the info!
 
There really isn't much to worry about it. The buzzing isn't that bad in most cases, the backlight bleed is only temporary and Gateway seems to be on the ball for replacing bad units.

I think the monitor is a great buy, excellent image quality and great for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC games. PS3 in 1080P on this thing is amazing as is 360 via VGA.
 
I havn't noticed any buzzing coming from mine.

When I first fired up my monitor, I did notice some backlight bleeding in each corner, but I don't think that I noticed it since then. I'll look for it when I get home today.

The panel did seem pretty warm after a few hours of use last night. Possibly warmer than my CRT.. or all the heat is coming out of a smaller space compared to the CRT which has a lot of ventialtion space.

:mad: My screen has definite gradient banding. It bothers me. Is anyone else noticing the same? I wonder if they fixed the ghosting but broke the gradients in December. Or hopefully I just have a wacky setting somewhere because I don't really want to take back the monitor. I work in graphics and animation and I need smooth gradients because I look at them a lot. Plus Samurai Champloo looked SOOOO GOOOD on it last night. :cool:

I'm a gonna experiment more with the new EzTune and Gradients when I get home. If anyone gets a chance, can ya'll try putting a gradient as a wallpaper and see if it's banding?
 
Ferris23 said:
There really isn't much to worry about it. The buzzing isn't that bad in most cases, the backlight bleed is only temporary and Gateway seems to be on the ball for replacing bad units.

I think the monitor is a great buy, excellent image quality and great for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC games.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't mind the buzzing noise. Also, I'm pretty blind and can't really notice the lag as much as others, but what really drove me crazy on the Gateway's 21 inch monitor compared to the NEC was the terrible backlight bleeding, black levels and clarity of the text. The Gateway I got looked too gray for me with some serious x-factor backlight bleeding.

Hmmmmm..... anyway maybe I'll just bite the bullet and open this one up anyway to compare to my NEC. D-mn CC refund policy! Thanks for your comments.
 
Interesting I had the 21" Gateway and never had any back light issues. And regarding the buzzing, so many electrical components buzz, usually it is a vibration or something, but rarely is it a sign of a defective product. That being said if you can hear it over your PC, then there is a problem.
 
I talked to a sales manager at Best Buy and he has a new unit on hold for me so I guess I'll do another swap for shits and giggles tonight after work.
 
Ferris23 said:
Some interesting observations about my December model. As of last night, I now have a buzzing noise in back, not very loud but it is there. It was NOT there 2 weeks ago. So that is annoying, however it is only audible when I stick my ear to the back of the monitor. Which I don't do often. :)

I also noticed something else, the room I keep my PC in is cold until I run a little space heater. The night before was the first time I turned off my PC and monitor in quite some time. On a cold boot, with cold components, Ithe screen had slight back light bleed in all four corners. However after about 30 minutes the monitor was back to an even black screen.

I think the bleed is by design or a part of the way the monitor works when the bulbs are cold and as far as the buzzing? Well, it isn't that bad and personally I don't think it is a sign of any defect, just an annoyance to those who really have it loud.

I may swap my display out once more at Best Buy, not sure if I feel like doing all that again though.
Click to expand...

Yeah when I first turn on the monitor after leaving it off all night, I have some minor blacklight bleeding in the corners. But after like 10 minutes, it's completely black again.

I have a nov2006 with a green sticker, no dead pixels, no major blacklight bleeding. I did the green mouse arrow test and it's nothing like the video, it ghosts but there's no shadow.
 
Can someone please tell me which LCD panel this display uses?

Also, anyone else having problems with blurry text?

Much thanks.
 
uluvbs said:
Can someone please tell me which LCD panel this display uses?

Also, anyone else having problems with blurry text?

Much thanks.
Click to expand...

I felt the same way about Gateway's 21 inch model. I hope this isn't the same for me again. One person's view is always different from another one's view, but I just thought the text was blurry compared to text on the NEC even after playing around with cleartype and sharpness.
 
I use numerous displays at work and can say with confidence that the text is razor sharp on my display.
 
Just got back from Best Buy and they had gotten a new shipment in so I did the swipe and this one has a blue sticker.

Be back with the date and impressions on #3


#1) Nov 2006 4 corner backlight bleed. no buzzing. Not horrible, but there. Hardly any smearing or ghosting
#2) Dec 2006 Slight buzz started after almost 2 weeks. Not annoying or loud by any means but I figured why not try a third since I still can. (I love Brick and Mortar availability!) Hardly any smearing or ghosting

#3)


;)

I'm done after this as I honestly have been really happy with the display since I got it and would have been fine with any of the "issues" the other 2 had, but why not try for better?
 
I have noticeable back lighting in the two top corners and bottom left corner of my screen, but like some have mentioned, this seems to go away after 10 - 15 minutes of the screen being on.

As for colour banding... Can't say I notice any (I'm a graphic designer as well).
If anything, I do see some while watching Hi-Def video content - 1080P - (when a dark background fades into a lighter colour), but images otherwise look clean.

BTW, for fuzzy type... try adjusting the phase of the screen. This can make quite a difference if it's not set correctly.
 
If you own one of these sets, do yourself a favor and install EzTune 1.4. Set up the brightness and contrast with the Wizard, and then use the Color Calibration tool to calibrate the display. Excellent results here - much more accurate color reproduction.
 
Would you mind posting your settings?

The blue sticker was a Dec 2006, no buzzing or bleeding (yet) or noticeable ghosting.

One thing about these Gateway displays, at least the ones I have had, they have no dead pixels.
 
I tried updating EZTune to 1.4 and ran into many problems. The monitor basically froze, with grey and white streaks. I couldn't even power off with the buttons and had to pull the power cord out. When it came back, the resolution was really bad ...I mean it was 1920 x 1200 but it was all bad - some fonts were really thin and light while others were bold and fuzzy. Also there was "banding" across the screen at certain spots on the screen. I uninstalled 1.4 and rebooted up okay. Then I installed 1.3 again but now the same problems above are repeating intermittently upon each reboot. By the way, should I be selecting a specific FPD2485W driver? Right now my settings say Plug and Play monitor.
 
Just brought home my replacement FPD2485WH. Its another Nov 2006 model unfortunately, but in the 10 minutes I've had it so far there's no buzzing and no backlight bleed like before. I'm happy :D
 
Not so much banding now! I installed the new EzTune and went through it. The banding was definitely there before, but it's mostly gone now. I had a couple wallpapers that it was VERY obvious that it was banding and they look MUCH better now.

I can still see some banding in gradients though. Try image googling "gradient wallpaper" there's one that has a four color gradient and it was banding horribly before. Now it's not so bad, but there's still some banding if I look closely. Anyone else?
 
ID64 said:
Oh, well... My monitor goes back to FS soon. This what I got instead and in short I can say:

No dead pixels, no buzzing, no ghosting/smearing, no backlight bleed at all.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1030566949&posted=1#post1030566949
Click to expand...

ID64, I'm still undecided on what to do with mine. My escapades last night did not give me much faith in the long term quality of the Gateway. Did you get it at Futureshop when it was on sale for $699? Can I ask where you got your BenQ from? FS as well?
 
Neuritis said:
I tried updating EZTune to 1.4 and ran into many problems. The monitor basically froze, with grey and white streaks. I couldn't even power off with the buttons and had to pull the power cord out. When it came back, the resolution was really bad ...I mean it was 1920 x 1200 but it was all bad - some fonts were really thin and light while others were bold and fuzzy. Also there was "banding" across the screen at certain spots on the screen. I uninstalled 1.4 and rebooted up okay. Then I installed 1.3 again but now the same problems above are repeating intermittently upon each reboot. By the way, should I be selecting a specific FPD2485W driver? Right now my settings say Plug and Play monitor.
Click to expand...

Did you uninstall the old version, then reboot and install v1.4? I didn't do the reboot the first time, and got some screwy results - there were no options available in EzTune.

AFAIK, you don't need to select a specific monitor driver.
 
aaronjb said:
Did you uninstall the old version, then reboot and install v1.4? I didn't do the reboot the first time, and got some screwy results - there were no options available in EzTune.

AFAIK, you don't need to select a specific monitor driver.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure I rebooted after uninstalling v1.3. What's the advantage of v1.4? I'm not sure I want to go through that again.
 
Neuritis said:
ID64, I'm still undecided on what to do with mine. My escapades last night did not give me much faith in the long term quality of the Gateway. Did you get it at Futureshop when it was on sale for $699? Can I ask where you got your BenQ from? FS as well?
Click to expand...

I've got Gateway at FS, correct. Sales person was kind enough to open 2 boxes and let me pick the one that I like.

BENQ - Canada Computers at 16th and Bayview, near Walmart. Since they don't have the same policy as FS or Bestbuy I've convonced them to check monitor at the store. And first one was OK. i spent about 1 hour checking and testing this monitor and decided to get it.

Good luck to you :)
 
Neuritis said:
ID64, I'm still undecided on what to do with mine. My escapades last night did not give me much faith in the long term quality of the Gateway. Did you get it at Futureshop when it was on sale for $699? Can I ask where you got your BenQ from? FS as well?
Click to expand...


His BenQ didn't come with the 1:1 firmware fix, you may want to look elsewhere. Also you are basing the quality of a monitor on your problems with a software app?

Also for the record, the display I got last night has no back light bleed or buzzing after running it over night and next to no ghosting. Again time will tell.
 
Well shoot. My new post on the FPD2485W is not a good one. BUZZING! I did not have a problem with it until now. I have had the monitor not even 2 weeks and buzzing has not been a part of my expierence but it has reared its ugly head in the past couple of days or so.

It changes from high pitched to low but I liken the low to a dog hearing a dog whistle blow and annoying the living hell out of it. To anyone that has had a buzzing problem has it ever gone away or have you just replaced the monitor instead? If I do decide to exchange it I will have to go through Gateway to do so. Has anyone had expierence exchanging this item through them? I hope that it is not to difficult of a process.

Maybe, just maybe though, this buzzing will stop since it did not start up until recently. I don't know. Wish me luck I guess. Later.
 
Buzzing is common in LCD monitors, it usually does get better. If you have a nice screen with even backlight and no dead pixels, I wouldn't swap yours out.

Just my opinion...

Also the buzzing that started in mine got all but silent after a day or so.

Here are a few reasons for LCD buzzing...


- Noise may be produced by mechanical vibration in certain electrical components. If the television power supply uses a standard transformer (e.g., square or rectangular plates with windings on opposite sides), the plates can vibrate and produce noise if the transformer was not assembled properly. Other components and sub-assemblies inside the television may also vibrate, producing noise. Sometimes these can be reduced or eliminated by moving the television slightly, which may bend the case in a slightly different way.


- Noise may be produced by any high-voltage components in the television. The most likely candidate is the flourescent light source, if your LCD television uses one to provide illumination. Any transformers or coils used in the power supply to the flourescent light may produce hum and noise. This noise level may drop once the tube has warmed. CRTs (cathode-ray tubes) would sometimes produce a high-pitched buzz from the windings on the tube. While these are not present in an LCD display, any higher-voltage components may still produce noise.

Some never have it and some get it after a while, regardless of the monitor brand or make.
 
I just got my monitor and set it up. I haven’t had time yet to do the EZTune software, which I will do later.

It is a November 06 model, which is odd because it was from the latest shipment into CompUSA. But oh well. It does not buzz at all. It is silent.

Where does it say what week it is from? I could not find that bit of information.

It does warm up noticeably more than my CRT 19" monitor, but that is to be expected from LCD's ..... right?

It is bright. I mean - it is REALLY FU*KING BRIGHT! I had to close my eyes a couple of times when the screen was mostly white, such as opening Outlook Express, or Word. I will be looking to set the brightness down in my next session with it.

Also - just like any other LCD, the optimal viewing angle is limited. If I look at the wallpaper picture at a 45 degree angle, it fades out somewhat, but this is really irrelevant, since any work done with the computer would be behind the keyboard looking straight at the screen. Does anybody find that a drawback for LCD's?

I opened a couple of my large TIFF images in Photoshop, and at first glance I am not seeing any jump in image quality. I will look at that some more, since this is the area I am most sensitive to. Of course the advantage of this big screen is that I can work on a large image at maybe 50% size, as opposed to 16.7%, for example, with my old 19" monitor.

It came with a DVI cable, but it is one of those single-link cables, as opposed to a double-link, which is supposed to be better.

I am thinking of upgrading my video card to a GeForce 7300 GT (I do not currently have a DVI hookup, and have an integrated card) and then I would probably want to invest in a better cable. Would that be a good idea?
 
Congrats. November, December, it doesn't matter.

Open up EzTune and look under Help and Asset ID to see the version and week.

Mine is a Week 49 2006 EDID Revision 1.3
 
The EZTune software does not seem to jive very well with Vista. It will install but not work correctly. The only thing that I like about the EZTune Software is that it allows me to turn the display vertically. Now that I am running Vista, EZTune does not work correctly and I cannot turn my display. Does anyone have any suggestions? Are there any other third party programs that will enable my display to be turned vertically with Microsoft Vista?

Thanks in advance!
 
Ferris23 said:
Some never have it and some get it after a while, regardless of the monitor brand or make.
Click to expand...
This is of course true, but I haven't heard nearly as many complaints about buzzing on the 24 inch Dell, BenQ, or Samsung. I agree that any monitor by any brand may have problems with this, but it certainly seems that it is more prevalent on the Gateway. Whether this actually amounts to anything significant besides being annoying to some people isn't really clear, but it certainly has seemed to turn many people off to this monitor. Perhaps this is simply normal operation, but I think people tend to associate the buzzing with poorly built products, whether this is a fair assessment or not.

gabbs said:
It came with a DVI cable, but it is one of those single-link cables, as opposed to a double-link, which is supposed to be better.
Click to expand...
A dual-link cable is only "better" in the sense that it's capable of carrying more information, e.g. it could support higher resolutions or color depths. Using a dual-link cable with the Gateway wouldn't make any difference whatsoever, as it doesn't require any more bandwidth than a single-link cable is capable of providing, even at the highest resolution.
 
bootstrap said:
A dual-link cable is only "better" in the sense that it's capable of carrying more information, e.g. it could support higher resolutions or color depths. Using a dual-link cable with the Gateway wouldn't make any difference whatsoever, as it doesn't require any more bandwidth than a single-link cable is capable of providing, even at the highest resolution.
Click to expand...

One of the guys at CompUSA said I would need a dual-link cable to get the high resolution that this monitor gets. This was also echoed in a website I visited (can't remember which one).

But on the other hand - I cannot believe that Gateway would include a DVI cable that DID NOT supply the native resolution to the monitor. That would be very very stupid and negligent of them.

So I think your take on this is the accurate one.

But aside from all that, and aside from the fact that these dual-link cables retail at about $50 … just to try to achieve the most potential out of this monitor as far as image quality, do you think it would be wise to go ahead and get the dual-link cable?
 
gabbs said:
I just got my monitor and set it up. I haven’t had time yet to do the EZTune software, which I will do later.

It is a November 06 model, which is odd because it was from the latest shipment into CompUSA. But oh well. It does not buzz at all. It is silent.

Where does it say what week it is from? I could not find that bit of information.

It does warm up noticeably more than my CRT 19" monitor, but that is to be expected from LCD's ..... right?

It is bright. I mean - it is REALLY FU*KING BRIGHT! I had to close my eyes a couple of times when the screen was mostly white, such as opening Outlook Express, or Word. I will be looking to set the brightness down in my next session with it.

Also - just like any other LCD, the optimal viewing angle is limited. If I look at the wallpaper picture at a 45 degree angle, it fades out somewhat, but this is really irrelevant, since any work done with the computer would be behind the keyboard looking straight at the screen. Does anybody find that a drawback for LCD's?

I opened a couple of my large TIFF images in Photoshop, and at first glance I am not seeing any jump in image quality. I will look at that some more, since this is the area I am most sensitive to. Of course the advantage of this big screen is that I can work on a large image at maybe 50% size, as opposed to 16.7%, for example, with my old 19" monitor.

It came with a DVI cable, but it is one of those single-link cables, as opposed to a double-link, which is supposed to be better.

I am thinking of upgrading my video card to a GeForce 7300 GT (I do not currently have a DVI hookup, and have an integrated card) and then I would probably want to invest in a better cable. Would that be a good idea?
Click to expand...

Regarding dual-link cables ... they are NOT better than single-link cables. The purpose of dual link cables is to support modes up to 2560 x 1600 (Apple Cinema 30 and Dell 30).
 
WakeSnowB said:
The EZTune software does not seem to jive very well with Vista. It will install but not work correctly. The only thing that I like about the EZTune Software is that it allows me to turn the display vertically. Now that I am running Vista, EZTune does not work correctly and I cannot turn my display. Does anyone have any suggestions? Are there any other third party programs that will enable my display to be turned vertically with Microsoft Vista?

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

Click the Check for Update button in the help tab and download Version 1.4. You'll need to uninstall 1.3 first. You will now get the auto-rotation features along with the other features that are in EzTune 1.3 plus a cool new GUI ....
 
gabbs said:
One of the guys at CompUSA said I would need a dual-link cable to get the high resolution that this monitor gets. This was also echoed in a website I visited (can't remember which one).
Click to expand...
Not to be rude, but neither he nor the website know what they're talking about. Single-link can do 1920 by 1200 at 60 Hz and 24-bit color, which is all this monitor needs.

But aside from all that, and aside from the fact that these dual-link cables retail at about $50 … just to try to achieve the most potential out of this monitor as far as image quality, do you think it would be wise to go ahead and get the dual-link cable?
Click to expand...
As Ferris said, don't bother. Single vs. dual-link has nothing to do with quality. The monitor isn't capable of displaying anything that would take advantage of the higher bandwidth. It would be like building a 4 lane highway when your traffic only uses 2 lanes with no problems -- the extra capacity is entirely wasted. Stick with what you have.
 
Is EZtune worth installing? What can it do besides vertical images.

I hear that a lot of newer HDTVs are able to smooth out jagged edges, does EZtune have something like that?
 
bootstrap said:
Single vs. dual-link has nothing to do with quality. The monitor isn't capable of displaying anything that would take advantage of the higher bandwidth..
Click to expand...

Alright then, I don't expect I will spend the extra $50 on the dual-link cable then.

As far as CompUSA guys go, and that goes for all the computer retailers, I like to talk to a bunch of them, and usually some of them seem to know what they are talking about, and then I can build some sort of consensus on a certain subject from that. So many things seem to be open to interpretation these days. Only one guy said I need the dual-link cable, so I am going to toss his opinion out for now.

This is all dependant on me getting a video card though, since I don't currently have DVI. For someone who does not "game", but wants the absolute best potential that this monitor can offer, especially for image editing, does the GeForce 7300GT sound like a good bet?
 
Ferris23 said:
Congrats. November, December, it doesn't matter.

Open up EzTune and look under Help and Asset ID to see the version and week.

Mine is a Week 49 2006 EDID Revision 1.3
Click to expand...

Mine's a Week 49 2006 EDID Revision 1.3 too. So, far not too bad. No dead pixels using dead pixel buddy. It has a little bit of bleed in the upper and lower right corners (not so much that I would return for that reason.)

I'm going to test with 360 and PS3 tomorrow if I get some time after work. Going to sleep now as it's going to be a long day tomorrow. :D
 
Dan2Man1 said:
It changes from high pitched to low but I liken the low to a dog hearing a dog whistle blow and annoying the living hell out of it. To anyone that has had a buzzing problem has it ever gone away or have you just replaced the monitor instead? If I do decide to exchange it I will have to go through Gateway to do so. Has anyone had expierence exchanging this item through them? I hope that it is not to difficult of a process.
Click to expand...

My experience in getting a replacement was very straightforward. However, it's now Thursday and I've yet to receive a tracking number for the replacement monitor. I corresponded with Gateway tech support via email on Saturday evening / Sunday morning. You'd think I'd have a tracking number by now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top