Gateway's FPD2185W: a 21in widescreen 2005fpw killer!

I played around 4 hours of BF2 with this monitor yesterday. The backlighting is very even, I don't notice any backlight bleed. The response time is fine, atleast I noticed no ghosting whatsoever during heavy firefights. I haven't really looked at the monitor from an angle, I can try doing that tonight, but straight on, colors look fine. Angles do not matter to me much since it's used mainly for gaming with just myself looking at it, so I'm probably not the best person to comment on them. My monitor is also silent, no buzzing or fan noise, atleast none that I can hear over the drone of my shuttle. I tried using the supplied software, but received an error when installing it. It looks like it installed fine and it was usuable, but I have since uninstalled it.

Also, all of this was done using a vga connection from my X800XL, I wish DVI would work with this monitor. Also, Gateways customer support stinks, I was on the phone with them for 4 hours on Sunday trying to troubleshoot my DVI problems, but for the first 2 hours they just transfered me to different departments because I didn't have a "system" only a monitor. Desktop couldn't help me because they needed a system id, consumer electronics couldn't help me because the monitor didn't have a tv tuner in it, so it's not considered a consumer electronic. Needless to say, Gateway couldn't help me because they have very little information about this monitor, so I'm waiting to hear back from ATI about my DVI issue, but from what I've read, the X800XLs do have HDCP support. I'm also waiting for my X800GTO2 to get here to see if it works through DVI with this monitor.
 
Hi folks (longtime lurker).

No problems here at all with the 2185.
DVI works great (w/ nVidia 6800 GTO) as does VGA (though I did note that text in Windows seemed blurrier with VGA).
No buzzing (and my ears are very sensitive to those sorts of noises).
No dead or stuck pixels that I have noticed.
I haven't noticed any backlight oddities or ghosting, though I will readily admit that in this regard my standards may not be as high as some of the folks here.

I've been playing mostly City of Heroes/Cov Beta and Trackmania Sunrise, both at native resolution.

I have not tried DVD playback or viewing of HD sources.

I'm very pleased so far. The only oddities I've seen I believe to be related to Trackmania, as I have not seen them elsewhere (a faint red horizontal stripe and a difficult to describe artefact on the far left edge of the screen...ever seen a CRT that's a bit messed up and redrawing part of the screen along the very bottom? It seems like it is doing that, but on the left...very odd). No problems in CoH at all.
 
Hey ND40oz,

I have a question for you on your issue with DVI and the FPD2185W. You state that you can't get pass the BIOS post when you use DVI on the monitor. Does the BIOS post image appear on screen and then the PC appears to freeze or does the screen go blank and the PC continues to boot? Do you ever see the Windows startup (DOS mode) screen while in DVI? Did you ever tweak any of your BIOS settings to adjust AGP aperature size or any other video related settings? Did DVI on the card ever work with a different monitor? Just trying to figure out what could be the source of your problem.

Also, are you using the Omega drivers or are you using the ATI Catalyst drivers, if so what version of Catalyst? This may be the cause of you not being able to install EzTune.

Tim-in-CA
 
I have no problems running DVI so far, I ran VGA fine also. So far I love the monitor, the blacks are way better than my old 17" samsung LCD.
 
So does this monitor really just stretch everything out that is in non-native resolution or will it allow different resolutions with black bars on the sides?
 
Ok, so here are my initial comments.

PC Hookup:
Hooked this up to a PC via DVI and VGA. No bleeding to speak of and only minor backlight inconsistencies. Certainly better than my Dell. The monitor is very crisp IMHO and I think I actually prefer it to my Dell 24" (too big syndrome).

XBOX.
Hooked this up via Component, SVideo, and standard RCA.

Using Component, this monitor is horrible for playing dark games (i.e.Doom and the dark levels of Halo 2) even with everything adjusted to max. And you definitely notice things get better as you view these games at an angle, but not much better And because it is component, you cannot adjust the gamma. I've heard a rumor that the xbox360 will have a system-wide gamma setting which may solve the problem for the next gen, but I can't substantiate that. In any case, if you plan on doing xbox, this is not the monitor for you.

The built in scalar is 1000 times better than the Dell (I still can't believe more people aren't complaining about the Dell 2405FPW with xbox games). 720p games such as Soul Caliber look incredible.

Using RCA and SVideo did not have any of the brightness problems as I could easily adjust the gamma in the monitor.

In general, the monitor stand is the best of any monitor I have ever played with. Very smooth and easy to adjust the monitor and all planes.

If it wasn't for the brightness issue, I would have no problem recommending this monitor. As it stands, I am a big xbox player and so this monitor is heading back to BB.

Hope this helps.
 
I am looking at this montior very seriously. I am suffering with a 3 year old 17" CRT right now(max res. of 1280x1024 at max of 60hz refresh - ouch, my eyes!)

At first I was looking into 19" LCD's. But I'm starting to think I may want better than 1280x1024 at some point.

I looked into the Dell widescreen(2005fpw) but their spec's didn't impress me too much. But then this Gateway comes along, 1000:1 contrast, 8 ms response rate, 1680x1050 res., HDCP(?) whatever that is, but apparently something very important for future compatibility with displaying high def. TV. Another thing that sounds good about this one is the extra inch of screen space over the 2005fpw.

I would like to give a bump for Aug1516's question:

"So does this monitor really just stretch everything out that is in non-native resolution or will it allow different resolutions with black bars on the sides?"

A lot of games(including, unfortunately Battlefield 2) don't support wide screen, so I'm wondering how they'll look on a monitor like this.

Another good thing about this monitor is that Best Buy carries it so I can go down and actually look at it(I assume/hope they have a display model up and running) BEFORE I buy so I don't have to go through return hassles-unless the particular unit I get has some defect.
 
landersen said:
In general, the monitor stand is the best of any monitor I have ever played with. Very smooth and easy to adjust the monitor and all planes.=

I forgot to mention this in my post earlier, so I'm glad you did. The stand, while not terribly attractive, really is amazingly functional. No buttons, just push it the direction you want it to go and it stays there.

I did notice a bit of that oddity I mentioned previously while playing Pirates in 1280*1024. Not sure what to make of it. Don't know if it is the monitor itself or something with the connector or cable. I haven't found it to be a major issue, but I wouldn't mind figuring out if the monitor is defective or not.
 
Tim-in-CA said:
Hey ND40oz,

I have a question for you on your issue with DVI and the FPD2185W. You state that you can't get pass the BIOS post when you use DVI on the monitor. Does the BIOS post image appear on screen and then the PC appears to freeze or does the screen go blank and the PC continues to boot? Do you ever see the Windows startup (DOS mode) screen while in DVI? Did you ever tweak any of your BIOS settings to adjust AGP aperature size or any other video related settings? Did DVI on the card ever work with a different monitor? Just trying to figure out what could be the source of your problem.

Also, are you using the Omega drivers or are you using the ATI Catalyst drivers, if so what version of Catalyst? This may be the cause of you not being able to install EzTune.

Tim-in-CA

When I boot up with the DVI plugged in, it shows my shuttle splash screen and then just goes blank. I tried hooking up a spare crt to the vga while the dvi was connected and the both go blank. The Gateway tells me no signal and the crt button goes orange (normally green when it has signal). It doesn't get to the part of the bios where it lists all the numbers and other information. I can tell it doesn't get to windows because I'll give it 30 seconds and if I just push the power button, it cuts off instead of waiting 5 seconds or so to do a normal shutdown. I had this pc hooked up to a 17 inch LG Flatron through DVI and it worked fine. I even hooked it back up to that monitor just to make sure it worked. Is there a bios setting that I overlooked that needs to be enabled for this monitor?

Thanks.

Oh, I'm using the Cat 5.9's MCE, the pc is running MCE 2k5.
 
KeithM said:
I am looking at this montior very seriously. I am suffering with a 3 year old 17" CRT right now(max res. of 1280x1024 at max of 60hz refresh - ouch, my eyes!)

At first I was looking into 19" LCD's. But I'm starting to think I may want better than 1280x1024 at some point.

I looked into the Dell widescreen(2005fpw) but their spec's didn't impress me too much. But then this Gateway comes along, 1000:1 contrast, 8 ms response rate, 1680x1050 res., HDCP(?) whatever that is, but apparently something very important for future compatibility with displaying high def. TV. Another thing that sounds good about this one is the extra inch of screen space over the 2005fpw.

I would like to give a bump for Aug1516's question:

"So does this monitor really just stretch everything out that is in non-native resolution or will it allow different resolutions with black bars on the sides?"

A lot of games(including, unfortunately Battlefield 2) don't support wide screen, so I'm wondering how they'll look on a monitor like this.

Another good thing about this monitor is that Best Buy carries it so I can go down and actually look at it(I assume/hope they have a display model up and running) BEFORE I buy so I don't have to go through return hassles-unless the particular unit I get has some defect.

Check out www.widescreengamingforum.com ... they have lots of info on tweaking older games for widescreen. FYI ... I've tried HL2 at the native 1680 x 1050 and it looks great!!!!!
 
landersen said:
Ok, so here are my initial comments.

PC Hookup:
Hooked this up to a PC via DVI and VGA. No bleeding to speak of and only minor backlight inconsistencies. Certainly better than my Dell. The monitor is very crisp IMHO and I think I actually prefer it to my Dell 24" (too big syndrome).

XBOX.
Hooked this up via Component, SVideo, and standard RCA.

Using Component, this monitor is horrible for playing dark games (i.e.Doom and the dark levels of Halo 2) even with everything adjusted to max. And you definitely notice things get better as you view these games at an angle, but not much better And because it is component, you cannot adjust the gamma. I've heard a rumor that the xbox360 will have a system-wide gamma setting which may solve the problem for the next gen, but I can't substantiate that. In any case, if you plan on doing xbox, this is not the monitor for you.

The built in scalar is 1000 times better than the Dell (I still can't believe more people aren't complaining about the Dell 2405FPW with xbox games). 720p games such as Soul Caliber look incredible.

Using RCA and SVideo did not have any of the brightness problems as I could easily adjust the gamma in the monitor.

In general, the monitor stand is the best of any monitor I have ever played with. Very smooth and easy to adjust the monitor and all planes.

If it wasn't for the brightness issue, I would have no problem recommending this monitor. As it stands, I am a big xbox player and so this monitor is heading back to BB.

Hope this helps.

Doesn't the XBox have a global adjustment to adust gamma / picture / brightness / contrast?
 
Lord_Exodia said:
You make alot of valid points. I mean the backlight color wash and buzzing noise are solid points. Out of curiosity though what kind of vid card are you running? Those pics of farcry are very low quality. If I had to guess I would say a geforce 4 or FX Maybe radeon 9500 or so. Could the monitor be slightly held back by your vid card? Note that some of your points are solid and it doesn't matter which vid card u have, but I am curious. Maybe if you had a bit more vid card to give the pannel it will truly shine. Reason I ask is I find it a bit hard to believe that both the dell 2005 and this pannel are not good enough for someone. It is possible though.

L.E.

I'm running 6600GT so I don't think it's the card that's holding it back. Far cry looked low quality beacuse of the picture taken, it was actually running at full 1680x1050. I've set the camera on long exposure to catch the backlight bleeding in the previous pictures and never set it back. That made the pictures look oversaturated and loose detail. Of course I was taking shot off hand not from tripod so add your usual shake at long exposure time = crappy pic.
I guess you meant 2405 not 2005, 2405 is using the same panel type (S-PVA) so all points apply to it as well.
Buzzing noise could be just my one display, not necessarily general rule, so YMMV.
 
ND40oz said:
When I boot up with the DVI plugged in, it shows my shuttle splash screen and then just goes blank. I tried hooking up a spare crt to the vga while the dvi was connected and the both go blank. The Gateway tells me no signal and the crt button goes orange (normally green when it has signal). It doesn't get to the part of the bios where it lists all the numbers and other information. I can tell it doesn't get to windows because I'll give it 30 seconds and if I just push the power button, it cuts off instead of waiting 5 seconds or so to do a normal shutdown. I had this pc hooked up to a 17 inch LG Flatron through DVI and it worked fine. I even hooked it back up to that monitor just to make sure it worked. Is there a bios setting that I overlooked that needs to be enabled for this monitor?

Thanks.

Oh, I'm using the Cat 5.9's MCE, the pc is running MCE 2k5.

Ok, tried messing around in the bios, did a few things.

1. Changed the AGP aperture size to 128 from 256, did not help.

2. Changed the video bios to chacheable, did not help.

3. Changed the Quick Power on Self Test to disabled, this allowed the computer to fully boot, could get to the pc through an RDP session. This tells me the monitor is causing the pc to fail the self test on boot when DVI is plugged in.

Also, when the computer does boot up with the DVI plugged in (when the self test is disabled), the monitor is unresponsive to any user input. None of the side buttons work and you cannot power it off. I have to physically unplug the power once the computer is off to get the monitor working again. This seems to mean that the monitor is the problem child so it could be going back to Best Buy as soon as they have one to exchange it with. I'm going to hold out until I have another video card/system to test it with, just in the remote case it is the system and not the monitor.
 
Tim-in-CA said:
Doesn't the XBox have a global adjustment to adust gamma / picture / brightness / contrast?

Nope. There is no global adjustment. And I just received confirmation from an unnamed source inside MS that the xbox360 will not have global adjustments either. He did say that in general the rendering of colors on the 360 would result in brighter more saturated colors because they are specifically targeting LCD/plasma HD televisions as their target market because of 360's HD requirements.

I'm gonna let the monitor burn in for a while longer to see if it "brightens up" a bit, but I'm still doubtful it's going to improve enough to make me wanna keep it.
 
alexpronko said:
Buzzing noise could be just my one display, not necessarily general rule, so YMMV.

FYI. I have not experienced any buzzing. Monitor is as quiet as can be.
 
Tim-in-CA said:
Check out www.widescreengamingforum.com ... they have lots of info on tweaking older games for widescreen. FYI ... I've tried HL2 at the native 1680 x 1050 and it looks great!!!!!

Thanks for the suggestion. I have checked out widescreengamingforum.com and it was very well done. Unfortunately I am pretty much only into online multiplayer gaming(e.g. battlefiled 1942 and Battlefield 2). It sucks that the online anti-cheat software(punkbuster) from what I have read, considers altering some games files to enable wide screen to be "cheating" and kicks people from servers. That's Battlefield 1942(which is really showing its age anyway). From what I hear Battlefield 2 can't even be hacked to display widescreen, and if it did would have the same problem online.

I guess widescreen would still be worth it though for any games that do support it(half-life2 - I''m into world war 2 games and I hear the DoD:source mod for that game is quite good!).

Again, does this monitor have that type of down scaling of resolution(that one where it displays a smaller resolution but still high quality picture by making the picture physically smaller on the screen with black bars along sides of screen - instead of trying to fill whole screen). Perhaps ALL larger LCD's have this option - I've just never owned LCD before and am looking to upgrade. I believe I would prefer smaller BUT still higher quality pic, rather than a stretched one that distorts everything(especially since the "smaller" one would probably still be bigger than I get on my current 17" CRT ;)
 
*** Very Important to this forum ***

I believe we are talking about different pannels. I got this pannel the new Gateway FPD2185W and man is it awesome. None of the noted problems are here. In fact we're talking about different pannels entirely. I have pics that show this monitor closely and you will be able to tell this pannel is more revised than the pics that have been in this thread.

First thing, the DVI Port is not on the right side of the pannel it's on the bottom. On the right are your config buttons & 2 usb 2.0 ports. The buttons are easy to follow with the onscreen menu. All of the inputs are at the bottom including 2 more USB 2.0 Ports.

Also none of the uneven backlight buzzing sounds or graphic problems are here. Here are the pics





[/URL

[URL=http://www.supload.com/free/DSCF0005-972943.jpg/view/]



Pic 3 & 4 show you the right side of the pannel and there are no dvi ports there. Pic 4 the dvi port was cut in the pic partially due to the odd angel I had to hold the cam. The dvi port is right next to that dsub. The pannel mentioned earlier may have been the model that was just revised with this magnificent uber display. These pics dont do much justice. But I hope it adds to this thread.

L.E ;)
 
wait, so there are 2 different versions of the same monitor? If so, where did the above poster get his panel?
 
cambrian said:
wait, so there are 2 different versions of the same monitor? If so, where did the above poster get his panel?

Everybody relax, this is the same and only one model. It alwas had DVI ports on the bottom (I don't know who said they were on the side? Maybe it was the picture on the Gateway site when it was flipped in the portrait mode) and USB/navigation buttons on the right.
And yes, all the comments still do apply, for me the most important one - that it's S-PVA type (I wish they did not).
 
Lord_Exodia said:
*** Very Important to this forum ***

I believe we are talking about different pannels. I got this pannel the new Gateway FPD2185W and man is it awesome. None of the noted problems are here. In fact we're talking about different pannels entirely. I have pics that show this monitor closely and you will be able to tell this pannel is more revised than the pics that have been in this thread.

First thing, the DVI Port is not on the right side of the pannel it's on the bottom. On the right are your config buttons & 2 usb 2.0 ports. The buttons are easy to follow with the onscreen menu. All of the inputs are at the bottom including 2 more USB 2.0 Ports.

Also none of the uneven backlight buzzing sounds or graphic problems are here. Here are the pics





[/URL

[URL=http://www.supload.com/free/DSCF0005-972943.jpg/view/]



Pic 3 & 4 show you the right side of the pannel and there are no dvi ports there. Pic 4 the dvi port was cut in the pic partially due to the odd angel I had to hold the cam. The dvi port is right next to that dsub. The pannel mentioned earlier may have been the model that was just revised with this magnificent uber display. These pics dont do much justice. But I hope it adds to this thread.

L.E ;)

LE,

It looks like from your pic that you are using the Nvidia rotation function to flip the screen image. Did you know that if you install the included EzTune software, that the screen will auto-rotate when you turn the screen? Be sure to disable NVRotate and put the screen into landscape (0 deg rotation) before you install EzTune.

Tim-in-CA
 
Tim-in-CA said:
LE,

It looks like from your pic that you are using the Nvidia rotation function to flip the screen image. Did you know that if you install the included EzTune software, that the screen will auto-rotate when you turn the screen? Be sure to disable NVRotate and put the screen into landscape (0 deg rotation) before you install EzTune.

Tim-in-CA

That is flipping awesome!!! No I didn't know that

Tim thanx 4 the heads up.

Cheers

L.E.
 
Damn now if only compusa would carry this as my monitor(23 inch apple) is having some issues with retained pixel charge(I said that right I think) and is under there warranty. Wouldn't mind switching to 2 of those things.
 
the resolution on this looks stupid... too big for 720p, too small for 1080p..


... i hate scaling/streatching on lcds... looks horrible... always
 
alexpronko said:
I'll give it another look after work but I think it's gonna go back since I primarily bought it as a PC monitor and this color wash is rather annoying (that's why Dell's 2405 went back)

The first time I saw someone's 2405 in person I was also shocked by the PVA-esque off-angle washing.. And even more suprised that I didn't see a hardforums superfreakout panic extravaganza over it (like we did with backlighting and another monitor which will remain nameless.. ;) )
 
__Maad__ said:
The first time I saw someone's 2405 in person I was also shocked by the PVA-esque off-angle washing.. And even more suprised that I didn't see a hardforums superfreakout panic extravaganza over it (like we did with backlighting and another monitor which will remain nameless.. ;) )


Errr...I can see color washing being an issue if you want a bunch of people to watch movies on it. How often is it a factor when you're playing games?


EDIT: Although, I can see it being a problem with a monitor of that size if you like to sit close to the screen
 
landersen said:
Nope. There is no global adjustment. And I just received confirmation from an unnamed source inside MS that the xbox360 will not have global adjustments either. He did say that in general the rendering of colors on the 360 would result in brighter more saturated colors because they are specifically targeting LCD/plasma HD televisions as their target market because of 360's HD requirements.

I'm gonna let the monitor burn in for a while longer to see if it "brightens up" a bit, but I'm still doubtful it's going to improve enough to make me wanna keep it.

i was about to go to bestbuy to buy this but i just read what u said......is the brightness issue really THAT bad or is it just not REALLY good? Because i would be buying this for the xbox360 and i don't want it to look really dark, becuz well that would suck
 
laxmiddi44 said:
i was about to go to bestbuy to buy this but i just read what u said......is the brightness issue really THAT bad or is it just not REALLY good? Because i would be buying this for the xbox360 and i don't want it to look really dark, becuz well that would suck

I thought this monitor was actually brighter than the Dell 2005FPW and 2405FPW, is this not the case?
 
Cabezone said:
Errr...I can see color washing being an issue if you want a bunch of people to watch movies on it. How often is it a factor when you're playing games?


EDIT: Although, I can see it being a problem with a monitor of that size if you like to sit close to the screen

Actually you don't need to sit that close. I was sitting at arms length and could see the was on the sides of the screen, and I'm not even talking edges, you coud see it start at about 1/3 of the screen width to either side. The main problem is that the wash is actually what you are suppose to see, the "dead on" viuew is darker than supposed to be and you are loosing details. Perfect example is looking at a head shot picture or a tree with leaves, dead on you can't see hair/leaves details, you move to the side and the details come on.
 
Cabezone said:
EDIT: Although, I can see it being a problem with a monitor of that size if you like to sit close to the screen

Yeah it was just one of those kinds of things that totally suprised me, I was pumped to check the screen out too. If you're used to , say , an S-IPS screen, it becomes extremely distracting. Still an amazing screen and all.. but for my usage pattern, it might not be for me :)
 
just picked one of these bad boys up today, I play alot of Rome Total War and it looks great!! I love it, I had a 19inch LCD and the viewability is the same height wise but the wideness sure helps in battles.
 
AthlonXP said:
just picked one of these bad boys up today, I play alot of Rome Total War and it looks great!! I love it, I had a 19inch LCD and the viewability is the same height wise but the wideness sure helps in battles.

The game supports widescreen resolutions by default?
 
laxmiddi44 said:
i was about to go to bestbuy to buy this but i just read what u said......is the brightness issue really THAT bad or is it just not REALLY good? Because i would be buying this for the xbox360 and i don't want it to look really dark, becuz well that would suck

IMHO, the brightness is a show-stopper. Doom3 is COMPLETELY unplayable in a dark room with every adjustment turned up as high as I could go.

I have returned this monitor for now because of the 14 day return policy at BB. Other than the brigtness issue, the monitor is a dream. So what I am going to do is purchase it again once the 360 comes out and see how well it does.

If you are not in a hurry and are planning on getting a 360, my suggestion is to wait until the 360 is released just to be safe.
 
aug1516 said:
I thought this monitor was actually brighter than the Dell 2005FPW and 2405FPW, is this not the case?

Regardless of whatever the brigtness claims might be for both monitors, trust me, the 2405FPW can get MUCH brighter.

I have both side-by-side and there is no comparison.
 
There was a post made earlier in this thread about this monitor not being able to run applications in non native resolution without stretching the image, is this really true? I would hope it would allow you to run lower resolutions if needed with black bars on the sides or something.
 
aug1516 said:
There was a post made earlier in this thread about this monitor not being able to run applications in non native resolution without stretching the image, is this really true? I would hope it would allow you to run lower resolutions if needed with black bars on the sides or something.

You need to do that through the video card drivers. For nvidia got to custom timings and select - video card scaling and either 1:1 or aspect ratio. The monitor itself DOES NOT have scaling for VGA / DVI inputs
 
aug1516 said:
There was a post made earlier in this thread about this monitor not being able to run applications in non native resolution without stretching the image, is this really true? I would hope it would allow you to run lower resolutions if needed with black bars on the sides or something.

Not true. In fact I'm trying to find out how to stretch movies to full screen in some occasions.

Lord Exodia
 
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