24" Flat panel dilemma.. PLEASE help!

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Noblesoft

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 10, 2007
Messages
160
Ok everyone, I need some help here. I am putting together a new PC, and I started by buying the new monitor I wanted to use, a Gateway FPD2485W. It is sweet, don't get me wrong... but there is one (ok two) marring problems that make this monitor unusable to me. One is what I percieved to be the 'flickering' problem that others have talked about on this forum in the official gateway 24" thread, the other is the miserable 'negative ghosting' that makes it look like evil shadow demons are chasing everything that moves on the screen in games... even WOW. I figured it was a bad monitor and exchanged it for the same model. No dice, same EXACT problem.

So, I read lots of good reviews about the BenQ 24" FP241W. I bought it from NCIX.com because of their fabulous 'no dead pixel' warranty. The monitor arrived today, and much to my dismay the FLICKER PROBLEM IS ON THIS MONITOR TOO!

It's not my eyes... they are sensitve, but 3 other people in my house confirmed that it flickered for them too. Its not the computer... there are 3 other pc's in my house ranging from a cruddy old dell to a new nvidia 7800gtx machine and it looks identical on all of them. It does it at ALL resolutions and video qualities, so its not the system being taxed. I'm hard pressed to believe that the identical problem was reproduced on two different monitors from different manufacturers!

I'll try to describe the flicker so that maybe someone will have experienced what I am talking about or knows what is causing it. The strangest thing is that its not the whole screen... just portions of it in games. It is MOST noticable in instances such as WOW where the sun is reflecting off the grass / pavement. The 'specular lighting' (as i think it is called) in games seems to set it off.

The only possible explaination my brain can come up with is that 24" panels simply have not advanced enough technologically, and their 'refresh rate' is lagging, causing the flicker. Please please PLEASE put my boggled mind to rest. Do I need to go to a 22" 4:3 screen to solve this? I used to have a 22" CRT before this upgrade, and it was the best monitor ever (viewsonic trinitron tube -- getting fuzzy though)

Sorry for the essay :(
 
the benw has 8ms, it's not a lot, and i'm sensible to bad monitors and mine(FP241W) is awesome, but i'm rma it because of the "black-out" problem... probably getting the L246/L245 from LG, it uses the same panel... so should be as good
 
Eastcoasthandle said:
Are you trying to run games like WOW on a 24" monitor on a Radeon 9800 AIW?
Click to expand...

Indeed I am... but the fps floats around 30... nothing to shake a stick at... and besides, I have tried turning on 1:1 pixel mapping and running it as low as 1280x720. Absolutely no difference. Do you think that getting my 8800GTX will remove the flicker on specular lights? I would imagine that if my video card could not handle it, the whole screen would flicker, not parts of it... but I am no video pro by any means...

I am starting to realize that maybe the 8ms GTG refresh rate just isn't going to cut it. I may have to step back the size to a 22" in favor of an absurdly low (2ms) response time :(
 
Noblesoft,LCD's do not have a refresh rate.Sounds like there may be something wrong with the Backlight in your screen ?? I own several LCD's,and have worked with many more and sold near a hundred,and the only time I have seen this,is on a screen that had a dying backlight (a Asus) Possibly its your video card ? I have seen 5 Benq 241W's at work,an none of them have displayed any 'flicker' as you call it.Good luck.
 
Noblesoft said:
Indeed I am... but the fps floats around 30... nothing to shake a stick at... and besides, I have tried turning on 1:1 pixel mapping and running it as low as 1280x720. Absolutely no difference. Do you think that getting my 8800GTX will remove the flicker on specular lights? I would imagine that if my video card could not handle it, the whole screen would flicker, not parts of it... but I am no video pro by any means...

I am starting to realize that maybe the 8ms GTG refresh rate just isn't going to cut it. I may have to step back the size to a 22" in favor of an absurdly low (2ms) response time :(
Click to expand...

I cannot say for certain. What I am interested in seeing is if you experience improvement over DVI vs your current vga though.
 
Eastcoasthandle said:
I cannot say for certain. What I am interested in seeing is if you experience improvement over DVI vs your current vga though.
Click to expand...

I am using the DVI input.

@manny Calavera

I would think that it was a backlight flicker, except that it has happend on THREE monitors, and across two different brands! And, its not the whole screen... just certain parts of it, and only in motion grapics such as when I am walking around the world in WOW. I'm really boggled by this... :(
 
I'm by no means an expert, but only happening on certain items onscreen sure sounds like a video driver issue to me. Could be wrong but have you checked versions and tried using newest and/or rolling back a few versions to see if it helps?
 
If your monitor has different modes such as gaming or movie mode, make sure you're not using them. Those modes tend to change colors dynamically, which may cause the flickering effect you described as the colors change. Use standard or desktop mode, or whatever it's called on your monitor.

If that's not the problem, I have no idea what it could be.
 
Update: I contacted BenQ support today, one of their guys said to change the refresh rate of the video card to 75mhz and see if that helps... the change had little if any effect on the flickering issue.

I am pretty sure I am using the 'standard' color mode on the monitor, but I will double check that when I get home. As far as the driver issue, that is the only explaination I could logically come up with as well, except that this same exact issue happens on not only my PC, but two completely different pcs as well. Some of them have Nvidia, some have ATI. The only commonality between them all is that they have about the same powered video cards (one is a nvidia 6600GS, one an ATI 9600, and mine an ATI 9800AIW). Maybe none of these cards are powerful enough? :confused:

I would love to avoid sending the monitor back... but at this point i am willing to step down to even a 19" monitor (god help me prevent that) if that is what it takes to get a good clean picture with solid performance. :(

Anyone have some recommendations on extremely fast monitors that are 'biggish' (like 20" or bigger?) Thanks for your help everyone...
 
In all honesty (and I am not sure this will work or not) it appears that your video card maybe the problem and, upgrading to a modern video card may help (but again I am not sure). Are you using any vga/dvi adapters by any chance?
 
Eastcoasthandle said:
In all honesty (and I am not sure this will work or not) it appears that your video card maybe the problem and, upgrading to a modern video card may help (but again I am not sure). Are you using any vga/dvi adapters by any chance?
Click to expand...

Nope, not using a DVI adapter... just using the DVI cable that came with the monitor going strait to the DVI port on the video card. I AM buying a new computer in the near future (as per my signature...) but I don't quite have the funds to buy it all... and my 30 day return policy is drying up fast :eek:

I think I will go down to fry's tonight and pick up the samsung 226 lcd and try it out... if that works good, send my 24" back to canada and have them exchange it for the samsung... I bought the 'no dead pixel' policy from NCIX.com... loving every second of it (worth every penny of the $60 bucks it cost!)
 
Just because this is such a strange problem, and you've done enough parts swapping to exhaust most possibilities, the one common element you haven't changed is power. I am assuming you've used different DVI cables too, since they usually are included with the monitor, otherwise change that out. So I would suggest plugging the PC and monitor into a line conditioner (ie brownout protector) or UPS just to eliminate under/overvoltage as a source, powerstrips won't fix voltage issues. This is a shot in the dark, but hopefully something you can quickly test.
 
Did you try lower resolutions to see if the flickering disappears? Your DVI cable might be the problem.
 
@Snagor: I will try this tonight... I don't have a UPS, but my roommate does.

@Floppy Drive: Yes, I tried all resolutions with 1:1 mapping enabled and disabled. The only one combination that seemed to stop the flickering was 800x600 with full-screen stretching. Really, at that resolution, I could not make out if my character in wow was an ORC or a large BUSH; I am not surprised I could not make out the subtle flickering.

More information on this issue: I played about 4 hours of WOW last night (it was all I could take before I popped to advil to cure my migrane and went to bed)... and I noticed that it was not just the specular lighting that does the flickering. Anything with a seemingly fine amount of detail, such as the tall grass and such that stands up off the ground in wow flickered as well (if not more so than the ground). I am really considering that this monitor lied about its refresh rate, and what I am experiencing is an oversensitivity to the sharp drop in refresh rate compared to my 22" CRT. I'm going to hold on to this 24" at the moment, but I am looking for an ultrafast 2ms 22inc to test it on.

Any thoughts on a monitor I should try? I was looking at the samsung 226BW as a possibility, there was also a 22" glossy black samsung with a chrome button on the front at frys (they were sold out) that claimed a 2ms response... didnt get the name of it though.
 
I bought the Acer AL2423WD about a month ago, and took it back two weeks later due to the exact same issue. I was running it on a dual opteron 265/4gb ram/7800gtx; the flickering showed up in Eve and Supcom, and was present on both DVI and VGA, with multiple cables tried for each. Definitely not a performance issue

Have there been reports of this issue on any ips/tn monitors? AFAIK the benq, gateway and acer are all pva/mva variants...
 
Well, I gave up. Not gonna spend $900 bucks on a monitor that i can't use for more than 30 minutes. I called up NCIX and had em send me a new Samsung 226BW, and sent this one back. They said it will ship sometime this week, so we will see how that goes. :rolleyes:

At least NCIX was nice about it... probobly the best company I've ever had to work with regarding RMA's n such. Definately going to do more business with them. Their 'no dead pixel' warranty is only $100 bucks give or take and it is worth its weight in GOLD. :D
 
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