My BenQ FP241WZ

Aaaand it's done!

Behold the results:

FP241WZ.jpg


The one I bought at CanadaComputers, at least, uses the M240UW01 V2.

As you can see at http://www.auo.com/auoDEV/products.php?func=info&product_id=6&items_id=1 this panel is indeed an A-MVA panel with 8 bit colour, and NOT the cheap PVA panel. Excellent!

The conclusion? Both the review which declares that the WZ uses PVA panels and the BenQ reps that claim the panels used are PVA panels are what us better-informed folk refer to as "wrong". GG, BeHardware.
 
Awesome, Sinbios. Thanks for finally confirming what lots of us have believed for months.
 
Sinbios said:
The one I bought at CanadaComputers, at least, uses the M240UW01 V2. this panel is indeed an A-MVA panel with 8 bit colour, and NOT the cheap PVA panel. Excellent!

The conclusion? Both the review which declares that the WZ uses PVA panels and the BenQ reps that claim the panels used are PVA panels are what us better-informed folk refer to as "wrong". GG, BeHardware.
Click to expand...

Does the fp241w use the A-MVA panel as well?
 
In the name of science, way to go Einstein!

I hope everything reassembled OK for you, I started to crack mine and ran into some very fragile foil type stuff. Maybe if you leave instructions, someone will tear apart their pre-upgraded W model compared to the upgraded W.
 
bootstrap said:
Awesome, Sinbios. Thanks for finally confirming what lots of us have believed for months.
Click to expand...

No problem! It was bothering me too, I just had to know which it is.

djfunz said:
Does the fp241w use the A-MVA panel as well?
Click to expand...

I thought that the FP241W is already confirmed to have M240UW01 V0, which is P-MVA?

higgy said:
I hope everything reassembled OK for you, I started to crack mine and ran into some very fragile foil type stuff. Maybe if you leave instructions, someone will tear apart their pre-upgraded W model compared to the upgraded W.
Click to expand...

Yeah, everything assembled fine except the power LED doesn't light. I probably forgot to plug in a ribbon cable in there, but I can't be bother to open it up again. The foil is just there to tape the panel and the backplate together, it comes apart pretty easily.

I'm willing to write down some instructions for taking it apart, but where do I leave them so the W owners can see?
 
Sinbios,

I got mine at Canada Computers as well.
What Mfg. date is your BenQ?
 
Sinbios said:
I thought that the FP241W is already confirmed to have M240UW01 V0, which is P-MVA
Click to expand...


this is very odd...all the reading i've done states that both models use the same panel.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/content/benq_fp241w.htm


also read post #182 in the WZ page here:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1161471&page=10

And i quote: "Called Benq and verified that this is not a A-MVA panel but a PVA panel using AMA-Z technology. Sorry for the confusion. If this brand uses the new A-MVA panel it may very well be isolated in that country (referring to the photo taken showing A-MVA panel). They only way to verify if this is a A-MVA panel at this point is to ask Higgy to finally take the cover off and photo the label giving us a clear idea of what's used."

So can somebody PLEASE PLEASE clear this up. By the way i would be purchasing from newegg in the states here...so what panel would i be getting? Such confusion...:( :confused:

edit* are you in the united states sinbios?
 
Higgy,
That seems to be the popular belief. (and my guess would be that it's likely true).


Sinbios,
Yeah I noticed that the sticker you showed has a panel Mfg. date of wk.48/06, I was more curious on the BenQ Mfg. date of the monitor itself. Mine has a date of January 2007.
I notice Canada Computers has a bunch more in stock now and they've dropped the price some. Almost tempted to get a second unit :cool:

Oh, and I see they have a spot now listing the Samsung 305T 30" screen, but no price yet. Interesting.....
 
http://miyahan.com/me/report/computer/070125_WUXGA_LCD/index2.html#Review_FP241W

The FP241W has the P-MVA panel in Japan, and the updated WJ model may have the A-MVA panel.

According to this article, The WJ (Japan only) and WV have a slicker, smoother panel surface (less bumpier) than the original W and the possibly the A-MVA.

We've got some chinese review and sinbios confirming the A-MVA panel in the WZ, so that's good news but we'll have to wait for more confirmation to be sure.

As for the W model's panel elsewhere, it's anybody's guess atm...
 
This monitor has an A-MVA panel and is coming out on the 1st June and it looks like it's gonna be hugely superior to the fp241w, and there's a little bit about the A-MVA panel:
http://miyahan.com/me/report/computer/070125_WUXGA_LCD/MDT241WG.html

So basically the A-MVA panel should

- be more smooth, slicker than the P-MVA
- have greater viewing angles (not as great as IPS still)

This article says the P-MVA panel had some kind of rainbow effect, caused by the panel coating, and the A-MVA greatly reduces this, so whites should have less 'dirt' in them.

I never knew P-MVA panels had this kind of rainbow effect...

Contrast ratio seems to be the same as the P-MVA..
 
djfunz said:
this is very odd...all the reading i've done states that both models use the same panel.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/content/benq_fp241w.htm


also read post #182 in the WZ page here:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1161471&page=10

And i quote: "Called Benq and verified that this is not a A-MVA panel but a PVA panel using AMA-Z technology. Sorry for the confusion. If this brand uses the new A-MVA panel it may very well be isolated in that country (referring to the photo taken showing A-MVA panel). They only way to verify if this is a A-MVA panel at this point is to ask Higgy to finally take the cover off and photo the label giving us a clear idea of what's used."

So can somebody PLEASE PLEASE clear this up. By the way i would be purchasing from newegg in the states here...so what panel would i be getting? Such confusion...:( :confused:

edit* are you in the united states sinbios?
Click to expand...
The post you're quoting is incorrect. The Benq rep was talking out of his ass. The WZ has the AMVA panel. I doubt the W has the same panel since it's an older model, and the AMVA panel is rather recent.

I'm in Canada.

Jamiee: I'll check when I get home after the weekend.
 
Sinbios said:
The Benq rep was talking out of his ass.
Click to expand...
And this, folks, is the reason why I completely gave up on this monitor months ago. I was all set to buy the FP241W when it came out, but oops! No aspect ratio controls. Then, in the time BenQ finally got around to getting this fixed (well, almost fixed as we're now waiting for another revision), I read post after post about the horrible support that people have received from BenQ and it completely turned me off to this brand. Reps not knowing what was going on, giving blatantly false information, blaming the problem on other hardware (blackout problem only occurs over DVI because VGA puts less "strain" on the video card? wtf?), people having their monitor serviced only for it to come back completely unchanged, or worse, with more problems than when they took it in, etc. The whole company is in shambles right now, and it's clear that they're doing a poor job of communicating what's going on even within different parts of the company, let alone to the end user.

Now, of course, no company has perfect support and they all have their share of bad CS reps, but BenQ support seems to be consistently horrible. It's a shame too, because their products otherwise seem to be pretty good. But what good is a 3 year warranty if the company either refuses to honor it or is too incompetent to fix the problems? This alone is enough reason for me to not buy this monitor, regardless of how many features it may have. It's kind of ironic, because had there been aspect ratio controls, I probably would have bought this monitor weeks after it first came out. But had I known then what I know now about BenQ, I wouldn't have even considered it.
 
I just bought a FP241WZ too and I was wondering too if I had an AUO or a Samsung panel inside... are any menu tricks known to display that info on screen cuz opening teh case is not an option for me, there's a broken pixel and I'm getting it replaced by the vendor.

Sinbios, I'm in canada too, so I'd be interested to know if you have the same mfg date as me too, jan 2007... did you check yours yet? It's right there on the back of the display.
 
So after reading this thread and the FP241W one about firmware, blanking, etc. I'm confused.

1. Is anyone NOT having blanking issues? Or is this a problem that affects all the monitors?
2. Are scaling/cropping issues with HDMI fixed yet?
 
I would like to also know, really thinking of getting the VW or WZ, but does it suffer from the same issues as the W?
 
spotpuff said:
So after reading this thread and the FP241W one about firmware, blanking, etc. I'm confused.

1. Is anyone NOT having blanking issues? Or is this a problem that affects all the monitors?
2. Are scaling/cropping issues with HDMI fixed yet?
Click to expand...

s0ulja said:
I would like to also know, really thinking of getting the VW or WZ, but does it suffer from the same issues as the W?
Click to expand...


I don't have any blackout issues, though I have the VW model. I also never bothered to use the included DVI cable, and instead just used the DVI cable that was already connected to my PC from my previous monitor. I don't have any blackout issues with the 360 via component either.

I can't confirm that every VW monitor won't have the blackout issue, maybe I just got a lucky one.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, the VW model does also suffer from the overscan issues too though.
 
Well I picked up my second WZ on Friday as Canada Computers now has them on for $799 CAN.

It's kinda fun having dual 24" screens :cool:

The new panel is absolutely flawless whereas the first one I got had/has one stuck pixel (hardly noticeable in the bottom right corner).
Both have Mfg. dates of January, 2007.

BTW, just as I had suspected, the screen that's attached to the #1 DVI jack on the videocard has worked fine and the one hooked up to the #2 jack has suffered a short blackout. (happened earlier this morning). This compares to my earlier findings and I think clearly points to some sort of video card issue.
Still it doesn't happen all that often, so it's not overly bothersome.
 
NCIX has these on sale for $720 with free shipping and a $5 "no dead pixel up to 3 trades" policy until Wednesday. Buying from CC which doesn't allow returns for dead pixels sounds like not a good idea in this case.

$720 from BC + $5 + 6% tax = $768.5 shipped which is cheaper than buying from CC too.
 
jamiee said:
The new panel is absolutely flawless whereas the first one I got had/has one stuck pixel (hardly noticeable in the bottom right corner).
Both have Mfg. dates of January, 2007.
Click to expand...

hey dude!

my 2401vw also has a dead one on the lower right corner, next to the hour display... :eek:
 
Assuming that all FP241WZ monitor uses A-MVA panels, is it worth spending extra for the WZ model or go for the cheaper W model?
 
I see a price of $774.99 at NCIX, which I had considered before getting my second screen.
But I wanted to buy locally and not play the shipping back-and-forth game if something was defective.

Other places around town are asking upwards of $899 for the same screen (in some cases the W model even costs more).
 
jamiee said:
I see a price of $774.99 at NCIX, which I had considered before getting my second screen.
But I wanted to buy locally and not play the shipping back-and-forth game if something was defective.

Other places around town are asking upwards of $899 for the same screen (in some cases the W model even costs more).
Click to expand...

The weekly sale has them on for $720 w/ $5 no dead pixel coverage and free shipping. Valid until Wednesday, June 6th.

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=23033&vpn=FP241WZ&manufacture=BENQ&promoid=1019

Regular price is higher yes but it seems like the monitor is on sale every week.

I'd rather play back and forth shipping games (they cross ship replacements supposedly so it's less of a wait) than deal with a dead pixel for the entire life of the monitor... had one dead pixel before and I will never tolerate another one again. But, to each their own.
 
Well on Monday I decided to bite the bullet and order a FP241WZ from NCIX. They were on sale for $720 and I also picked up the Pixel Perfect Warranty for $5 dollars more. In total it came out to around $820 dollars Canadian.

I received it today and did a quick dead pixel check after setting it up. No dead pixels found so far so I'm extremely happy. The manufacturing date on the back says January 2007. I haven't experienced any blackout problems yet so I'll keep you guys posted if I start to experience one.
 
Well I experienced my first blackout over the weekend. The screen went black for about 1 second for no reason. I also tested the monitor out on a bunch of games (Oblivion, HL2, NWN2, SupCom, STALKER, Medieval 2 Total War) and most of them looked good. The only exception is Dark Age of Camelot (which I doubt many people actually play). I see a lot of blurring or ghosting in that game and i can't figure out why. I doubt it is the monitor's fault since none of the other games I've tried out looked this bad.

Pros:
- Games look really nice at 1920x1200 resolution.
- Pictures look incredible.

Cons:
- Blackout issue.
- A small blurring/ghosting issue with some games.
 
My BenQ FP241WZ arrived Friday. It has 1 dead red subpixel so it's getting RMA'd. However, today for whatever reason the monitor decided to go batsh!t insane and started displaying almost total white.

The whole screen is almost totally white save for a faint impression of the image that's supposed to be being displayed. I disconnected the DVI from the computer and the display is still doing it with the BenQ logo display; it displays ok for a second or so and then the whole display goes bright white. Power cycling had no effect, and I have no clue what could be causing this.

Needless to say, so far I am less than impressed with this monitor.

Is this the same "blackout" problem other people are getting? My screen does not go black but rather almost completely white. While details are still faintly viewable, obviously the image is very wrong.
 
spotpuff said:
My BenQ FP241WZ arrived Friday. It has 1 dead red subpixel so it's getting RMA'd. However, today for whatever reason the monitor decided to go batsh!t insane and started displaying almost total white.

The whole screen is almost totally white save for a faint impression of the image that's supposed to be being displayed. I disconnected the DVI from the computer and the display is still doing it with the BenQ logo display; it displays ok for a second or so and then the whole display goes bright white. Power cycling had no effect, and I have no clue what could be causing this.

Needless to say, so far I am less than impressed with this monitor.

Is this the same "blackout" problem other people are getting? My screen does not go black but rather almost completely white. While details are still faintly viewable, obviously the image is very wrong.
Click to expand...

I believe that is called a whiteout :p

But yeah your monitor is screwed up bad. I would RMA it and get a new one.
 
Here's some images I took of hte monitor being a piece of sh!t.

I did not get an image of the BenQ logo all messed up upon power cycling the monitor to try to resolve the problem because it flashes so quickly, but it's happened a few times. Power cycling MAY solve the issue but only temporarily as the monitor decides to take a giant dump again.

I took a picture of both my screens to show that one monitor is working fine and the other is borked. And again, it's not the video card because if I unplug the monitor from the card, it still screws up even with no input.


 
I have a little problem.. Where the hell can I buy this monitor?

Newegg is out of stock and charges way too much for it. I dont want to pay 800$ for it when it's 700 or below.

I tried NCIX but they are no longer accepting US credit cards and the only other payment method is Paypal. Paypal isn't really a usable option for me..

I dont trust ebay and google only brings up shady online stores.

dammit =(
 
No, I'm from the US. I am starting to wish I was Canadian right now. Would make buying this monitor easier.
 
so what are the issues with this monitor's firmware?

It can do 1:1 but there are still problems?

can someone tell me what they all are definitively?
 
Can you guys help me solve this problem. I have my xbox 360 hooked up to my Benq FP241WZ monitor via VGA. I have the 360's resolution set to 1920 × 1080. However, the monitor won't output 1920x1080 automatically. Instead it defaults to 1680 x 1050. Why is that?
 
MishimaKazama said:
Can you guys help me solve this problem. I have my xbox 360 hooked up to my Benq FP241WZ monitor via VGA. I have the 360's resolution set to 1920 × 1080. However, the monitor won't output 1920x1080 automatically. Instead it defaults to 1680 x 1050. Why is that?
Click to expand...

The firmware is bugged. The monitor cant seem to recognise the output the 360 is giving. This is the reason I cancelled an order of the monitor last week.
 
PaRaNoiDJaCK said:
The firmware is bugged. The monitor cant seem to recognise the output the 360 is giving. This is the reason I cancelled an order of the monitor last week.
Click to expand...
Really? Damn, so there's nothing that can be done to resolve the problem? I wonder if I can return it. It's been a few months now though. I just now confirmed there was a problem. :mad:
 
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