The
Radeon 9200 or 8500 very old video cards may not be supported by the newer 2007 FPW monitor. Try it on a desktop with a better video card to see if that works, than you may know its the old cards that cannot support the wide screen. Just a thought
Oops, mixed up the numbers, that should infact read Radeon 9500 128MB.
You are definetly right, those are relatively old cards, but as I said, the ibook ran an older Dell 20" without any flickering. (Probably was a 2001FP judging from the model history)
The Matrox G550 is indeed very old, but still has very good and up to date drivers (Jun 06) and monitor tools, you can manually set it any res/ratio and hz you want up to 2048 x 1536. The card is also renowned for it's very good signal quality which I can attest to.
The 9500 on the other hand is definetly able to output such high resolutions, after all it's running a 23" Apple Cinema Display and a 19" CRT simultaneously without problems.
I also tried using higher quality double shielded cables, doesn't make a difference.
Wide screen is different than the 2001 FP so this again might be the problem. Try it on a desktop with a good video card to see if the same flicker is noticed.
Unfortunately I don't have access to a more recent video card at the moment, but I'll try to get my hands on one.
Having said that, and it bares repeating, when the 23" 1920 x 1200 Apple Cinema Display runs fine with the 9500, the 2007WFP should be just fine, shouldn't it?!
Since the monitor doesn't "care" about how old a card sends the signal as long as it's the correct signal, I don't see why the 2007WFP at 1680 x 1050 should be flickering, unless it is a faulty unit.
I thought there would be some kind of DIY fix for this, which is why I posted in the forums and haven't called support yet to return the monitor. After all I would really like to keep it.
Yep. Same problem here. My 2nd 2007 FPW came in today.... and it still flickers with VGA. So I ordered a 256 GeForce card. That's coming in tomorrow. I'll test it w/ DVI. and if it still flickers... BOTH monitors are going back to dell.
Just off the phone with Dell Customer Service, they were helpful but the service guy said he had never heard of a similar problem, so they'd like to replace the monitor.
This would be the third one, Dell definetly needs to tighten up their quality control.
Well, after the third one turned out to have the very same problem, Dell agreed to exchange it AGAIN (for the fourth time), and surprise surprise, the new one is no different, BUT it has uneven backlighting, a green cast all over the left half, and a slight magenta tint on the right half as a "bonus".
Back to the flickering:
Since it should be near to impossible that all four monitors are indeed faulty, I am beginning to think that this may be a glitch in engineering and not caused by a defective unit.
My 23" Cinema Display ran fine on the very same desk, on the very same computer, using the same power outlet and the same 6x extension lead, I tried different sockets, cables, computers and cards, profiles, settings, so I GUESS I can rule out me being at fault.
I have found a very simple way of making the flickering visible to even the weak eyed, with a simple black and white pattern, and have since documented the problem on video.
I'm going to edit and upload the video later today, so you can see what I'm talking about, and I'll call up technical support in the next days to see what they make of it.
FWIW, the new one is a Rev 03!! model (made in Czech Republic), and if my eyes can be trusted, the banding is MUCH worse than on the ones I had before (all Rev 02)
I'm not 100% certain, but it seems to be caused by the cables.
I tried the new VGA and DVI cables from the new monitor today, and while the flickering is still partly there with VGA, it's completely gone when using DVI.
This is good news but bad news, because I tested the first two units with 5 different cables side by side - with every one of the OEM VGA and DVI cables that came with monitor 1 and 2, and with another high quality double shielded VGA cable I had previously used on my CRT. The flickering was there, with both monitors, no matter what cable I used.
I kept one pair of the OEM cables, sent the other pair back along with monitor 1.
When exchanging monitor 2 some days later, I received a new pair of cables with #3, so, again, the "old" pair was sent back.
Testing monitor 3 with the cables that came with it (VGA + DVI) still had the same strange flicker, so I had the monitor exchanged AGAIN, to the current monitor #4.
Now, assuming that the flicker is indeed caused by the bloddy cables, this would imply that 3 out of 4 monitors I received were shipped with defective, and/or insufficiently shielded cables. And my CRT cable is apparently defective too, although it works fine with the CRT.
The good news is - since I'll have to return monitor #4 YET AGAIN, due to the funky color cast in the left half, I'll even find out if the cable problem is still there! (-;
I suppose Dell blindfolds their workers before they send them to work in the quality control department.
I was able to reduce it with the "phase" setting, which btw. wasn't helping with the other monitors at all, but it's still there.
So I suppose the monitors are at least partially defective too.
I have never seen such a bold company name loose credibility so fast, and I sincerely hope someone at Dell can explain why their monitors behave this way.
Cheers
///EDIT
The Eizo monitor test program, which includes some moire test patterns, says one should play around with the pixel clock and phase values, but since the (phase) scale is 0-100 on the Dell, I'd probably need to set it to -5 or 105 to get rid of the flickering completely.
Also, I just uploaded the test picture and a video which illustrates the problem. The testpicture used in the video is the one over here:
http://philsamhaber.com/files/flicker_1680x1050.png
And you can download the video (6.8MB quicktime) of monitor #3 here:
http://philsamhaber.com/files/dell.mov
As you can see, when I switch to 100% view, the lines "morph" to a vertically running noise, and it's hard to see in the video but there's also more of the "traditional" flickering/running horizontal lines. When I switch to 200% the vertical flicker stops.
Keep in mind the framerate on the camera is different from the monitors', so the horizontal flicker is (slightly) exagerated.
The current monitor #4 is quite a bit better, but it's still very visible and annoyingly so..
I received my 2007WFP today and I noticed the flickering problem immediately after I plugged in, the gray background in Phtoshop triggers it. I tried Nokia Monitor Test to see if the problem was more serious but so far it looks like a sold gray color is as bad as it gets. I will test more today. I'm using DVI and a GeForce 6600 GT (definitely it's the monitor that's causing it).
At this point I can't hope for anything good from revision 4, and definitely not going to wait for it, there are so many companies out there that treat their hardware design, QA and support so much better. I wonder what was in my head.
For me it appears that the flickering goes away if I increase the brightness. At 50% it's almost completely gone, but at 13% - 120cd/m2 on my monitor - the flickering is very pronounced. I tried various dark shades and this seems to be the cause (well, I assume the poor/cheap power regulation for the backlighting is the actual cause)
This kind of explains it why there aren't so many complaints, people don't usually decrease the brightness to values 15%, only a few photographers do.
On a separate issue - are you sure there is no flickering at all with A03 on DVI? I'm thinking of throwing dice once more.
EDIT: I calibrated the monitor at both at recommended brightness and at default brightness using GMB i1d2, and found two surprising things:
a) the calibration curve is not not clipped anymore if you go with high brightness. Here are the calibration results:
13% brightness: http://www.mariusg.com/images/gmb-2007wfp-0815.png
50% brightness: http://www.mariusg.com/images/gmb-2007wfp-0821.png
b) The gamut is also a bit larger (green is not clipped anymore) for high brightness. I compared the gamut using the Microsoft Color Applet and the results are here
http://www.mariusg.com/images/2007gamut-high.png. The gray patches/volume is the gamut at 120cd/m2. Note the top-left corner of the gamut projection, where the clipping occurs.
PS: You can get the Color Applet here http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/colorcontrol.mspx
This is most interesting data, thank's a bunch for the effort!
I too am using all monitors calibrated for 6000k/120cd/2.2 and 6500k/140cd/2.2 with a Gretag Eye One, (with contrast at 50 and brightness around 10-25%). On the previous three units, adjusting the brightness didn't make much of a difference, but I just tried it on the current one, and from about 49% onwards, the flickering is not visible anymore. (With VGA)
Quite a few people recommend calibrating your monitor at default color temp, but I wouldn't have guessed that using the default brightness had such a vast impact on the gamut.
So maybe bad power regulation (in the house current/outlet and in the monitor), and poorly shielded cables have something to do with it, but clearly there is more to it. How else would I have the flickering at 20% brightness using VGA, but not with DVI..
Your explanation would make perfect sense though, I suppose most people simply don't decrease the brightness below 50%, and most reviews concentrate on the out of the box settings.
Btw., NO flickering with DVI on #4. If you have the time, why not try your luck.
Although personally, as I wrote in the other thread - I'd take my money and run (to Eizo, in my case)
SR45
2 Intern
•
12.1K Posts
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August 6th, 2006 20:00
felipe_s
17 Posts
0
August 7th, 2006 07:00
You are definetly right, those are relatively old cards, but as I said, the ibook ran an older Dell 20" without any flickering. (Probably was a 2001FP judging from the model history)
The Matrox G550 is indeed very old, but still has very good and up to date drivers (Jun 06) and monitor tools, you can manually set it any res/ratio and hz you want up to 2048 x 1536. The card is also renowned for it's very good signal quality which I can attest to.
The 9500 on the other hand is definetly able to output such high resolutions, after all it's running a 23" Apple Cinema Display and a 19" CRT simultaneously without problems.
I also tried using higher quality double shielded cables, doesn't make a difference.
Thanks for your input,
Phil
SR45
2 Intern
•
12.1K Posts
0
August 7th, 2006 09:00
felipe_s
17 Posts
0
August 7th, 2006 09:00
Having said that, and it bares repeating, when the 23" 1920 x 1200 Apple Cinema Display runs fine with the 9500, the 2007WFP should be just fine, shouldn't it?!
Since the monitor doesn't "care" about how old a card sends the signal as long as it's the correct signal, I don't see why the 2007WFP at 1680 x 1050 should be flickering, unless it is a faulty unit.
I thought there would be some kind of DIY fix for this, which is why I posted in the forums and haven't called support yet to return the monitor. After all I would really like to keep it.
Thanks for your effort!
Cheers
LeonAnderson
7 Posts
0
August 8th, 2006 01:00
Yep. Same problem here. My 2nd 2007 FPW came in today.... and it still flickers with VGA. So I ordered a 256 GeForce card. That's coming in tomorrow. I'll test it w/ DVI. and if it still flickers... BOTH monitors are going back to dell.
Samsung 21" here we come.
felipe_s
17 Posts
0
August 9th, 2006 11:00
Have you been able to cure the flickering with the Geforce?
Thanks,
Phil
felipe_s
17 Posts
0
August 9th, 2006 13:00
This would be the third one, Dell definetly needs to tighten up their quality control.
Cheers
felipe_s
17 Posts
0
August 14th, 2006 13:00
Back to the flickering:
Since it should be near to impossible that all four monitors are indeed faulty, I am beginning to think that this may be a glitch in engineering and not caused by a defective unit.
My 23" Cinema Display ran fine on the very same desk, on the very same computer, using the same power outlet and the same 6x extension lead, I tried different sockets, cables, computers and cards, profiles, settings, so I GUESS I can rule out me being at fault.
I have found a very simple way of making the flickering visible to even the weak eyed, with a simple black and white pattern, and have since documented the problem on video.
I'm going to edit and upload the video later today, so you can see what I'm talking about, and I'll call up technical support in the next days to see what they make of it.
FWIW, the new one is a Rev 03!! model (made in Czech Republic), and if my eyes can be trusted, the banding is MUCH worse than on the ones I had before (all Rev 02)
LeonAnderson
7 Posts
0
August 14th, 2006 18:00
felipe_s
17 Posts
0
August 14th, 2006 20:00
The flickering is gone.
I'm not 100% certain, but it seems to be caused by the cables.
I tried the new VGA and DVI cables from the new monitor today, and while the flickering is still partly there with VGA, it's completely gone when using DVI.
This is good news but bad news, because I tested the first two units with 5 different cables side by side - with every one of the OEM VGA and DVI cables that came with monitor 1 and 2, and with another high quality double shielded VGA cable I had previously used on my CRT. The flickering was there, with both monitors, no matter what cable I used.
I kept one pair of the OEM cables, sent the other pair back along with monitor 1.
When exchanging monitor 2 some days later, I received a new pair of cables with #3, so, again, the "old" pair was sent back.
Testing monitor 3 with the cables that came with it (VGA + DVI) still had the same strange flicker, so I had the monitor exchanged AGAIN, to the current monitor #4.
Now, assuming that the flicker is indeed caused by the bloddy cables, this would imply that 3 out of 4 monitors I received were shipped with defective, and/or insufficiently shielded cables. And my CRT cable is apparently defective too, although it works fine with the CRT.
The good news is - since I'll have to return monitor #4 YET AGAIN, due to the funky color cast in the left half, I'll even find out if the cable problem is still there! (-;
I suppose Dell blindfolds their workers before they send them to work in the quality control department.
Cheers
felipe_s
17 Posts
0
August 15th, 2006 08:00
I was able to reduce it with the "phase" setting, which btw. wasn't helping with the other monitors at all, but it's still there.
So I suppose the monitors are at least partially defective too.
I have never seen such a bold company name loose credibility so fast, and I sincerely hope someone at Dell can explain why their monitors behave this way.
Cheers
///EDIT
The Eizo monitor test program, which includes some moire test patterns, says one should play around with the pixel clock and phase values, but since the (phase) scale is 0-100 on the Dell, I'd probably need to set it to -5 or 105 to get rid of the flickering completely.
Also, I just uploaded the test picture and a video which illustrates the problem. The testpicture used in the video is the one over here:
http://philsamhaber.com/files/flicker_1680x1050.png
And you can download the video (6.8MB quicktime) of monitor #3 here:
http://philsamhaber.com/files/dell.mov
As you can see, when I switch to 100% view, the lines "morph" to a vertically running noise, and it's hard to see in the video but there's also more of the "traditional" flickering/running horizontal lines. When I switch to 200% the vertical flicker stops.
Keep in mind the framerate on the camera is different from the monitors', so the horizontal flicker is (slightly) exagerated.
The current monitor #4 is quite a bit better, but it's still very visible and annoyingly so..
Cheers,
Phil
Message Edited by felipe_s on 08-15-200607:32 AM
theeagles
9 Posts
0
August 15th, 2006 17:00
mgx
14 Posts
0
August 16th, 2006 01:00
At this point I can't hope for anything good from revision 4, and definitely not going to wait for it, there are so many companies out there that treat their hardware design, QA and support so much better. I wonder what was in my head.
mgx
14 Posts
0
August 21st, 2006 10:00
For me it appears that the flickering goes away if I increase the brightness. At 50% it's almost completely gone, but at 13% - 120cd/m2 on my monitor - the flickering is very pronounced. I tried various dark shades and this seems to be the cause (well, I assume the poor/cheap power regulation for the backlighting is the actual cause)
This kind of explains it why there aren't so many complaints, people don't usually decrease the brightness to values 15%, only a few photographers do.
On a separate issue - are you sure there is no flickering at all with A03 on DVI? I'm thinking of throwing dice once more.
EDIT: I calibrated the monitor at both at recommended brightness and at default brightness using GMB i1d2, and found two surprising things:
a) the calibration curve is not not clipped anymore if you go with high brightness. Here are the calibration results:
13% brightness: http://www.mariusg.com/images/gmb-2007wfp-0815.png
50% brightness: http://www.mariusg.com/images/gmb-2007wfp-0821.png
b) The gamut is also a bit larger (green is not clipped anymore) for high brightness. I compared the gamut using the Microsoft Color Applet and the results are here
http://www.mariusg.com/images/2007gamut-high.png. The gray patches/volume is the gamut at 120cd/m2. Note the top-left corner of the gamut projection, where the clipping occurs.
PS: You can get the Color Applet here http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/colorcontrol.mspx
Message Edited by mgx on 08-21-200607:46 AM
felipe_s
17 Posts
0
August 21st, 2006 12:00
This is most interesting data, thank's a bunch for the effort!
I too am using all monitors calibrated for 6000k/120cd/2.2 and 6500k/140cd/2.2 with a Gretag Eye One, (with contrast at 50 and brightness around 10-25%). On the previous three units, adjusting the brightness didn't make much of a difference, but I just tried it on the current one, and from about 49% onwards, the flickering is not visible anymore. (With VGA)
Quite a few people recommend calibrating your monitor at default color temp, but I wouldn't have guessed that using the default brightness had such a vast impact on the gamut.
So maybe bad power regulation (in the house current/outlet and in the monitor), and poorly shielded cables have something to do with it, but clearly there is more to it. How else would I have the flickering at 20% brightness using VGA, but not with DVI..
Your explanation would make perfect sense though, I suppose most people simply don't decrease the brightness below 50%, and most reviews concentrate on the out of the box settings.
Btw., NO flickering with DVI on #4. If you have the time, why not try your luck.
Although personally, as I wrote in the other thread - I'd take my money and run (to Eizo, in my case)
Good luck!
Phil