2007WFP LCD Panel Power Issue and Dirty Screen

Question

SCOREBOARD:
Ease of Ordering: 10
Quick Delivery for Free: 10
Dead or Stuck Pixels: 10 (none so far)
VESA Mounting to my Ergotron stand with two other 17" LCD's: 9

The problems I have with it are serious, at least to me. First off last night about 12 hours after I got it mounted the LCD panel went dead. The power and input idicator LED's were still on but nothing on the display. I quickly touched the menu button and nothing appeared. Which is how I can to the assumption that the LCD panel is having issues. Then to confirm I lightly tapped the screen on the top and it made the panel come back to life for a few miniutes until it went off again. Again with the tapping and it came back on. It happened several more times until it stopped and it is on at the moment. In between the tapping I would power cylce the monitor which sometimes worked and sometimes did not work. Tapping the top (not the sides or bottom) had about the same effectiveness as power cyle.

I'm a programmer and most of my screen is white which makes the "dirty" looking anti-glare coating easily seen. Why would they put something like that on an LCD screen? My two aviDav (read cheapo) 17" don't have this dirty issue, nor the LCD panel power issue either.

I'm sick about sending it back but I don't like to look at dusty screens and this 20.1" will be my primary monitor used with Visual Studio 2005 for programming so it will be noticed all the time.

BTW I contacted ChrisM via private message and he first asked how my monitors (4 total) were connected which I replied two DVI and two VGA. I didn't understand what that had to do with the LCD Panel power issue and he replied.

"For testing, try our monitor on the PC by itself. Try it on both video cards using both VGA and DVI."

Two questions.

First is ChrisM's suggestion a good next step in diagnosing the problem or just something to waste my time?

Second and more important is anyone else having this issue with the LCD Panel or have an opinion on it's cause?

Reneesong · Answer

I just received my 2007wfp (A00, *sighs*) today.  I don't experience what you're describing and I don't have any knowledge of why it might be happening.  One thing before trying the monitor to the pc by itself is checking your color settings.  Have you messed with any of those, especially contrast?  If you have a Nvidia video/graphics card, tell me what the color settings are that you have for it.  I was messing around with brightness & contrast just a while ago and when messing with contrast I could make it look 'dirty'.  Dunno if it's even close to what you're experiencing or not.  It's just a thought.  My monitor when turning it on was very bright, so I dialed that down just a tad with my video card settings.  Sorry to hear about the power issues. :smileysad:  Hopefully more will have input, I'd try what Chris suggested though, wouldn't hurt (other than yes, time).

brian2k2 · Answer

Thanks for the replies to far. I've been thinking about this all day. The power issue could be "fixed" with a replacement. But the dirty screen is just part of the monitor. I have two aviDav 17" LCd's and they do not have this dirty look. I had both of my business partners come in, they are graphic designers, and they noticed it write away. as a programmer my screen is 95% white and it's very apparent. But it is still visible on the grey taskbar as well.

I have a few pieces of Dell products Inspiron Laptop, 1600n Fax/Printer, and 1700n Colo) Printer. All of which I have been really happy with, especially the printers. One of my partners has a 2005WFP that we ordered last year. He is really happy with it and he does not have this dirty screen issue as I do with this 2007WFP. I'm dissappointed that Dell shipped this monitor as it is. They should really stop shipping them until these issues are fixed.

I'm going to ask the nice lady that keeps calling me from customer service to issue a call and pick it up. And I hope Dell fixes the dirty screen look on the next version of this monitor.

My description of this "dirty" look is either a cheapo scratch sheet you would put on your PDA or as if it had a light coating of water that diffuses the pixels. It is slight but I noticed it within my first day of using it (yesterday btw).

ChrisM if you get this please just send a pickup and thanks for you help so far.

LCDPhreak · Answer

I'm returning my monitor for a refund. Luckily, thanks to ChrisM, the process of return is extremely painless. UPS will be here to pick up the package tomorrow (or atleast that is what the email said) and when it gets there, the refund will finalize (Hopefully it will show up as credited to the card soon after...if I already payed off the card, does that mean that they send money to me (The card company does)? Or that I just have a credit for the price of the monitor on my credit card? I've never bought something so large (from someplace other than a brick and mortar store) and I've never returned something so large that I bought on credit, so I'm a bit in the dark.

As for the "Dirtiness" of the coating, I'm of the same opinion as the rest of you; It is extremely annoying. It's not even the coating really, it's that looking at the coating..amounts to looking at a lightbulb then closing your eyes. You can see light spots all over the place. I think I've done more damage to my eyes in a week with this thing than I have done in the past decade.

Oh, and a bad review finally came out for the 2007WFP (THIS LONG) after it's debut. The review comes from PC World August 2006 issue. It ranked 5th out of 5 20" monitors tested. Here are it's scores

Graphics Quality: 65.0 (Fair) (Out of 100 possible)
Text Quality: 67.2 (Fair)
DVD motion quality: Average

So in other words, it went from top ranked everywhere to lowest ranked in about a month and a half since conception. To give it's ranking some perspective, an ACER monitor scored higher (the Acer Ferarri F-20, which according to PC world is cheaper than the 2007WFP). Other than that, a Phillips, an Asus, and the (Obviously) top ranked NEC monitor. Sure it doesn't rank lower than BenQ's model or Viewsonics, which I think is about right; that is to say, this monitor is a budget monitor that will almost compete with the more expensive monitors, but not really (though it's surely a better buy than the BenQ lol)

I wish I could take a picture of this dirtiness we are all talking about..hmm..how to have you test... open up photoshop (or GIMP) and make a large white image, then apply a fairly heavy gaussian blur and you've almost got what we are talking about.

brian2k2 · Answer

To add insult to injury I was told today by Dell Customer "Support" that they never received my 2007WFP monitor and that they did not have a tracking number. They asked me to fax an email from Satya Saride that acknolewdged they getting it back and a supervisor was supposed to call me back. They haven't and my email to Satya two days ago has been ignored (no reply). It's more than 2 weeks since Dell received the monitor and over 3 weeks since I placed the order.

I've had a good experience with Dell support and equipment until now. Thanks to this experience I will most likely stop buying our laptops from Dell and try another vendor.

Dell your customer service is terrible. I shouldn't have to keep records of a the shipment back to Dell when DELL initiated the pickup and the courier.

I will dispute the charge to my visa card at the end of this week if Dell does not issue a credit in full as they promised.

Monitors

2007WFP LCD Panel Power Issue and Dirty Screen

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