Sounds like what you've been looking for - RFI interferance. Curious, though... was the different cable a better shielded cable? Did you make sure no other power cords cross the monitor's input cable? Anything else in the vicinity that could cause the problem?
Might be a pain to arrange, but could you move the computer and monitor to a new location in the room or in your house for a period of time? If it exhibits the same behaviour elsewhere, that would be a good indication of an intermittant issue with the monitor itself. If it 'fixes' it, then you would be back to looking for RFI sources again, I would think.
How long is the warranty on what you bought? Don't let that expire in the meantime...
the second cable that is attached now is an AudioQuest über shielded DVI cable - a 95 dollar one.
I'm not sure where it lies compared to the standard one that came with the screen, but I'm fairly certain it's of higher quality.
I had flickering problems a while back with my last monitor, a CRT, which was solved by getting a new, higher quality cable. I was pretty sure the cable I had attached was in poor shape - and this immediately fixed the problem.
In this case, it did nothing.
There is only a small power cable belonging to my USB hub that crosses the DVI cable.
Moving the computer would kind of be a pain.
Plus, the problem is sometimes so intermittent, it could easily just not happen for a week or two, and then suddenly come back with a vengeance . . .
I guess maybe I'm just impatient.
My warranty is 3 years.
and I've only had it for about 3 weeks
Do CRTs suffer from RFI?
My CRT was in the same spot with the same configuration for 3 months and I had no problems.
Hmmm... not sure what to add to this. One thing you might try is, when the problem is manifesting itself, moving the monitor cable around and see if it affects it at all - for worse or for better.
Other than that, it becomes a search for an intermittent problem which are the worst kind to solve.
when the problem hits - I've tried lightly jiggling the DVI cable, the power cable, moving speakers, jiggling other nearby cables, turning off other appliances in the house, tapping the monitor lightly to see if there's a loose connection, etc etc.
One time, unplugging and re-plugging the DVI cable fixed it - many other times it did nothing. One time turning the LCD on and off fixed it, the rest of the times it didn't.
I've run out of options, so I guess having Dell send me a new one is the only one left.
=/
I called Dell, went through the display self test and he asked me if it was still flickering
but since the flickering is sometimes so light, I couldn't tell
so he told me that since it 'passed' the test, it was my machine that had the problem.
Except that I've already sufficiently narrowed it down to being between my machine (which is fine) and the panel itself.
so the only remaining testable options are
- RFI
- irregular voltage
- Attaching it to a different machine (which, given the utter randomness of the issue could take a week to be sure of a difference, or minutes)
I messed with the color levels because I thought it might have been the issue where pixels shift back and forth because they can't land perfectly on a color . . .
It didn't fix anything for long, but I wonder if the idea was correct anyway. I would guess that when a monitor is hovering between two colors it would do it all of the time, or not at all.
Something interesting:
I have my Brightness lowered to 20 since 50 is WAY too bright with Mac default gamma settings.
My screen just started flickering again, so I adjusted the Brightness up to 21 and he flickering immediately disappeared.
Then I put it to 20 again, and it began flickering again.
Yet more proof that leads me to believe that the issue IS the screen itself.
(despite several extremely argumentative Dell tech support people claiming my LCD is working perfectly simply because the self test shows up)
I hope this is what fixes it because I have gotten exactly nowhere in the 7-8 calls I've made to Dell support.
This, by far, has been the worst customer service experience I've ever experienced.
Each call involves the same explanation, them asking me the same questions again, and then me being dropped when they try to transfer me to the monitor support department.
Not to mention the 2 times they said they would call me back and never did.
chulett
581 Posts
0
January 22nd, 2006 12:00
Sounds like what you've been looking for - RFI interferance. Curious, though... was the different cable a better shielded cable? Did you make sure no other power cords cross the monitor's input cable? Anything else in the vicinity that could cause the problem?
Might be a pain to arrange, but could you move the computer and monitor to a new location in the room or in your house for a period of time? If it exhibits the same behaviour elsewhere, that would be a good indication of an intermittant issue with the monitor itself. If it 'fixes' it, then you would be back to looking for RFI sources again, I would think.
How long is the warranty on what you bought? Don't let that expire in the meantime...
apickard
5 Posts
0
January 22nd, 2006 17:00
I'm not sure where it lies compared to the standard one that came with the screen, but I'm fairly certain it's of higher quality.
I had flickering problems a while back with my last monitor, a CRT, which was solved by getting a new, higher quality cable. I was pretty sure the cable I had attached was in poor shape - and this immediately fixed the problem.
In this case, it did nothing.
There is only a small power cable belonging to my USB hub that crosses the DVI cable.
Moving the computer would kind of be a pain.
Plus, the problem is sometimes so intermittent, it could easily just not happen for a week or two, and then suddenly come back with a vengeance . . .
I guess maybe I'm just impatient.
My warranty is 3 years.
and I've only had it for about 3 weeks
Do CRTs suffer from RFI?
My CRT was in the same spot with the same configuration for 3 months and I had no problems.
Thanks for the help . . .
chulett
581 Posts
0
January 24th, 2006 01:00
Hmmm... not sure what to add to this. One thing you might try is, when the problem is manifesting itself, moving the monitor cable around and see if it affects it at all - for worse or for better.
Other than that, it becomes a search for an intermittent problem which are the worst kind to solve.
apickard
5 Posts
0
January 24th, 2006 16:00
I already tried that
when the problem hits - I've tried lightly jiggling the DVI cable, the power cable, moving speakers, jiggling other nearby cables, turning off other appliances in the house, tapping the monitor lightly to see if there's a loose connection, etc etc.
One time, unplugging and re-plugging the DVI cable fixed it - many other times it did nothing. One time turning the LCD on and off fixed it, the rest of the times it didn't.
I've run out of options, so I guess having Dell send me a new one is the only one left.
=/
apickard
5 Posts
0
January 24th, 2006 19:00
but since the flickering is sometimes so light, I couldn't tell
so he told me that since it 'passed' the test, it was my machine that had the problem.
Except that I've already sufficiently narrowed it down to being between my machine (which is fine) and the panel itself.
so the only remaining testable options are
- RFI
- irregular voltage
- Attaching it to a different machine (which, given the utter randomness of the issue could take a week to be sure of a difference, or minutes)
This is really frustrating
cwkasper
10 Posts
0
January 28th, 2006 00:00
apickard
5 Posts
0
January 28th, 2006 16:00
But I just found something interesting
I messed with the color levels because I thought it might have been the issue where pixels shift back and forth because they can't land perfectly on a color . . .
It didn't fix anything for long, but I wonder if the idea was correct anyway. I would guess that when a monitor is hovering between two colors it would do it all of the time, or not at all.
Something interesting:
I have my Brightness lowered to 20 since 50 is WAY too bright with Mac default gamma settings.
My screen just started flickering again, so I adjusted the Brightness up to 21 and he flickering immediately disappeared.
Then I put it to 20 again, and it began flickering again.
Yet more proof that leads me to believe that the issue IS the screen itself.
(despite several extremely argumentative Dell tech support people claiming my LCD is working perfectly simply because the self test shows up)
I hope this is what fixes it because I have gotten exactly nowhere in the 7-8 calls I've made to Dell support.
This, by far, has been the worst customer service experience I've ever experienced.
Each call involves the same explanation, them asking me the same questions again, and then me being dropped when they try to transfer me to the monitor support department.
Not to mention the 2 times they said they would call me back and never did.