Monitor for your eyes.

What's your refresh rate set at? If its set to 60 or less, that, in all likelihood, is causing your eye strain. Set it at 75 or 85.

Well.. it was already at 85 hertz, I am thinking about buying an LCD that is between $300 to $400. Could you recommend the best one?

we have a number of people with signficant vision and other disabilities. I can tell you that using a GOOD FP is critical. Additionally, we removed all fluescent light tubes in offices etc... but if you go for a 300 buck cheapo FP, you will indeed get a very poor FP. Depending on your needs - we use the 2001FP because the area gives more room to do things, as well as being able to do high contrast mode which when used increases the size of everything so a smallesh monitor display will mean that much more scrolling around. Our reports from people indicate that the FP approach has gone a great distance in reducing eye fatigue and overall irrtability issues. The monitor no matter what you use should be one of the most critical components becaseu it is the one you literally will use the most - with you eyes.

Yes, the reason for the eyestrain is probably more related to the inexpensive monitors than anything else. The Dell "E" series (such as the original posters CRT monitor) are economy models which basically should not be used in applications where one is sitting in front of the monitor for hours. Likewise low cost LCD monitors are likely to not support the DVI interface which gives the sharpest image, are likely to have less constrast, lower viewing angles, and be dim.

If cost is an issue, save up those dollars until you can afford a good monitor. Your eyes are worth more than any computer system!

Well, if I were to save up money, how much would it cost? And since I was somewhat jipped by Dell, I don't have the same videocard that most Dimension 8250 have, therefore, I don't have a DVI connection. What can I do??

I'd recommend saving up for the 17 or 18 inch Dell Ultrasharp LCD panel, but something like that will run you around $400-$500, but any decent brand like a Samsung or Viewsonic will do too.

These have DVI input, but you can still use your current videocard with the standard VGA connection. Even without DVI, it will look very very good (Your videocard must be able to run 1280x1024 resolution because that's what the LCD panel works best with). The sharpness was a big improvement over the previous CRT I had when I bought my first 17 inch LCD.

If you want to make the move to DVI video card, I recommend a cheap nvidia FX5200, it goes for around $80 and has DVI.

 

 

Yes, an aftermarket NVIDIA FX5200 was what I did. I found one for $70 at a local shop.

The 1703FP (17" Dell Ultrasharp) is $529, and gives an equivalent screen size as a 19" CRT. Watch for sales. Dell's prices are very competitive.

I looked around on the internet, and found this http://www.shentech.com/vixt91ra91pr.html I was wondering if it was good enough to work with an LCD monitor. Also, I see that the Dell 17" Ultrasharp only has a 25ms response time, wouldn't that cause ghosting and other things to occur? Thanks..

I have 2 FP, a ViewSonic VPD180 (18") and the Dell 2001FP (20.1') and there is a huge world of differences. The cheaper the LCD is the less the display will be in quality, as well as inability to display in different resolution/depths - granted you can set a LCD to just about any resoltuion other than whatever it's native resolution might be but odds are it will display with awful results or have other artifacting or problems.The cheaper LCDs all are much slower in the screen refresh/response rate - the slower it is, the more you will see things like "ghosting" or after image as things are moved around on the screen, and particularly so if you attempt gaming etc.  Keep in miind that a 15 or even a 17" LCD (and our 18") is pretty small and that means the screen can fill up pretty fast with windows etc and you "run out of space" to see what you are doing.

Best thing to do? Go down to your local computer store - and LOOK at the various LCD monitors. Never buy one sight unseen etc. If you not know what to expect - you may end up severly disappointing yourself because it may have great marketing hype, but you discover oh it has a nice display, but it is too dim, or the color on it looks good, but it looses it on detail - and small type/fonts look smudgy and so on.  Or you might like the display and discover that it is too bright, and find out the contrast/bright stuff is too limited for your needs. Naturally keep in mind that color is not what you will see on print. You will see an approximate yes - red resembling red, but not matched - so keep this also in mind. You will not get a "color accurate" LCD unless you pay for it there are only a few out there that are actually certified to render/display color that matches print results (apple's cinema display 23" is one) - So do the blues and grays, and the flesh tones look reasonable to you?

Finally what is the warranty on it. The major item to look for is the backlight - if that goes out for whatever reason - what is the warranty and ask what is the cost of the lamp - it will be quite expensive, depending on monitor vendor. Likewise, ask to see their policy on dead pixels - how many stuck on/off before they will do a free/exchange?

Quality - ASK what is the face cover over the LCD? Is it glass or plastic, or some kind of plexiglas and ask about how scratch resistant is it and all that. Some of those face covers are thin bendable plastic cheap knocky-knocks -  Look at the moniitor itself does it look well-built, is it all plastic, or what?

How flexible is the display - that is can it do more than one resolution/depth, or only one? How heavy - is it small enough for you to handle? Lot of people get big monitors and then discover opps, too big for them to pick up and move around.

Coupled with this will also be the graphics card. The better solution is a DVI capable graphics card with a DVI LCD (dvi as in digital display) vs analog.

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@Roger321 wrote:
I looked around on the internet, and found this http://www.shentech.com/vixt91ra91pr.html I was wondering if it was good enough to work with an LCD monitor. Also, I see that the Dell 17" Ultrasharp only has a 25ms response time, wouldn't that cause ghosting and other things to occur? Thanks..

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That card has a DVI connector so it should work. I wouldn't buy the card because it has a fan (which means increased noise). You will see some ghosting with some movies and I'd expect action games, but it won't be a problem otherwise. (At least I haven't seen any problems with my 1702FP.)