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E196FP Blurry Text
I recently purchased a E510 with a E196FP (monitor). My other system specs are Intel Integrated Media Accelator 950 (video card), 512 MB and 80 GB (hard drive). Little did I know before puchasing a flat panel that the clarity of the text, especially black on white background, would be blurry and difficult to read. I'm used to the clarity of a CRT. I do realize that I'm not comparing apples to apples. I have already gone through all the troubleshooting steps with tech support: initializing the monitor's factory settings, adjusting the resolution, turning off clear type, uninstalling/reinstalling video drivers, etc. Nothing worked.
Yesterday, I received a refurbished E196FP, but the same text problem exists.
Technical support says the next step may be replacing the motherboard. Does anyone have an opinion on this and/or additional troubleshooting tips? I'm starting to think that no hardware fix with solve my blurry text problem. In addition, maybe the E196FP and video card have their limitations. :smileysad:
I greatly appreciate the views of the forum members!
Message Edited by Hiosilv4 on 01-18-2006 09:37 AM
Craig: The optimal resolution for the E196FP is 1280x1024 x 60Hz. Applying this resolution makes the type too small and difficult to read. I still see blurry text. So per Tech support's suggestion, I adjusted the resolution to 1024 x 768 x60hz. The blurry text appears in IE (web pages and email messages), Word documents, etc. Black text on a white background is the worst. Going to Safe Mode, doesn't correct the problem. When looking at pictures through photo editor or IE, they are clear.
In speaking to a friend, they mentioned that Windows XP Media Center (my OS) has been known for some problems. Does my blurry text issue relate to this OS?
Thanks again for your assistance!
Hiosilv4
Unfortunately, I have no experience with the Media Center version of XP and what may be different or 'special' about it over Home or Pro. I was mostly hoping to get more information on your problem, anything that may shed some light on what might be going on. And since pictures in a photo editor or IE are clear, I guess new glasses aren't the answer. :smileywink:
There are some accessability options within IE that can help sometimes with problems like this, but that won't get you an overall solution. I know you've said you have played with ClearType but wondering if you'd like to take the ClearType Tuner for a spin:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/Step1.aspx
There is also a downloadable PowerToy version of this if you'd rather not do it online.
Is there a forum here for operating systems, particularly media center? You may want to post over there as well, you might double your chances to win that way. Hopefully others will pop in here and add their words of wisdom as well.
I have EXACTLY the same problem with E196FP. I don't think this has anything to do with XP Media edition. I have XP-Home edition on my box.
I have tried all the possible settings but with no results. The fonts appear blurry and smudgy. If I try typing in a line of "l"s in the IE address space, there is a shade of red that appears between the characters.
Initially I thought this was a driver issue since my system came installed with the default driver. I searched for it and found an unsigned copy of the driver for E196FP on Microsoft's website. Interestingly enough, Dell doesn't have the driver for their own monitor on Dell's website!! In any case, installing the new driver did NOT solve my problem.
I also tried the ClearType tuner, but it didn't help either.
I haven't talked to Dell yet but plan to do so soon.
Let me know if you find a fix for this issue, and I will do the same.Thanks! Good luck....-KMAnsariFound two monitor drivers on Dell's site, not really sure what the difference is or if it will help with your problem:
Also curious if you are running the monitor at a refresh rate of 60Hz and what video card and drivers you have.
Thanks for replying back.
I've tried both 60Hz and 75Hz (I was using the setting that said "hide modes not supported by this monitor", and those were the only two supported).
Thanks much for the driver links - I tried both of them, but they don't seem to make a penny worth of difference. I guess they're both the same as the one I downloaded from Microsoft's website, except that these are digitally signed versions. When I looked up for the driver on Dell's website (back in the second week of Jan), there were none. No wonder the ones you found out were released on Jan 22 and Jan 23.
I am using ATI Radeon X600 256MB HyperMemory.
Thanks once again, Craig.
Hiosilv4: Any luck??
-KMAnsari
Message Edited by kmansari on 01-28-2006 03:41 PM
- Kmansari: Sorry for not getting back to you sooner. I do feel your frustration. :smileymad: The only solution that gave me some peace of mind was setting my monitor resolution to 800x600, 60Hz. The type and icons are a little bigger, but the blurry/fuzzy text issue is better. I also recently exchanged my E196FP monitor and received a reburished one. The same blurry text issue was present on that monitor. So, don't bother swapping out your monitor. I do still plan to discuss my problem with tech support. I'll let you know what happens.In the meantime, I posted my message on the Dimension-Video forum and received some feedback. Oletymer and SR45 were very helpful. In reading the boards, it also seems that DVI vs Analog (my monitor) does make some difference. This was not an option on my configured system. I bet the same applies to you.My system specs:Dimension E510P4 630, 3.0 GHz512MB DDR2 533MHzIntegrated Intel Media Accelator 950Let me know if this information is helpful.Hiosilv4
- I just received my new E196FP monitor last weekend and was not at all happy with the blurry text.I did everything everyone has mentioned at the suggestion Dell Support but the last thing I did which seemed to help was to restore the resolution to 1280x1024 x 60Hz but change the DPI to Large size (120). For whatever reason this seemed to sharpened up the text.The only other thing that Support told me to do was go to the System Config Utility, disable all start up items except the Antivirus software.I'm not exactly sure which did the trick but I'm no longer contemplating sending this monitor back and exchanging it for a digital one. (I was thinking that maybe a digital monitor might not be blurry?)Hope this helps.
- Hiosilv4: Thanks a lot for the information. I plan to call the Tech Support tomorrow. I will keep you posted.Jgr789: I also tried the DPI trick initially when I was trying to troubleshoot this problem. It sure helps to certain extent. However, to me it's not really a solution to the problem but more of a workaround.I need a lot of display real estate for the kind of work I do. I prefer using smaller fonts.-KMAnsari
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Posted January 19th, 2006 02:00