So when you buy a new monitor, and it's A01, it actually says A01? I thought we had been told it would have a new part number but would continue to say A00?
So when you buy a new monitor, and it's A01, it actually says A01? I thought we had been told it would have a new part number but would continue to say A00?
I guess we were given wrong information.
No, What I said was that is was possible that since they were changing the part number they wouldn't have rev a01 on the firmware, which is what I was told. When they told me that, I didn't think it was a good idea. Maybe someone else figured out it wasn't a good idea and would cause confusion so they decided to go ahead and mark them A01.
Jimmy, is it a hit and miss if I do an exchange with my monitor as far as getting a new one or a refurbished one? Is there any way to get a new one for sure?
Received my 2408 on Friday. Box shows an A01 revision, sharpness in increments of 10. As many people mentioned, the colour & brightness is pretty intense and needs to be adjusted to get a proper balance. I did encounter an issue on the first day where the monitor did not want to come out of power saver mode. After doing a little research, I learned that this was a problem with the A00 revision and was supposed to be corrected with the A01 (which I have). I have been able to reproduce this using the DVI-D 1 input but the DVI-D 2 input seems ok. I would be curious to know if this is a problem for anyone else.
Running XP Pro, SP2 Video card is an 8800GTS 640MB Forceware version 177.35 Power option is set to turn off the monitor after 30 minutes but the system does not go into standby.
- Connect to the DVI-D 1 input. - Turn off the monitor - Allow enough time for the system to kick in and turn off the monitor and allow an additional 30min or so. - Power on the monitor and move the mouse. - Monitor will appear to be powering up but then displays the "entering power saver mode"
I've read through this thread and haven't seen anyone mention having this problem so I suspect it's either a monitor defect or something with my system. Haven't decided yet if I will return it since it is working on the DVD-D 2 input.
I'm having a similar problem with a 6800 Ultra, and use PowerStrip to reduce the pixel clock / refresh rate on DVI Port 1. The problem seems to go away around 54Hz vertical refresh rate.
I only found the "solution" after googling for hours. I thought the problem was limited to 6800 Ultra cards, but maybe not.
EDIT: There's a chance that your problem is related to an old DVI issue discussed here.
I just tested my A01 on DisplayPort, and there was no difference in input lag between DisplayPort/HDMI.
Although when I plug it in HDMI with a DVI-HDMI adapter, ATI Catalyst still sees it as DVI but I can get half the shots at 16ms/1frame and the other half at 32/33ms/2frames behind my 1905fp which is exactly 16ms/1frame behind a CRT, which makes the 2408wfp A01 32-48ms average. If I plug it in DVI-DVI I get constant 32/33ms lag behind my 1905fp.
The input lag isn't whats bothering me right now, its this pink tint on the bottom left that is making me a bit nuts.
@zinsco wrote:
Jimmy, is it a hit and miss if I do an exchange with my monitor as far as getting a new one or a refurbished one? Is there any way to get a new one for sure?
If you have had your monitor more then 21 days past the date of invoice and you call support you will get a refurbished monitor. Under 21 you should get a new one.
Got the 2408 yesterday and it's the A01 version. The initial setting was too bright and too saturated so I tuned both the brightless and RGB down to a more comfortable level. Even after changes I found the red and green is still a bit too saturated. (Anyone can give me any advice here? I think my setting is RGB 72,70,70. Bri/Con 23/54 ) It works great for the xbox, but color is a bit off for browsing and others.
The text quality is decent. Not as easy on eyes as my BenQ 241, but reasonable. Overall, I think the BenQ has more natural looking picture and sharper text, the Dell is great if I don't have them side by side. One major downside for the BenQ though...... I had 2 of those and both had stuck pixels. So pick your poison :-)On the plus side the Dell is free of any defects. The Dell also has more digital inputs.
I didn't notice any lags or pink issues. I tried to Ntest and the color comes out clean. Remember the brightless for LCDs won't be even 100% all over the screen. From what I saw the BenQ and Dell both done well in this regard.
The input lag isn't whats bothering me right now, its this pink tint on the bottom left that is making me a bit nuts.
This pink issue is driving me crazy too. I want to ignore it, but it's too obvious. It's really annoying!
Message Edited by bugmenot0 on 09-16-2008 11:42 PM
And its not a small issue either, the spot is about 10cmx10cm on the bottom left, but the entire bottom half of the rest of the monitor is also a bit warmer than the top but less noticeable than that corner.
Is your issue as big as mine?
The best situation where I found to illustrate this problem is to go to newegg and read the reviews from all the customers(noy just the 2-3 reviews from the product page) of whatever item. This makes your screen full of a light grey color. Look at the monitor from about 40cm and notice the green greys on top and red greys on the bottom.
As I read a lot of users here having a hard time to get good colors and text readibility on their 2408, I'd like to humbly share my experiences on these topics.
I think that if you read this, you could be able to really improve text rendering on your 2408.
For colors, well - it's another matter.
Firts, let me tell you that when I first powered on a 2408 I was very disappointed by the fonts rendering: red/green/purple halos around fonts made this monitor a real pain for any text reading/writing tasks.
Also red and green colors was very bright/saturated (I use Windows). I was surprised by this.
That how I discovered what wide-gammut was exactly.
The 2408 is a wide-gammut monitor. This means is color-space goes far beyond the Windows OS can handle (basically sRGB).
Sadly, Windows also use a technology called "ClearType" to enhance text reading on LCD monitors.
Basically it adds dots of colors around letters to make them easier to read (sort of anti-aliasing).
Unfortunately, on a wide-gammut monitor this give often very bad results.
Here is what I did:
* R/G/B; Br/Co settings:
On a 0CX268 I achieved the best results with: 83/82/89; 16/64
On a 0G286H I achieved the best result with: 81/81/89; 20/56
Of course no two 2408 are the same and you may have to play a bit with these settings.
* Sharpness:
Should be reduced around 43. I used SoftMCCS to achieve this.
* ClearType:
A free tool is downloadable to change the contrat parameter of ClearType in Windows (ClearType Tuning Tool).
I use 1.6 or 1.7.
** I use a color profile to change the RGB gamma curves in Windows, to attenuate red and green.
By combining these settings, I was able to achieve a better text readibility that on my previous 2407WFP A04 (non-HC) which is very good I believe.
About the colors now.
The 2408 is one of the most color-acurate LCD monitor in this price range.
But not in the Windows environement, for the same reason I explained earlier: Windows is sRGB, your 2408 is wide-gammut: when Windows ask a color, 2408 answer with another... ;-)
If the Windows OS was able to understand and apply a color profile, this could be corrected.
But Windows can only handle a small part of a color profile (.icm, .icc).
However, color-managed applications are able to completly appply a color profile (like 2408WFP.ICM, the default color profile provided by Dell, but of course the best profile to use is the one that match your specific 2408. It should be created using an hardware calibrator).
I've no hardware calibrator, so I used a color profile of another 2408 owner, found on the Internet.
In these applications, if you correctly specify the color profile, you'll get correct, superb colors...
Some color-managed applications: Adobe Photoshop, Firefox 3, ACDSee Pro, Windows Vista Image Viewer.
OK guys. An update from me, the guy whose work bought 10 of these after being promised A01's and received ten 2-month-old A00's.
Well, after much bugging, bothering, talking, complaining, etcetera -- we finally got Dell to send out 10 "not guaranteed to be A01" replacements. They all showed up yesterday...
Each and every one is a brand new A01, made in Mexico! It said A01 on the box AND on the back of the monitor. So, I personally replaced each and every old A00 monitor and packed them back up into the new boxes to send back to Dell (at their expense). I color-corrected each and every one myself also. There was not a single dead pixel on any of them.
Here are some observations (I left an A00 next to a new A01 side-by-side):
- Most important, input lag was HUGELY reduced. It was a big distraction with the A00's and made it hard to be precise -- a big no-no with us designers. The A01's made a GIGANTIC difference. They are now bearable to use (though I myself can still detect SOME input lag, though it is much more usable).
- The backlighting is more even on every single monitor. The homogeny was noticeably better and there was VERY little backlight bleed on all 10 screens. The left side was STILL a bit brighter than the right, but not quite as bad as the A00's.
- Pinkish hue is still on the lower left quarter of the screen, though if I shift myself to look directly at it (centered in view), it goes away. It isn't too bothersome to us -- maybe we got good panels from the same batch.
- There is definitely a different coating on the A01's -- they make the image appear "smoother" (not sure how to explain that) and there's slightly less glare. I did not see the "single speck on the center of the monitor" on any of the 10 monitors like a couple others on here saw. I am not sure if this is due to the new coating (I think it is), but the blacks seem slightly deeper and a tad less red than the A00's.
- They all had slightly worse delta E numbers when calibrated and were not quite as bright, though they were all still under 1.6 delta E maximum and under 1.0 delta E average -- which is still excellent. They also all varied more on what I had to set the RGB values to as well as brightness results than on the A00's. Some could do 160 cd/m2, and some could only manage ~130 cd/m2 using starting values of 50 contrast and 10 brightness. Values ranged from Red 92-99, Green 85-91, and Blue 95-100.
- Using a sharpness of 40 is almost perfect, but there were still some SLIGHT oversharpening artifacts on text and such. I would think a setting of 35 would be ideal. Too bad they couldn'tmake the increments in 5.
Overall, we are much happier with these new A01's over the A00's. Now that Dell made things right, with the help of myself, IT, and especially our rep Ken over at Zones (who really stepped up to the plate for us) -- we are finally satisfied. If I was anyone else on here and received an A00, I wouldn't settle for anything less than an A01. The difference is pretty huge. At least to us.
Thanks for all the help guys. And thank you Jimmy for the legwork.
Message Edited by ShnikeJSB on 09-17-2008 03:52 PM
Message Edited by ShnikeJSB on 09-17-2008 03:53 PM
Message Edited by ShnikeJSB on 09-17-2008 03:53 PM
My part number on the new A01 is 0G283H, so yes, it is a newer part number as you stated. Seems as though you are right. So, the ideal monitor is an A01 with a 0G2xxH part number. These are fantastic monitors.
As for SoftMCCS, we use Macs, so that isn't an option for us. We are designers after all! :smileywink:
However, I think many of the improvements you list are not due to the new rev and firmware, but to the new part#0G2xxH.
Here in Europe we have part#0G286H with the old firmware (revA00) replacing part#0CX268, and we noticed 0G286H is better for pink hue, backlight bleed, general panel homogeneity and anti-glare coating.
Left side indeed still appear brighter than the right one (S-PVA inherent).
So, part#0G286H in Europe seems similarly improved than your A01, except for what's firmware specific: input lag, sharpness settings and power save mode.
Btw, have you tried SoftMCCS to change your sharpness settings? I think I read somewhere you can set sharpness by steps of 5 on A01 with StoftMCCS... Anybody out there to confirm ?
AlfCheesey
1 Message
0
September 16th, 2008 03:00
So when you buy a new monitor, and it's A01, it actually says A01? I thought we had been told it would have a new part number but would continue to say A00?
I guess we were given wrong information.
Crimchaser
31 Posts
0
September 16th, 2008 08:00
DELL-Jimmy P
2 Intern
•
1.5K Posts
0
September 16th, 2008 14:00
No, What I said was that is was possible that since they were changing the part number they wouldn't have rev a01 on the firmware, which is what I was told. When they told me that, I didn't think it was a good idea. Maybe someone else figured out it wasn't a good idea and would cause confusion so they decided to go ahead and mark them A01.zinsco
1 Message
0
September 16th, 2008 16:00
MooGuy
4 Posts
0
September 16th, 2008 17:00
I'm having a similar problem with a 6800 Ultra, and use PowerStrip to reduce the pixel clock / refresh rate on DVI Port 1. The problem seems to go away around 54Hz vertical refresh rate.
I only found the "solution" after googling for hours. I thought the problem was limited to 6800 Ultra cards, but maybe not.
EDIT: There's a chance that your problem is related to an old DVI issue discussed here.
mrcmtl
4 Posts
0
September 16th, 2008 17:00
I just tested my A01 on DisplayPort, and there was no difference in input lag between DisplayPort/HDMI.
Although when I plug it in HDMI with a DVI-HDMI adapter, ATI Catalyst still sees it as DVI but I can get half the shots at 16ms/1frame and the other half at 32/33ms/2frames behind my 1905fp which is exactly 16ms/1frame behind a CRT, which makes the 2408wfp A01 32-48ms average. If I plug it in DVI-DVI I get constant 32/33ms lag behind my 1905fp.
The input lag isn't whats bothering me right now, its this pink tint on the bottom left that is making me a bit nuts.
DELL-Jimmy P
2 Intern
•
1.5K Posts
0
September 16th, 2008 17:00
If you have had your monitor more then 21 days past the date of invoice and you call support you will get a refurbished monitor. Under 21 you should get a new one.
bugmenot0
33 Posts
0
September 17th, 2008 03:00
This pink issue is driving me crazy too. I want to ignore it, but it's too obvious. It's really annoying!
scimo
5 Posts
0
September 17th, 2008 14:00
Got the 2408 yesterday and it's the A01 version. The initial setting was too bright and too saturated so I tuned both the brightless and RGB down to a more comfortable level. Even after changes I found the red and green is still a bit too saturated. (Anyone can give me any advice here? I think my setting is RGB 72,70,70. Bri/Con 23/54 ) It works great for the xbox, but color is a bit off for browsing and others.
The text quality is decent. Not as easy on eyes as my BenQ 241, but reasonable. Overall, I think the BenQ has more natural looking picture and sharper text, the Dell is great if I don't have them side by side. One major downside for the BenQ though...... I had 2 of those and both had stuck pixels. So pick your poison :-)On the plus side the Dell is free of any defects. The Dell also has more digital inputs.
I didn't notice any lags or pink issues. I tried to Ntest and the color comes out clean. Remember the brightless for LCDs won't be even 100% all over the screen. From what I saw the BenQ and Dell both done well in this regard.
curtis_rick
91 Posts
0
September 17th, 2008 14:00
Are you experiencing the pink issue on an A00 or A01?
mrcmtl
4 Posts
0
September 17th, 2008 17:00
And its not a small issue either, the spot is about 10cmx10cm on the bottom left, but the entire bottom half of the rest of the monitor is also a bit warmer than the top but less noticeable than that corner.
Is your issue as big as mine?
The best situation where I found to illustrate this problem is to go to newegg and read the reviews from all the customers(noy just the 2-3 reviews from the product page) of whatever item. This makes your screen full of a light grey color. Look at the monitor from about 40cm and notice the green greys on top and red greys on the bottom.
martidi
144 Posts
0
September 17th, 2008 19:00
@Herbiie, Scimo and maybe others...
As I read a lot of users here having a hard time to get good colors and text readibility on their 2408, I'd like to humbly share my experiences on these topics.
I think that if you read this, you could be able to really improve text rendering on your 2408.
For colors, well - it's another matter.
Firts, let me tell you that when I first powered on a 2408 I was very disappointed by the fonts rendering: red/green/purple halos around fonts made this monitor a real pain for any text reading/writing tasks.
Also red and green colors was very bright/saturated (I use Windows). I was surprised by this.
That how I discovered what wide-gammut was exactly.
The 2408 is a wide-gammut monitor. This means is color-space goes far beyond the Windows OS can handle (basically sRGB).
Sadly, Windows also use a technology called "ClearType" to enhance text reading on LCD monitors.
Basically it adds dots of colors around letters to make them easier to read (sort of anti-aliasing).
Unfortunately, on a wide-gammut monitor this give often very bad results.
Here is what I did:
* R/G/B; Br/Co settings:
On a 0CX268 I achieved the best results with: 83/82/89; 16/64
On a 0G286H I achieved the best result with: 81/81/89; 20/56
Of course no two 2408 are the same and you may have to play a bit with these settings.
* Sharpness:
Should be reduced around 43. I used SoftMCCS to achieve this.
* ClearType:
A free tool is downloadable to change the contrat parameter of ClearType in Windows (ClearType Tuning Tool).
I use 1.6 or 1.7.
** I use a color profile to change the RGB gamma curves in Windows, to attenuate red and green.
By combining these settings, I was able to achieve a better text readibility that on my previous 2407WFP A04 (non-HC) which is very good I believe.
About the colors now.
The 2408 is one of the most color-acurate LCD monitor in this price range.
But not in the Windows environement, for the same reason I explained earlier: Windows is sRGB, your 2408 is wide-gammut: when Windows ask a color, 2408 answer with another... ;-)
If the Windows OS was able to understand and apply a color profile, this could be corrected.
But Windows can only handle a small part of a color profile (.icm, .icc).
However, color-managed applications are able to completly appply a color profile (like 2408WFP.ICM, the default color profile provided by Dell, but of course the best profile to use is the one that match your specific 2408. It should be created using an hardware calibrator).
I've no hardware calibrator, so I used a color profile of another 2408 owner, found on the Internet.
In these applications, if you correctly specify the color profile, you'll get correct, superb colors...
Some color-managed applications: Adobe Photoshop, Firefox 3, ACDSee Pro, Windows Vista Image Viewer.
Hope This Help
ShnikeJSB
40 Posts
0
September 17th, 2008 19:00
OK guys. An update from me, the guy whose work bought 10 of these after being promised A01's and received ten 2-month-old A00's.
Well, after much bugging, bothering, talking, complaining, etcetera -- we finally got Dell to send out 10 "not guaranteed to be A01" replacements. They all showed up yesterday...
Each and every one is a brand new A01, made in Mexico! It said A01 on the box AND on the back of the monitor. So, I personally replaced each and every old A00 monitor and packed them back up into the new boxes to send back to Dell (at their expense). I color-corrected each and every one myself also. There was not a single dead pixel on any of them.
Here are some observations (I left an A00 next to a new A01 side-by-side):
- Most important, input lag was HUGELY reduced. It was a big distraction with the A00's and made it hard to be precise -- a big no-no with us designers. The A01's made a GIGANTIC difference. They are now bearable to use (though I myself can still detect SOME input lag, though it is much more usable).
- The backlighting is more even on every single monitor. The homogeny was noticeably better and there was VERY little backlight bleed on all 10 screens. The left side was STILL a bit brighter than the right, but not quite as bad as the A00's.
- Pinkish hue is still on the lower left quarter of the screen, though if I shift myself to look directly at it (centered in view), it goes away. It isn't too bothersome to us -- maybe we got good panels from the same batch.
- There is definitely a different coating on the A01's -- they make the image appear "smoother" (not sure how to explain that) and there's slightly less glare. I did not see the "single speck on the center of the monitor" on any of the 10 monitors like a couple others on here saw. I am not sure if this is due to the new coating (I think it is), but the blacks seem slightly deeper and a tad less red than the A00's.
- They all had slightly worse delta E numbers when calibrated and were not quite as bright, though they were all still under 1.6 delta E maximum and under 1.0 delta E average -- which is still excellent. They also all varied more on what I had to set the RGB values to as well as brightness results than on the A00's. Some could do 160 cd/m2, and some could only manage ~130 cd/m2 using starting values of 50 contrast and 10 brightness. Values ranged from Red 92-99, Green 85-91, and Blue 95-100.
- Using a sharpness of 40 is almost perfect, but there were still some SLIGHT oversharpening artifacts on text and such. I would think a setting of 35 would be ideal. Too bad they couldn'tmake the increments in 5.
Overall, we are much happier with these new A01's over the A00's. Now that Dell made things right, with the help of myself, IT, and especially our rep Ken over at Zones (who really stepped up to the plate for us) -- we are finally satisfied. If I was anyone else on here and received an A00, I wouldn't settle for anything less than an A01. The difference is pretty huge. At least to us.
Thanks for all the help guys. And thank you Jimmy for the legwork.
ShnikeJSB
40 Posts
0
September 17th, 2008 21:00
My part number on the new A01 is 0G283H, so yes, it is a newer part number as you stated. Seems as though you are right. So, the ideal monitor is an A01 with a 0G2xxH part number. These are fantastic monitors.
As for SoftMCCS, we use Macs, so that isn't an option for us. We are designers after all! :smileywink:
martidi
144 Posts
0
September 17th, 2008 21:00
Great ShnikeJSB !
However, I think many of the improvements you list are not due to the new rev and firmware, but to the new part#0G2xxH.
Here in Europe we have part#0G286H with the old firmware (revA00) replacing part#0CX268, and we noticed 0G286H is better for pink hue, backlight bleed, general panel homogeneity and anti-glare coating.
Left side indeed still appear brighter than the right one (S-PVA inherent).
So, part#0G286H in Europe seems similarly improved than your A01, except for what's firmware specific: input lag, sharpness settings and power save mode.
Btw, have you tried SoftMCCS to change your sharpness settings? I think I read somewhere you can set sharpness by steps of 5 on A01 with StoftMCCS... Anybody out there to confirm ?