The folks answering the 800 lines started by telling me to do a clean install of XP (on my new 600m!). When I balked, they went through a few settings and finally declared that they needed to send me a new video card (even though it tested fine).
IF WE CAN GET A CONSENSUS HERE: Does everyone agree that the Registry edit is the best way to cope with this problem? Can someone offer a summary of the major down-side associated with this solution (if any)? Does the Registry edit also deal with the problem of some web sites displaying some components in an unaligned fashion, or having some components partially hidden by other components? (The AOL Welcome screen, for example, is a mess with this monitor; everything is cut in half.)
All right. I can vouch for the fact that the Registry change solves the fuzziness problem -- even WITHOUT the additional step of opening Internet Explorer, clicking Tools | Internet Options | Accessibility > removing the check next to "Ignore font sizes specified on Web pages" (which caused some web pages to look very badly).
So, 90% is good. The only down side is that there are still some websites that are showing up with out-of-alignment components. For example, the AOL welcome screen still has elements that are cut off or hidden behind other elements. Or (as a more accessible example of the problem), if you go to a website like http://www.crookedtimber.org/ the list of names on the right side is shifted to the left (and does not rest over the pale baby-blue background on the right).
I don't want to be greedy, but it would be nice if websites showed up more or less as they should. Is there a final tweak that would solve the last part of this problem?
Thanks to everyone who has addressed this issue. If someone could please tell Dell Techies about this it would save a lot of people a lot of time and aggravation. (I feel terrible for people who were talked into a clean install of XP only to discover that the problem was not solved.)
The registry edit takes like 30 seconds at the most and the changes are implemented immediately. I change the reg, and started IE, no more jaggy images. easy as pie.
What you are experiencing with things out of place while browsing is really a function of web design rather than your Dell Computer. Look at the same sites http://www.crookedtimber.org/ and www.aol.com using Netscape7 and IE6 - items which may be out of place using IE are not with Netscape. The opposite may also happen on other sites. It is virtually impossible to design for all current browsers and at all resolutions(or designers don't bother to test thoroughly). Designers are taught that the web page should be viewed without much scrolling on a computer whose resolution is only 800 x600 or 1024 x 768. That is why many sites will appear as half a screen on a screen whose resolution is 1920 x 1200. These pages are programed in absolute pixels versus persentage of screen. There is nothing wrong with the Dell computer that is causing this, people may just not like the higher resolution screen. Until all persons use the same browser and have the same monitor, there will be differences is how sites are viewed.
Unfortunately - the people at Dell should be reading this forum so they would know what to tell people who have the major problem of fuzzy pictures in IE - that was totally a program issue with IE and the Dell techs knew nothing about this and how to change registry setting.
THe problems with the way an entire page looks is due to the way IE renders the page. I looked at both the pages you cited, once with IE and once with Mozilla, and although I didn't see a lot of difference at the AOL page the Crooked Timber site did have a problem in IE. If you don't like it just change browsers, but you'll still need IE for that odd website that doesn't see fit to use open standards...
Thanks to TSTARR and Vidiot3k for their responses. Actually, an AOL tech just filled in the final piece -- I need to set fonts to 96 DPI (and restart). Teeny fonts, but all those web sites (and AOL's official welcome page) and now properly aligned.
I have 15.4", 1680x1050 but I don't know how you guys can see those small letters when you open windows explorer because I really cann't. I was using 120DPI for large size but still it is too small for me (may be mi LCD is defective) and I increased it to 130 DPI that is a little bigger.Also, some of my icon names has like a little bit of red color instead of white and the same thing happens when I am typing using Microsoft Outlook. Can somebody send me a picture to see how your display looks like so i can have a better idea if mine is wrong?
I have the same problem. I got this one month ago. I have no jagged edges, but no matter what I set the DPI to, it is just way small. Many pages also justify to the left. Many menus are overlaped or text continues on the next lines and web buttons are all over the tops of pages when they should be aligned in a row. Dells answer to this is, uh, sorry, its an IE problem. Compaq has a 15.4 screen now and one company offers a 17 now. I want to see if the problems exist on those machines. If not, then it is not a browser issue.
I had the same problem, mainly with online gifs, that were all blocky and distorted. I used the reg edit tip SpeedStep supplied, and it fixed it after a quick restart! Thanks for everything, and saving me from making the call to the apparantly ill-informed Dell help line people. The misshaped graphics were really starting to worry me.
This problem has nothing to do with Dell (other than the fact that Dell is shipping the computers using 120 DPI). There are a couple of other contributing factors though. The first is that Windows XP does not do a very good job using higher than the standard 96 DPI. Try going to www.windowsupdate.com using 120 DPI and when you get the mesage box asking if you want to install the updates you have downloaded, you won't be able to get to the buttons because Windows is not compensating for the increased DPI and increasing the size of the message box to match (this could probably also be fixed by modifying the code on the website though).
The other problem is with the people who design the websites you are visiting. A lot of people use HTML editors (like frontpage and many others) that set values for tables sizes, etc, in pixels instead of by percent. What happens is you have a background (for example) that is hard coded to be at a certian pixel placement (rather than a certain percentage placement on the screen). Normally things work fine when you use the standard 96 DPI fonts, but when you look at it with 120 DPI, the fonts suddenly expand, pushing relative elements (such as images are are places in relation to the text, or even other text that is placed in relation to the other text) someplace else. Now things are not lining up the way you would expect, all because your font size changed.
The biggest problems come in when a site uses some absolute (pixel level) placement and some relative (percentage level) placement. If a given site was programmed using only one (either one) and not the other, there probably wouldn't be problems. But most HTML "programmers" are lazy and don't actually program, they just use some WYSIWYG editor like front page that butchers their code and have no idea what they are getting. A web site needs to be designed, then programmed, then tested, and then published, not just designed and published. If you are using 120 DPI and you encounter ugly web pages, let the webmaster know (most webpages have a link to e-mail the webmaster). Explain that you are using 120 DPI and the site is not functional and ask them to test using both 96 DPI and 120 DPI. Short of changing the way web browsers work and removing the ability of HTML to place objects (not a viable solution, website layout has to be controlled by the HTML code, not the browser), this problem can only be solved on a web-site by web-site basis.
I agree with what nkrick said. Here is another thing that bothers me -- a lot of sites just assume that everyone is using Internet Explorer with "Medium" fonts. If you set the font size to "Larger", it will often screw up the way certain elements display.
I have the i8500 with the WSXGA+ screen (1680 x 1050), and I prefer to use the 96 dpi setting. However, to compensate a little for this, I like to set Text Size to "Larger" in IE. This only affects sites where the font size isn't specified as an absolute pixel size in the CSS, but at least it does help with some sites where the font size is really small. The problem is that some web designers haven't taken this into consideration. And it's not just small mickey mouse sites. For example, it happens on ZDNet's main page. On that page, with your IE text size set to "Larger" (View > Text Size > Larger), look at the photo at the top left of the page -- Enterprise Video of the Week. Notice the how text overlaps the bottom portion of the photo.
* EDIT - ZDNet's main page has changed and the layout is different now. The photo that I referred to in the last paragraph no longer exists. However, check out the CNET home page (same company as ZDNet): http://www.cnet.com. Switch back and forth from Medium to Larger text size. Notice how it affects the yellow menu header at the top of the page, and also text and images overlapping.
DELL's U.S. site even has a problem with the tabs on the Home & Home Office page. Go here and see how setting the IE text size to "Larger" affects the tabs at the top of the page. The text is now too large to be contained within the tabs, so it messes up the graphic. It also happens on other DELL pages where tabs are used. Check out the Search tabs on this page.
For those of you that purchased a high resolution screen and are having difficulty dealing with the small fonts in Internet Explorer, you may want to try the following. In Internet Explorer, go to Tools > Internet Options > 'General' tab > 'Accessibility' button. Put a check beside "Ignore font sizes on Web pages" and click OK, and OK again. You'll now be able to control the font size in IE. You can do this by going to View > Text Size, but an even easier way is to add the "Text Size" button to your IE toolbar. Just right-click on the IE toolbar and choose Customize. Add the "Size" button from the left side to the right side.
Or, you could instead put the check beside "Ignore font styles on Web pages" and click OK. Then click on the 'Fonts' button, and choose your default font. If you choose something like Arial Black, it will really make a difference. This is a very thick dark font. Another good one but not quite as thick is Arial Rounded MT Bold. Even less drastic, but still one of the wider fonts would be something like Verdana. Experiment and see what works for you. You'll be able to see which ones are most likely to be good choices in the Preview area before you click OK.
Message Edited by ONE_HUMAN on 09-24-2003 04:32 PM
gillman
9 Posts
0
July 29th, 2003 01:00
The folks answering the 800 lines started by telling me to do a clean install of XP (on my new 600m!). When I balked, they went through a few settings and finally declared that they needed to send me a new video card (even though it tested fine).
IF WE CAN GET A CONSENSUS HERE: Does everyone agree that the Registry edit is the best way to cope with this problem? Can someone offer a summary of the major down-side associated with this solution (if any)? Does the Registry edit also deal with the problem of some web sites displaying some components in an unaligned fashion, or having some components partially hidden by other components? (The AOL Welcome screen, for example, is a mess with this monitor; everything is cut in half.)
gillman
9 Posts
0
July 29th, 2003 02:00
All right. I can vouch for the fact that the Registry change solves the fuzziness problem -- even WITHOUT the additional step of opening Internet Explorer, clicking Tools | Internet Options | Accessibility > removing the check next to "Ignore font sizes specified on Web pages" (which caused some web pages to look very badly).
So, 90% is good. The only down side is that there are still some websites that are showing up with out-of-alignment components. For example, the AOL welcome screen still has elements that are cut off or hidden behind other elements. Or (as a more accessible example of the problem), if you go to a website like http://www.crookedtimber.org/ the list of names on the right side is shifted to the left (and does not rest over the pale baby-blue background on the right).
I don't want to be greedy, but it would be nice if websites showed up more or less as they should. Is there a final tweak that would solve the last part of this problem?
Thanks to everyone who has addressed this issue. If someone could please tell Dell Techies about this it would save a lot of people a lot of time and aggravation. (I feel terrible for people who were talked into a clean install of XP only to discover that the problem was not solved.)
vidiot3k
6 Posts
0
July 29th, 2003 02:00
I8500:
P4M 2.2GHZ
512MB RAM
30GB HDD
DVD/CDRW
32MB M9
WUXGA
WinXP Home SP1
TSTARR
15 Posts
0
July 29th, 2003 09:00
What you are experiencing with things out of place while browsing is really a function of web design rather than your Dell Computer. Look at the same sites http://www.crookedtimber.org/ and www.aol.com using Netscape7 and IE6 - items which may be out of place using IE are not with Netscape. The opposite may also happen on other sites. It is virtually impossible to design for all current browsers and at all resolutions(or designers don't bother to test thoroughly). Designers are taught that the web page should be viewed without much scrolling on a computer whose resolution is only 800 x600 or 1024 x 768. That is why many sites will appear as half a screen on a screen whose resolution is 1920 x 1200. These pages are programed in absolute pixels versus persentage of screen. There is nothing wrong with the Dell computer that is causing this, people may just not like the higher resolution screen. Until all persons use the same browser and have the same monitor, there will be differences is how sites are viewed.
Unfortunately - the people at Dell should be reading this forum so they would know what to tell people who have the major problem of fuzzy pictures in IE - that was totally a program issue with IE and the Dell techs knew nothing about this and how to change registry setting.
Cheers!
vidiot3k
6 Posts
0
July 29th, 2003 12:00
gillman
9 Posts
0
July 29th, 2003 14:00
Danalo
8 Posts
0
July 30th, 2003 13:00
Someone with jagged edges font in IE can give NetCaptor a shot. It has many additional features and needs IE to run.
My settings: 1920x1200, 108 dpi
There are jagged edges fonts if I use IE to browse a website, but no problem using NetCaptor.
ONE_HUMAN
62 Posts
0
July 31st, 2003 07:00
Danalo, are you using ClearType? See my posts on page 1 of this thread: http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_input&message.id=18636
Danalo
8 Posts
0
July 31st, 2003 10:00
TSTARR
15 Posts
0
July 31st, 2003 11:00
Danalo, Did you change the registry setting for IE as discussed in this forum? You really shouldn't have any jagged edges.
Rafael18016
3 Posts
0
July 31st, 2003 14:00
Hello:
I have 15.4", 1680x1050 but I don't know how you guys can see those small letters when you open windows explorer because I really cann't. I was using 120DPI for large size but still it is too small for me (may be mi LCD is defective) and I increased it to 130 DPI that is a little bigger.Also, some of my icon names has like a little bit of red color instead of white and the same thing happens when I am typing using Microsoft Outlook. Can somebody send me a picture to see how your display looks like so i can have a better idea if mine is wrong?
Thank you.
Chrisamity
14 Posts
0
July 31st, 2003 22:00
I have the same problem. I got this one month ago. I have no jagged edges, but no matter what I set the DPI to, it is just way small. Many pages also justify to the left. Many menus are overlaped or text continues on the next lines and web buttons are all over the tops of pages when they should be aligned in a row. Dells answer to this is, uh, sorry, its an IE problem. Compaq has a 15.4 screen now and one company offers a 17 now. I want to see if the problems exist on those machines. If not, then it is not a browser issue.
C
Bandrik
1 Message
0
August 2nd, 2003 16:00
nkrick
97 Posts
0
August 14th, 2003 22:00
This problem has nothing to do with Dell (other than the fact that Dell is shipping the computers using 120 DPI). There are a couple of other contributing factors though. The first is that Windows XP does not do a very good job using higher than the standard 96 DPI. Try going to www.windowsupdate.com using 120 DPI and when you get the mesage box asking if you want to install the updates you have downloaded, you won't be able to get to the buttons because Windows is not compensating for the increased DPI and increasing the size of the message box to match (this could probably also be fixed by modifying the code on the website though).
The other problem is with the people who design the websites you are visiting. A lot of people use HTML editors (like frontpage and many others) that set values for tables sizes, etc, in pixels instead of by percent. What happens is you have a background (for example) that is hard coded to be at a certian pixel placement (rather than a certain percentage placement on the screen). Normally things work fine when you use the standard 96 DPI fonts, but when you look at it with 120 DPI, the fonts suddenly expand, pushing relative elements (such as images are are places in relation to the text, or even other text that is placed in relation to the other text) someplace else. Now things are not lining up the way you would expect, all because your font size changed.
The biggest problems come in when a site uses some absolute (pixel level) placement and some relative (percentage level) placement. If a given site was programmed using only one (either one) and not the other, there probably wouldn't be problems. But most HTML "programmers" are lazy and don't actually program, they just use some WYSIWYG editor like front page that butchers their code and have no idea what they are getting. A web site needs to be designed, then programmed, then tested, and then published, not just designed and published. If you are using 120 DPI and you encounter ugly web pages, let the webmaster know (most webpages have a link to e-mail the webmaster). Explain that you are using 120 DPI and the site is not functional and ask them to test using both 96 DPI and 120 DPI. Short of changing the way web browsers work and removing the ability of HTML to place objects (not a viable solution, website layout has to be controlled by the HTML code, not the browser), this problem can only be solved on a web-site by web-site basis.
ONE_HUMAN
62 Posts
0
August 22nd, 2003 21:00
I agree with what nkrick said. Here is another thing that bothers me -- a lot of sites just assume that everyone is using Internet Explorer with "Medium" fonts. If you set the font size to "Larger", it will often screw up the way certain elements display.
I have the i8500 with the WSXGA+ screen (1680 x 1050), and I prefer to use the 96 dpi setting. However, to compensate a little for this, I like to set Text Size to "Larger" in IE. This only affects sites where the font size isn't specified as an absolute pixel size in the CSS, but at least it does help with some sites where the font size is really small. The problem is that some web designers haven't taken this into consideration. And it's not just small mickey mouse sites. For example, it happens on ZDNet's main page. On that page, with your IE text size set to "Larger" (View > Text Size > Larger), look at the photo at the top left of the page -- Enterprise Video of the Week. Notice the how text overlaps the bottom portion of the photo.
* EDIT - ZDNet's main page has changed and the layout is different now. The photo that I referred to in the last paragraph no longer exists. However, check out the CNET home page (same company as ZDNet): http://www.cnet.com. Switch back and forth from Medium to Larger text size. Notice how it affects the yellow menu header at the top of the page, and also text and images overlapping.
DELL's U.S. site even has a problem with the tabs on the Home & Home Office page. Go here and see how setting the IE text size to "Larger" affects the tabs at the top of the page. The text is now too large to be contained within the tabs, so it messes up the graphic. It also happens on other DELL pages where tabs are used. Check out the Search tabs on this page.
For those of you that purchased a high resolution screen and are having difficulty dealing with the small fonts in Internet Explorer, you may want to try the following. In Internet Explorer, go to Tools > Internet Options > 'General' tab > 'Accessibility' button. Put a check beside "Ignore font sizes on Web pages" and click OK, and OK again. You'll now be able to control the font size in IE. You can do this by going to View > Text Size, but an even easier way is to add the "Text Size" button to your IE toolbar. Just right-click on the IE toolbar and choose Customize. Add the "Size" button from the left side to the right side.
Or, you could instead put the check beside "Ignore font styles on Web pages" and click OK. Then click on the 'Fonts' button, and choose your default font. If you choose something like Arial Black, it will really make a difference. This is a very thick dark font. Another good one but not quite as thick is Arial Rounded MT Bold. Even less drastic, but still one of the wider fonts would be something like Verdana. Experiment and see what works for you. You'll be able to see which ones are most likely to be good choices in the Preview area before you click OK.
Message Edited by ONE_HUMAN on 09-24-2003 04:32 PM