"Shadow" images with new LCD monitor...?

Hi folks,

 

I recently bought a ViewSonic VX2025WM, to replace an old 17" CRT.

 

It seems great except that I see a slight "shadow" effect of the image. For

example, on this text that I'm writing on the white background, the last letter

of each word is repeated in a faint grey to the right of it. It is very faint,

but it is there. I see "monitorr" instead of "monitor".

 

I'm a little annoyed, but I hope it's something that can be adjusted. I'd hate

to have to mail it back to Newegg, but I will if I have to....

 

Anyone know of an adjustment that might get rid of this problem?

 

Thanks in advance!

I am in the same boat Ricardo, except mine happened when I bought a new graphics card (Nvidia). I have about 5 ghosts to the right of my writing or images. If I go to 800x600 resolution this fixes it but that resolution is no good. I have a sony 21" CRT and had the same problem when I bought my last graphics card too (ATI) but that seemed to fix itself, I guess when I installed a later graphics card driver. So I would say it is a conflict of some sort between your graphics card and you monitor.

Sounds like you are using a VGA (analog) connection, rather than DVI (digital). Sometimes you get a good signal with VGA, sometimes you don't..it can be a crapshoot, depending on the quality of the cable, the video card, and how much electrical noise there is in the vicinity. You can try using a higher quality cable, but you are better off using DVI if you can. It is pretty much guaranteed to give you a sharp picture.

 

Alternatively, try adjusting the refresh rate. What worked for your CRT is probably not good for your LCD. On a VGA signal, 60 - 70 Hz is usually best for LCD.

Thanks for your help, guys.

 

My graphics card only has one connection - for the VGA cable. The monitor also came with a "digital" cable... is this a question of upgrading the card...? Is it worth it?

 

I changed the refresh rate (from 60 to 75 Hertz), and it didn't improve anything.

 

I was able to greatly reduce the shadow by increasing the contrast of the image, but that seems to lose some detail in the brighter colours, and doesn't eliminate the problem - it only makes the shadows fainter. This doesn't sound ideal to me but it helps for now.

 

Any further help would be appreciated.

It is possible that your monitor is faulty. If you can, try testing it on another computer (ideally, both the analog and digital connections). If the digital looks just as bad on another computer, then there is definitely something wrong with your monitor. If the analog looks just as bad on another computer, it may be either the cable or the monitor. Then, if you can, try another cable... It can be a difficult to completely isolate the problem.

 

Presumably, you were getting a sharp picture on your CRT, so your environment shouldn't have too much electrical noise to achieve the same on the LCD...a new cable might suffice. But, on some LCDs, I suspect that the analog signal path is is not as shielded as it should be, almost forcing you to go digital.

 

Since your video card only has a VGA connector, you would have to get a new one to use the DVI (digital) connection on the monitor. If the monitor is not faulty, and a better cable does not give you a better picture, then you might have to go this route. If you don't need a high-end 3D gaming card, you can get a new one on the cheap (less than $100). DVI ports are standard now.

I should add, to try and isolate the problem as a potentially shoddy/not-very-well shielded analog cable, move the cable around a bit while watching the picture on screen. If it changes rather significantly, then it is probably the cable. Also make sure both ends are fastened securely.

Never use an LCD without the DVI connection. Unless it's just for showing palettes and such.

 

DVI makes sure that every pixel is driven separately directly from the computer. Ghosting is

virtually impossible when you use it.

When you use the VGA connector, the signal goes through and extra digital/analog and analog/digital conversion at the video card and then the monitor. The quality of the electronics on the card and in the monitor have a significant influence on what you see on your monitor. If you are seeing ghosting, then a card with DVI output should cure it.

 

FWIW, I am driving my monitor via VGA (Matrox G550/NEC LCD2070NX - the G550 doesn't support the native 1600x1200 of the monitor in digital mode) and have no ghosting.

Yesterday, after I posted the initial message in this thread, the problem became much fainter, and I thought I could live with it. Right now, it's much worse... I guess this sounds like the "electronic noise" comment above (by Karl).

 

Btw, you can see a picture of this shadow here: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7539/3507/1600/Clipboard02.jpg

 

If so, can anyone recommend a decent card? I do mostly graphics apps, no games, but the occasional video, etc. I'm also cheap by nature... ;)

 

Thanks again to all for your help.

Hi, Ricardo. Last week I bought a very similar monitor to yours -- a ViewSonic VX2235wm. It's the same as yours except in 22" (and I love it, you made a great choice). I originally had it connected with DVI, and the display was perfect. I then had to switch to VGA (because I use a KVM switch to use the same monitor with multiple computers, and my KVM switch doesn't support DVI), and I now have the ghosting problem. So you can be reasonably certain that the problem is with the VGA connection. You're lucky that the ViewSonic includes a DVI cable -- most of the other monitors I was considering don't include one, and DVI cables can cost over $50 to buy separately.

 

I agree with the other posts -- you should go down to Circuit City or Best Buy and pick up a cheap video card. Be sure it has a DVI (digital) output, and at least 64 mb (ideally 128 mb) of video memory. The memory is important because you want to be sure it can comfortably handle your monitor's native resolution of 1680x1050, since the image quality drops significantly if you run an LCD at a resolution other than its native one.

 

The other question is whether to get a card that uses PCI (worst), AGP (better), or PCI-Express (best) as its interface. If you know which interfaces your computer supports, then get a card with the best interface your computer can handle. But if you're not doing anything demanding like gaming or 3D rendering, then you probably won't notice any difference at all between the three interface types, so it might be safer (and definitely cheaper) to stick with PCI, which all modern computers support. Note that PCI and PCI-Express are different and not interchangeable, so be sure you don't get a PCI-Express card by accident if that's not what you want.

 

As for me, I bought a VisionTek Radeon 9250 card with a PCI interface and 128mb of memory. It cost $79 at Circuit City and has no problem running my VX2235wm screen at 1680x1050.

Thanks for that very encouraging answer, Dan!

 

I bought a $60 Radeon 9250 128MB (PCI) at CompUSA yesterday, and now the monitor image is perfect. It turns out my PC has an AGP slot, so I should have sprung for that one. Some of the applications (such as RawShooter and Picasa) are quite slow to display - maybe about 0.5 seconds in some cases. Not a big deal, but slower than my CRT, which I suppose is normal.

 

I'm now debating either (a) returning the PCI card and getting the same card for the AGP slot, or (b) replacing it with a 256MB AGP card.

 

But, in either case, the image is now crisp, which is the most important. Thanks again.

Awesome, I'm glad the ghosting effect was solved. As for the slow display issues, I'd be somewhat surprised if it was due to the interface, and if Windows gives you 1680x1050 at 32 bits as an option, then you don't need more video RAM (again, unless you're going to be doing 3D rendering or gaming which needs to load textures into memory). Make sure you've installed the latest video drivers from ATI, by downloading the Catalyst software package from their website. That makes a big difference -- I've often found slow visual update speed (especially noticeable when scrolling down webpages in a web browser -- it's jerky rather than smooth and continuous) when I'm just using the default Windows drivers for a video card.

 

If you do have the latest video drivers installed, then switching to an AGP card will probably reap you more benefits than more video RAM, given your usage patterns. Good luck.

Our problem.....Cheap Cord. My wife is in graphics design and she had a similar problem with a lcd monitor (a car brand :P)that only has an analog input. I had just purchased a new Samsung model with the digital input. Samsung is great, they sent both cords with this new monitor and I found your post in a search. I thought I'd try the cord just to see if it had any effect. And we now have a clear picture on our Samsung and the one that is made by the car people lol. Thanks for your post, it helped us a lot.

I was just googling for help with the same issue. I have a client whose monitor suddenly showed a shadow/ghosting to the right of everything.

 

While I was reading your page, I inadvertently kicked the hutch that the computer and monitor are on, and it fixed it. Thanks a bunch!

<p>Thanks for the helpful thread. I also had bad shadows. I just touched the cord and they completely disappeared. I am sure the cord that comes with my de-branded HP 23" monitor (computergeeks.com) is the cheapest, and cheap on-board intel video has no ATI. But it is cheap, er... inexpensive! Sometimes an inexpensive computer is a very serviceable option. I'll just remember to giggle the cable once in a while.</p>