Dell Latitude XT Screen Distorted Color

Hey guys,

My Dell Latitude XT recently needed to get a fresh windows install. After I reinstalled windows, I started to see that the colors were a little distorted. Like the colors don't fade as fluidly as they used to. Shading isn't nice and smooth, can't really describe it.

I took a screen capture and opened it on another computer and the image looks fine. This means that it is the display that's the problem right?

How can I fix this? Is it a display driver issue?

Thanks.

 

Verify graphics drivers are installed and that under Display Properties it's 32-bit True Color. Sometimes some graphics cards/drivers don't output properly if they are running anything less.

Do the colors sort of clump together and have a visible line/separation instead of being smooth?

 

Yeah I installed all the correct drivers for the ATI gpu and made sure it's on 32 bit color mode. It actually exactly as you describe it, colors clump up and have a visible line of separation. But it's more prevalent for certain types of colors.

 

Did you install the latest driver from ATI or Dell? Try the other and see if it makes a difference.

 

Yeah, seems like it's operating in 16 color or 256 color mode for the monitor.

I tend to agree with Robin24k, you'll want to get the drivers from the Dell site. ATI drivers for mobile GPUs are a bit weird in that you can't get them from ATI directly unless your manufacturer is on the approved list. This is presumably since they're supposed to test each version, though I suppose if it's a discontinued model they might not.

As an aside, on the desktop side ATI dropped support for a lot of graphics cards after 10.2 (largely X1000-series and lower). Not sure if this is applicable on the laptop side (probably is), but if you have an X1250 and downloaded the latest 11.x graphics driver from ATI, it probably will not work.

 

Yeah, but when I connect the laptop to an external display, the colors are ok, this has to mean, that the screen has been destroyed somehow right?

 

Can you take a picture?

Is there a point or a line where the color is all rainbow-y?

 

When I take a screen shot of the picture, and export it to another computer, the picture looks fine. Only on the Latitude XT laptop does it look wierd.

I also installed Ubuntu and the same color problems exist in this OS as well. I'm starting to believe that the screen may be malfunctional.

Some colors look ok (for example greens and blues look OK). But when there is red colors, or any fading with red, the fade has visible lines of separation