M11x R3 display: the 'mosquito net' effect

Hi,

I've just received my Alienware M11x R3 - lovely little machine, but I was a bit put out by one characteristic of the display: a faint gridding visible on the screen at all resolutions (and on both GPUs), most apparent in areas of continuous colour.

These are not pixels (which are obviously apparent if you stick your nose to the screen), but regular clumps of pixels (~3x3 - though the vertical banding is slightly more apparent) - giving the appearance of a very faint mosquito net when viewed from 6" to 18" away.

Any closer, and I can only see the pixels themselves; any further away, and I can't pick it out. Unfortunately 18" is just in 'hunched over at the desk' territory.

I searched the forums here and found a couple of similar references, but not too much feedback. I understand that there are various display panels, but I'm not sure which one I have (the invoice only lists: 230-11999 11.6 in Widescreen HD 1366x768 Truelife WLED; I've only seen generic indicators in my system properties).

Is this common? I know the M11x screens aren't the best - so if it's just an optical artifact of a so-so (but not faulty) screen viewed at that distance, then I can live with it.

But if it suggests a problem and is fixable, I'll give it a shot.

Many thanks,

Stew.

 

This worries me. I was ready to pull the trigger on a r3, the screen being my only concern.

Im interested in hearing if this is normal. Sorry that I can't help dude

 

Mine doesn't do that. I have had all three revisions and the r3 has the best screen quality and image out of all of them.

 

No issues here. Great screen. Great system.

 

no issues either

 

There is another thread or two here about a screenlike appearance. I think the avatar was a bunny.

Anywho, I "think" I can see this on my R1 if looking just right with just the right background but then I have to be really looking for it. Aaaand I'm not gonna look for it. To me I think its something all LCDs will do to some degree or other. How obvious it is might be up the the viewer.

 

No problems with mine; I purchased the R3 on release day. The screen is better than the one that was on my R2, IMO.

 

Belated thanks to everybody who replied!

After a little further digging, I realise I should really have described it as the 'screen-door effect', which is a far more common term. I was surprised to see it on an 11.6" 1366x768 subnotebook, but then it's not lines formed by the borders of each pixel that I'm seeing, but rather lines formed by the borders of every few pixels. Strange.

My eyesight's not that bad and I don't hallucinate that often, I promise.

A tech is coming out to fit a new screen, so fingers crossed!

Thanks again.

P.S. I should stress that the effect is faint; it's probably exacerbated by the fact that I've never come across it before.

 

I've noticed the screen door effect on my R3 too. It's more noticeable when I go from my main rig (desktop with Samsung T260 monitors) to the R3. It is definitely there. It's not a huge deal though.

To me, the biggest flaw in the M11x series is the quality of the LCD panel. I'd much rather some type of IPS/e-IPS panel.

 

The only way to mitigate that is high resolution on smaller panels, lol.

So far, the only company crazy/stupid enough to do it is Sony (Z series - though the Z2 sucks, IMO). 1920x1080 on a 13.1" panel

 

Have heard of this before on an M11xR1 by a client named Vorob.

Not sure if there was a solution or if this is the same problem, however this is not a common problem.

 

oh, it's like DLP rainbow effect, or Plasma trails... once you see it, you keep on seeing it. If you don't see it.... DON'T! You'll be much happier this way.

 

by mosquito effect do u mean something similar to this?
http://www.kickinthehead.org/temp/monitor_distortion.jpg

because if thats the case i've seen it happen on my r2 after i put it to sleep and when i wake it up by lifting the LCD and logging in i get something similar to that but instead of being all white it actually is colorful and it just goes on a straight line. It goes away after i refresh the desktop, i dont think it should be doing that but im waiting until it happens again.. so far i've seen it twice!

 

that's just the GPU screwing up during initialization.

 

Heh. I had the screen replaced today. Unfortunately, the way the service works, the tech replaces the entire lid assemblage (not the LCD panel alone), so I couldn't see which panel it was.

The new one is the same. But I'm not going to faff around any further, and it's a very nice machine despite the display issues.

Time to get used to it/gradually pretend it's not there...

Thanks again for the comments.

 

that's what i thought, it happened to me again. Should that be something to consider or just let it slide?