VGA output on m1330 looks dull and washed out?

Has anyone else noticed a more washed out less bright output on your external displays hooked up via VGA out on the m1330? I'm not sure if could be the quality of the VGA out or maybe even Vista but my Dell 2007wfp is brighter and the colors are better when it's hooked up to the VGA out on my Lenovo T60 widescreen.

 

we are experiencing this with the vostros too. i think it might be related to the 8400m gs video card...

 

Yeah it could be. I have an ATI x1400 128mb in my Lenovo. My Dell 2007wfp just looks dull like the brightness is turned down and the colors are washed out when it's connected to the m1330. I don't like it at all.

 

I never tried the Analog on the M1330 w/ 8400gs.

Try to use a HDMI to DVI cable. Looks the same on my Dell 22" LCD. I dont notice any difference between the Analog which is looked to the D630 which has the x3100.

 

That's what VGA does though.

You have to adjust the LCD colors and settings to make it look decent.

 

I don't think so. I've had this 2007wfp hooked up on several other laptops via VGA and so I know how it's suppost to look. Coming off the m1330 the LCD is dimmer and the colors are blurred and washed. I can also see quite a bit of interference going on in the background. I had a little bit of interference like this on the Lenovo Z61m i used to have. Wasn't an issue on my newer T60 widescreen. It goes to the quality of the VGA output.

 

For some reason the new laptops screen settings are set high, makes it look washed out. I find a lot of budget LCD panels have these washed out settings to.

Go into you're nVidia control panel and set the color settings for you're notebook to 45, 45 and 25 in that order for the available sliders, that'll solve the notebooks screen. The external monitor settings you'll have to play with it varies screen to screen. You can tune each screen individually in the nVidia control panel.

It's a shame laptops monitors don't have the same menu setting option like a desktop monitor would have or a TV for example.

This washed out appearance issue is because of the nVidia card.

Problem should be solved.

 

Are you talking about adjusting the Brightness, Contrast, and Gamma in the nvidia color settings to 45, 45, 25? All that did was make my laptop screen darker. I fooled with some of my color settings on my external Dell LCD and I have the brightness set to 100% but it's just as bright or colorful at all compared to how it looks hooked up to my desktop machine or my Lenovo laptop VGA. I ordered a 3ft. HDMI -> DVI cable just now from monoprice though so I'll try that out.

 

Strange, my method fixed the washed out colors on my notebook screen perfectly.
Environmental differences, I suppose in this case.

 

I noticed the same thing when hooking up to my 2007WFP. Analog (VGA) never cut it, even with my old inspiron 9100. I think some computers put out a more powerful signal, but from both of my Dells it would flicker on high detail areas of pictures and just look generally bad. I used a DVI cable on my inspiron, but had to buy a new one for my m1330.

Moral of the story: get an HDMI-->DVI cord, it was worth every penny, and the picture looks incredible, huge difference.

EDIT- just saw you ordered one. It will be perfect, completely got rid of my interference issues and the colors look great. I got a belkin PUREAV 3ft cable for $40 from Dell, for the record.

 

I'd hope a digital signal looks better then analog, who would have ever guessed..

 

Hey, some people still listen to records.

 

Normally on a lot of LCD's you can't hardly tell any difference at all between running VGA and DVI if you're getting good VGA output. Some LCD's are more noticeable than others when on DVI. The point is that the VGA sucks on this M1330 and it's not nearly as good as the VGA on previous laptops I have used this display on.

 

I'm on HDMI now and the digital signal looks a little better but my LCD still doesn't look as bright as it should be and it looks a little blurry/hazy. Is anyone else noticing this problem on an external display?

 

No, sorry to report that my HDMI to DVI cable gave me every glorious bit out of the ultrasharp 2007wfp from my m1330 that I was used to with my previous computer. How long have you had the LCD? have you tried it on another computer? How is te quality of the cable you got? I went for belkin's pureav hdmi-dvi cable for the record, after almost getting a budget cable from newegg.

 

As far as HDMI cables go they're all going to give you near exactly the same output whether they cost $100 or $5. The signal is digital so unless you buy a real crappy one there shouldn't be any quality loss there, especially since you're probably only dealing with around a 6' cable. If you were talking 30'+ cables then yeah maybe a higher quality one would be better than a lower quality one. I buy mine from Monoprice.com because they're cheap but also very good quality. It's where most people from AVS forum purchase their cables.

But anyhow, I just got done testing my 2007wfp on my m1330 again over the HDMI as well as hooking it up to m1210 over VGA (analog) and looking at the same web page in Vista using Internet Explorer the output looks noticeably better on the M1210. On the m1330 the text is blurred and the output just looks more washed out. I guess it could possibly be a driver issue but I've used both the Dell drivers and these newer WHQL nVidia drivers. Anyone got any suggestions?

 

Very odd. Since you mention drivers I can tell you I'm running the 165.01 drivers from laptopvideo2go, and instead of using the generic driver for a monitor I've gotten my system to retrieve the specific driver online, resulting in it being listed under display settings as "Dell 2007WFP (Digital) on NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS." Also, have you upgraded to BIOS version A06? It includes a BIOS update for the video card, in case you didn't know. Assuming, however, that this isn't software related, your next move might be to request a new motherboard. After seeing the difference between the VGA and HDMI outputs with my 2007WFP, I just assumed that digital made the difference, but this makes we wonder whether the ports may have a hardware issue somewhere, and that mine only surfaced for the VGA, whereas yours has hit on both.

 

I'll test mine when I get home.

But heres a theory bit random and no idea if its right. Due to the fact the VGA outpust is extremly close to both the AC power input and the CPU it could be picking up interferance from those.

So what freqency of power do you have in your country (I know teh AC adapter is supposed to make it DC but it won't be perfect so there will still be some fluctuation and therefor EM feilds created). Secondly what processor speed do you have becasue I have no idea what frequency a VGA sugnal runs at but it is possible if it is some multiple of the CPU frequency it is picking up slight interfearance from that.

 

Perhaps it didn't make much difference with my cheaper E228WFP. Tried it with Analog and don't notice any difference.

I'm using 163.44 on Bios Revision A06...for what its worth.

My HDMI --> DVI cable is a cheap 15bux generic type, and I didn;t bother to install any drivers for my Monitor.

 

Yes & no. I browsed all posts in this thread but no one touched upon resolution, interpolation & function (Cloning vs. Spanning).

I have a BenQ FP241W 24" P-MVA with HDMI/DVI & VGA I/P interfaces and I tested both the HDMI2HDMI & VGA connections.

Both interfaces proved problematic when I was in Clone mode - the main reason being the FP241W considered 1280x800 an invalid resolution and defaulted to 1024x768. Clearly everything was wrong with that image, including said fuzzy, washed-out look etc. This is however clearly an issue with the FP241W's firmware & not the M1330 or nVidia drivers

When I used the VGA connection in Spanning mode, I got a (relatively) good 1920x1200 image - and this was really the resolution as noted on the Forceware info screen (not interpolated). This is actually surprising because Dell's M1330 Service Manual states:

"Maximum digital resolution 1280x1024, Maximum analog resolution 1600x1200." Maybe the Service manual needs updating, dunno what's up with that...

When using HDMI, the FP241W automatically defaulted to 1080p which is 1920x1080. The problem here is that this is a 16:9 ratio and of course not optimal for a 16x10 environment, thus my "desktop" got chopped on the top & bottom... .

Bottom line, Im only satisfied with the output in VGA, spanning mode. And so I'm wondering what modes your have tried & what resolutions and/or interpolation modes you are using when you experience your wash-out, etc...

 

The 2007WFP has a native resolution of 1680x1050, which is what I'm running and assumed everyone else was talking about. The m1330 has no problem supporting it using HDMI or VGA. Just to make sure I guess, you are running the native res right burningrave?

 

Just curious...... which screen? CMO or T??
Do you remember the default settings (anyone)?

 

My E228WFP runs native 1680 x 1050. usually in Spanning mode (both as Primary and secondary monitor), Although once, the M1330 got itself confused and would only run the built-in screen in 1280 x 768 as a secondary screen until a reboot. Couldn't replicate the problem.

I would assume everyone was running native rez, or this discussion is moot.

 

That's a logical assumption for DualView (spanning) but not as clear in Clone mode 'cause you can go with 1:1, interpolate - but keep aspect ratio or full screen mode (regardless of a.r.) and all three of these options can be controlled by nVidia or by the monitor...