Screen display variation in new R61

Well, my new R61 seems real solid, but there is one issue. The quality of text display on the screen varies depending on location on the screen. Roughly, speaking, in the top half of the screen the text display is beautiful, really solid and sharp (since I turned on ClearType). But on part of the bottom half, it gets lighter and harder to read. It's not imposible to read, but it's annoying. For example, if one calls up "All Programs" (this is Windows XP), the variation in quality between the display quality of the names of the programs listed first, and those listed lower down, is dramatic. Is this something that I should just learn to live with, or something that really requires dealing with? I guess I hoped that the problem would just go away, but it hasn't. I just about half convince myself to just live with it, until I look at the top half of the screen, which is really enjoyable to read. The bottom isn't. Any advice, anyone?

 

Which Video Card do you have? If you have the 140M, you can adjust the desktop color settings in the NVIDIA Control Panel. Try and disable Gamma and Adjust the Brightness/Digital Vibrance/Contrast.

But other than that, it's called light leakage; More light is coming from the bottom than the top, thus making text/images more washed out near the bottom. There isn't much you can do about it.

 

I'd say it's the LCD itself...not its backlight. Some LCDs just have a freaking annoying, really narrow viewing angle.

 

Ah, it's good to hear from you again, Arkit3kt.

So this is what people meant by light leakage. I had read a few comments about this on the forum, but I never knew what people were talking about. Now I know what agitated them. This really is not good, and not something I would expect. I don't recall it at all on my previous laptop.

It seems odd that Lenovo would allow this on ThinkPads. Odd as it may seem, the keyboard (which is excellent, as usual for ThinkPads) and the display are most key parts of a laptop. They affect one every moment of one's usage of the computer.

And hmm, I wouldn't have imagined that adjusting various display controls would have much effect, as what would cure the bottom might disturb the top. However, it's academic for my R61, I guess, since I have integrated graphics, Intel GMA X3100 GM965, not NVidia.

So it turns out that this is just something I have to live with, and Lenovo has no sympathy with? Well, it's good to know, so I don't waste time butting my head against a wall.

 

Which LCD manufacturer did you get, comvox?

 

Meekus, thanks for commenting. But If I understand you right, you identify the problem with the inolerance of many LCDs for various viewing angles. But it seems to me, however, that the problem I have exists at any viewing angle. It does seem that the problem gets worse if I, in trying to read something, get too close to the screen. But I tend to look at the R61 directly, and even at the right distance and angle, there's a problem.

 

comvox, do me a favor?

I also have this same issue on my screen, it's just uneven brightness, but maybe not as bad as yours. This is how I first noticed it:

Go to this page: http://tweakxp.com/

There are paintbrush logos tiled evenly in the background of that site. Do you see the paintbrushes at the top and not really at the bottom?

 

Arkit3kt, is there a way for me to check quickly which LCD manufacturer I had? Seeing your question I tried to check back on past discussion on how to find out which LCD manufacturer one has, but so far I haven't succeeded. I did find a long number for my "ThinkPad Display 1200x800". Actually, I found two long numbers, back of which start with Lenovo4031. But that's as far as I have gotten so far.

Wait, while I have been trying to do this, you posted again, asking me to look at a certain website and see how my screen displayed this. I haven't connected my ThinkPad to the internet yet, but I guess that should be easy to do. So just give me a few moments...

 

Go here to find out the manufacturer of your system parts: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/s...=/partslookup/partsLookup.vm&sitestyle=lenovo

The numbers you need are in your email in the electronic receipt invoice. It looks something like this:


Of course I'm not going to totally expose my serial #.

 

I was about to reply again and lost the reply on the screen, so I hope this isn't a duplicate reply.

First, I have to apologize to Meekus. In going to the website that Arkit3kt asked me to, I had to change the location of my ThinkPad (as I had been connecting to the Internet with my desktop). I ended up changing the direction of the external lighting of the TP, and also the physical angle of the screen. Up to now, I had experimented with changing the angle with which I looked at the screen, but not the physical angle of the screen itself. Duh. It turns out that this makes a big difference, just as you said, Meekus. It doesn't eliminate the problem -- at least, not unless I put the screen so far down, almost to horizontal, that it really is not a good way to look at the screen. But it makes the screen look better everywhere so that the problem is substantially mitigated. So thank you, Meekus. And I just seem to be overlooking the obvious so much in my beginning setup of the R61... (But I had a laptop before, really, I did....)

Arkit3kt, I went to the site you asked me to. Depending on the physical angle of the LCD screen, I either don't see the paintbrush logos anywhere, or see them only on the top half of the screen, or see them everywhere on the screen. At the physical angle I had the screen before (which was almost vertical), it is hard to see the logos anywhere on the screen, but they were faintly visible at the top.

I'll go try to check out my screen manufacturer, but that will take a few more moments.

And thank you for your patience with me, Arkit3kt and Meekus. I seem to be overlooking things. But without someone to talk to about these things, I just don't seem to make any progress in this.

 

Well, I found out from the Lenovo page that the FRU of my R61's LCD screen is 42T0410, and the manufacturers part # is 42T0443. I am not sure how to translate these into finding out who the manufacturer is. But I googled for these numbers, and the consensus seems to be that they are Samsung numbers. Is that significant?

 

Not really. I also have the Samsung LCD, so our displays are probably the same.

 

The panel on my main 19" Samsung monitor (940MW) is the same way; the paintbrush site that Arki (can I call you Arki? lol) linked has the paintbrushes darker on the top than the bottom.

However, the Samsung panel on my R61 doesn't seem to exhibit that problem, so maybe the panel gods were feeling cranky the day your laptop was built and decided to give you a crappy panel