Compal EL80 video 'smears' on LCD

Hi,

So I've purchased my EL80, and I have a weird issue, it's something I've been seeing before on my TFT screen hooked to my stationary pc, due to it (at least that's what I reckoned) having being hooked through a standard, analog VGA cable, there were these 'lines' coming up and down in a rhythmical manner through the entire width of the screen.

I see similar ones now, if I place the LCD at a certain angle and look closely, there seem to be horizontal 'lines' going through the lcd as if there was some sort of interference maybe?

My question then, how is the LCD hooked to the onboard gf7600? Is it a DVI/out ? or is it done over a simple VGA-out? That would explain the analog possible 'interference' and hence the lines on the screen.

Any ways to get read of them? Any information is appreciated.

Cheers,

//m.

 

That's usually caused when the internal LCD ribbon is "broken" (opening and closing the hinge can sometimes pinch these if not locked tied properly), or the LCD has been overheated / torqued at a funny angle.

If you have a warranty, I'd go for the support from them.

 

Well, it seems as if I may be not explaining it correctly - the issue is, that well, I can see everything perfect on the screen and the picture is well crisp, it's not so much lines as 'ripples' rather, they move from bottom to top, as if the signal was somehow distorted slightly, like if some external noise was coming in between it. They are really not that easy to see altogether, you'd have to really try and search for them, also they;re not always there, I'd suspect more in when I play games or so - that woud mean the noise's coming off from the graphics card somehow- maybe carried on through the fan over the thermal duct? eek... I wouldn't even want to begin getting ideas

Would that also mean a busted ribbon? The book is indeed on guarantee, but the shop's far far away located (about 400km from where I live, got it off the local ebay) so it's not really a fun trip to take for such minor really issue - I was thinking more something is causing distortion rather than the cable, you killed a bit of joy there

 

Maybe some Electromagnetic ripples? Have a nice set a speakers nearby? or a CRT? Anything electronic? Even some cellphones... Might be worth sniffing around.. Also make sure to verify that the power outlet is REALLY grounded (testers are a few bucks) and if you can, isolate the machine on it's own circuit in your home (just temporary to test)

 

Aye, I might give it a go once I take my battery out the freezer, tho that's not too good for it then again I suppose, taking it out and in like that, I just put it in there yesterday or so.

I might take a look at another power outlet. Fact is, the one I'm using now has also this somewhat powerful lamp hooked onto it, which has been repeatedly causing some disturbances, minor as they were, to other electronic devices.

As I know it ought not be that way, the electrician who fixed this place up was a complete muppet and didn't know his way about too well - I suppose I could get hold of these stabilizers or so one might plug in between the power supply and the mains ?

Regards,

//m.

 

This may probably be irrelevant, but that used to happen in some of the 3D games I've played on my HEL80. Turned out that the problem was with the screen refresh rate. Once I set it higher, the problem was gone.

 

I've fiddled with the settngs in xorg.conf for my lcd so it gets the proper capabilities from ddc, the issue seems a lot less noticable, I;ll check if it's really the case, and if so, I reckon the thread could be deleted/closed sorry for any inconvieniece eh.

cheers,

//m.

 

You can get a simple ground tester from places like Wal-mart and target, it's only a couple dollar's and very handy. That would be a simple tool.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Receptacle-Test...ryZ25413QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Then there are things like these:

http://www.powernotebooks.com/product.php?itemId=1844 (if you are having a ground issue)

or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882637006 if you have power problems (older dwellings)

**********************************************************
That lamp would flag me as a trigger for your problem, especially if it has halogen or some non-incandescent bulb technology.

 

xorg? Check your xv motion compensation settings (make sure it's enabled). If you don't have video acceleration enabled, you will get those kinds of smearing and tearing of video. I have changed the file pointed to in /etc/X11/XvMCConfig from "libXvMC.so.1" to "libXvMCNVIDIA.so.1", which solved a lot of my video clarity issues. I can play HD video with no problems whatsoever. This is assuming that you have the proprietary NVIDIA drivers installed, of course.

 

Yes, it is indeed a non-incadesctent, but a halogen lamp. No matter, it seems to cause slight issues with lamp off as well, then again i suppose it might be to do with it just being plugged in? or not at all with the lamp, rather with the graphics card. I'll keep checking it out.

As for the moion compenstation, thanks, I've read some info it's done by creating a /etc/X11/XvMCConfig file with libXvMCNVIDIA_dynamic.so.1 as it's only content.

I;ll check it out later how it performs. regards!

//m.

 

Hey dude

I have the same problem

i know exactly what you mean

im starting to think its just a bad build. not like..bad..but somthings to close to somthing because it makes our ex. lcds ripple.

if you will notice, uplugging the laptop from dc power stops this. no matter where you plug in ur laptop. it will do this. i ran an extension cord to a friends house next door. and it still did it lol.

theres really no fix.

u will notice as the battery charges fully and it is plugged in the ripples slow down.

ive learned to live with it.

theres not much of a fix.

sucks.



unless...


there is....lol

 

Could disassemble the lid on the notebook, their might be something inside applying pressure to the back of the LCD.

 

I'll probably be disassembling the machine some time soon as I wish to apply AS5 to graphics and cpu (wish this box was more like an asus asj69 or however the model is spelled, it has a neatly accessed one latch on the bottom where you take off the heatsink for graphics and cpu with one go and a lot more other things for that matter :/). I might then take a look inside the screen but i'd preferably not to. the only thing that really bugs me is how loud the machine is with its constant fanning, the screen doesn't bother me that much.

 

That XvMC change didn't help you? I've had very few problems with my machine (check the sig). But I do run Kubuntu, so it may be something Arch specific. The fan stuff was fixed when I updated my BIOS, I don't nearly notice it as much any more, especially not on battery power. I just ran the Harry Potter video trailer at 720p full-screen on my laptop last night, and it was very crisp, all the fast motion was perfectly rendered. I really doubt that it's a hardware issue, I'd bet that it's more of a software issue.

 

aye, the XvMC did improve things slightly, tho the issue's a bit tricky as it mostly appears only during certain operations, and not always.

anyway i've now seen another, a bit worse (a lot worse actually) issue. it comes up when I play 'savage: the battle for newerth'. the game incorporates night/day changes, and when the day is dawning, i see absolutely terrible static smears that look like lcd liquids, from left to right... it's thrilling to see that, and I'm really wondering wether it's software or not. after all, it only is visible with certain colours. and testing later just after exiting the game with R/G/B fullscreen colours opened up doesnt show those either... pretty scary stuff. it certainly doesn't look like if it's rendered tho, since when I move the screen around in the game, the lines remain in place as hardcoded into the laptop screen.

the problem with the fan is another story, i've already opened up a different thread in regards to that, i think mine's just a bit 'off' and needs either replacing or some good teflonic smearing.

cheers,

//m.

 

You sure you're running in 24bit color, and not 16 or something? Any chance you could take some pics and post them (like, with a digital camera)? It wouldn't be a bad idea anyway, just for proof if you have to go through an RMA or return process. I'm downloading the game as we speak, I'll install it and play it tonight, see if I run into the same issues on my machine. If you have a video file on your hard drive that replicates that behavior, you might try downloading an Ubuntu LiveCD and playing the video or using a different OS to verify that it's hardware, rather than software.

 

yeah, well, it *looks* hardware I unfortunately don't have any better camera than the one on my k750i, and despite being quite good as far as mobile phone digital cameras go, it still won't beat a standalone device.

I'll try to catch it somewhere on film tho. try savage anyway, it's a pretty neat game

I've now tried setting 'by force' vertical refresh to '60' in xorg.conf, since kde settings claim it's 50Hz now. maybe that'd change something. I'll see. like i said before, it's a tricky 'error' since it's not always there and a lot of it trying to find out what is causing it is guesswork.

regards,

//m.