First Card since GeForce256, extreme dissapointment

[Wraith]

As the title says, I've been using ATI cards since I upgraded my old 256 YEARS ago. I just got a new laptop and it has a mobile 280 in it.

I've connected my monitor, a Westinghouse 1920x1200 L2410NM, via HDMI out. The entire display looks like garbage. It's grainy, washed out and the text looks jagged. It actually HURTS my eyes to look at it! It's not the cable, I've tried two. It's not the monitor, I've been using it with HDMI for months.

I'm using a fresh Windows 7 install and the latest forceware drivers straight from the nvidia website.

Does anyone have ANY idea why my display looks like this? There's nothing in the settings I can change that makes this go away, I'm about to claw my eyes out.

[Badbonji]

That sounds odd, never had a problem like that before... Looks like the card could be faulty or something wrong with the connector at the back. Have you contacted the laptop's manufacturer?

[Wraith]

I've been looking into it all damn night. It looks like a problem with the crappy nvidia drivers. I should have stuck with ATI. Figures all these years nvidia users have tried to bash ati users for crappy drivers and now I'm going through this hell just to get my monitor working.

Check this out http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?act=ST&f=33&t=75746

It's a shame I dont have nv_disp.inf, nv4_disp.inf or nv_disp_win7.inf.

I thought I had my solution there, but no luck. Looks like I'm back to square 1

More information on this bug nvidia has decided to ignore http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=58483&st=120

[ratbuddy]

Why don't you just connect the monitor with a VGA cable?

[rainless]

I've been looking into it all damn night. It looks like a problem with the crappy nvidia drivers. I should have stuck with ATI. http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=58483&st=120


Hahahahaha!

For every person experiencing that problem you probably have 10,000 people that are doing fine.

I've never had anything BUT problems from ATI drivers. Hell... my boss recently had hell on earth setting up two monitors using an ATI card.

That said, there are millions of people who are doing fine.

I mean there are several problems with your post that I'm amazed nobody's addressed.

1. You never even gave the NAME or manufacturer of your laptop! (That's like the first place you go when you're having problems with one.)
2. The automatic assuption is that it's just the graphics CHIP... not the manufacturer-implemented use of HDMI... not the bios maybe... not even the connector... but it has to be the 280 chip? I don't care who says they had a problem with their 280, that has yet to be proven in your case.
3. You ask "Why does my screen look like this?" But we don't have any idea what the hell your screen looks like! hahahhaha :)

I mean could you take a picture of it or something? Or find some examples?

You could be going after a red herring.

[Wraith]

I fixed it after extracting my monitors EDID with a utility I found online and editing a registry value.

1) Its a Clevo D900f

2) the issue happens on other nvidia cards after to 7 series. It's been almost two years now with no patch from nvidia. I had previously been running two monitors with my HD3200 laptop and Hd4870 with no issues.

3) Tried, the pictures dont come out on my crappy digital camera

[nicspits]

I've built a few mcpcs for folks and I always stress the use of ATI cards as nvidia cards to TVs, lcd, projection, or otherwise tends to be a pain in the butt in my experience. ATI cards and drivers, on the other hand have never done weird things like not showing the taskbar (and no it wasn't just a resize issue), having to hook up a monitor and enable the tv manually, etc etc. Ever since the x1950 pro (agp version), twas a sinch, geforce 8 series downright ticked me off trying to do it.

I haven't done it with any of the 2xx series cards, but i'm curious, did they ever add in the feature where you could move the display's around relatively. IE you don't always have to go to the right for your second display (very annoying if your TV is on top of your monitor, or to the left). I did hate ATI's 9xxx drivers back when they were first out, lol.

[EchoTheDolphin]

Westinghouse monitors are only a step above most extreme entry level monitors in terms of quality IMHO. What you probably need to do is find up to date drivers for the monitor, I know it sounds goofy, but it helped alot on my current HTPC setup.

I haven't had any trouble with either my ATI or my nvidia system in either regard, just check drivers and cables. Modern cards are rarely the fault in and of themselves.

[Godfather1138]

I had the same issue you described when I connected my new Hanns-G 1920x1080 via HDMI. I thought I had issues with the new display until I found this little setting in the NV Control Panel called "Change the Signal or HD Format." I set it to 1080p HDTV and haven't had an issue. Image is great, but looked exactly as you described yours was at first.

You may have tried that prior to all your searching, but if not you might make sure it is set for true HD.

[Wraith]

I tried that godfather, no dice.

I fixed the problem with the registy hack though, so it's all good. I agree that the westinghouse is an entry level monitor, but thats no excuse to need to dig through my registry to make it work, especially when the actual operation only took 30 seconds to pull the monitor data and type it in.

I knew the card wasnt faulty, it's the nvidia drivers that cause the issue. As I said, they worked just fine on my two ATI cards.

[rainless]

I've built a few mcpcs for folks and I always stress the use of ATI cards as nvidia cards to TVs, lcd, projection, or otherwise tends to be a pain in the butt in my experience. ATI cards and drivers, on the other hand have never done weird things like not showing the taskbar (and no it wasn't just a resize issue), having to hook up a monitor and enable the tv manually, etc etc.

Oh YEAH? Like I said above I've had nothing but problems from ATI drivers. I don't even go that route anymore. Me, my boss, and everybody I know. (I had a buddy who had hell on earth just getting Fallout 3 to work.)

Maybe it's just a Chicago thing! hahahaha! :)

Last great ATI card I had was a 9800PRO. I couldn't be more impressed with a video card of that era. Had it laying around in a box for the longest time and I just happened to throw it in my system one day... I absolutely couldn't believe it. I wished I'd started using it a long time ago!

Now everything is more or less homogenized. There isn't much to differentiate a 4890 from a 260GTX. (Or a 285 or whatever.) But I hate Catalyst. I hate that you need the .Net framework just to install it. I'm still kind of mad at ATI for their decade of Linux abuse (one of the reasons I didn't install that 9800 earlier.)

It's really in the eye of the beholder. Once you go down the road of ATI or NVIDIA... it's really hard to turn around and go the other way.