Did I make a Major Monitor Mistake??

[JohnGalt_ny]

Hi all,

I've heard on various fora that the Dell 2209WA is the cat's nuts for photography processing. So I bought one.

Got it last night, fired it up and oh my god, my images are distorted to death. I do model shoots and every image looks fat and short.

I probably should have expected this on a 16:9 monitor but there are no manual screen adjustments so I can't narrow the view.

Before I decide I blew it, can anyone tell me how to adjust the settings or do anything else to give me correct views of images?

Thanks in advance.

[LibertyHeir]

Did your system detect the hardware change? If not, go into the video properties and change the monitor/resolution.

Right click anywhere on the 'desktop', select 'properties' from the dropdown menu, select the 'settings' tab, click on the 'advanced' button. This should give you access to the means of correcting the problem.

Have you installed the video driver for the Dell? It would have come on a CD with the monitor. Updated drivers can be obtained from Dell.

Just a few quick things that come to mind, hope it helps.

[JohnGalt_ny]

Thanks Liberty.

I got the drivers off the Dell site, the monitor is installed and reducing the resolution didn't help. All good ideas.

[swampler]

What resolution did you pick? Not to be insulting, but to rule it out, you did pick one of the widescreen resolutions didn't you? You should always run an LCD monitor at it's native resolution as well (mine is 1680 x 1050).

[Latinbob]

What resolution are you running it at? It should be set at 1680 x 1050.

Bob

[JohnGalt_ny]

Thanks guys. It's at 1680x1050 and 60 Mhz refresh rate. I tried the lower resolution 10?? x 780 with no result.

It may just be that the wide screen isn't what I thought.

[LibertyHeir]

Have you verified that you have the latest drivers for the display adapter? It's located in the hardware device manager (assuming you're running a flavor of Windows).

[swampler]

Sounds like you have it set correctly. Maybe update your video card drivers as well as the monitor drivers? I'll think on it some more, but that should be all you have to do.

[JohnGalt_ny]

Thanks Guys.

Steve - I took the driver off the Dell website and the monitor is showing up as the default in device driver. Obviously, XP has recognized it and is using the Dell driver. Interesting thought about the video drivers. Mine is resident on the motherboard so I'll do some hunting tonight.

Thanks for the continued help.

[cadmium]

I own 2 of these, my wife and mother also own them.

LCD's only have one resolution they work at properly, which in this case is 1680 x 1050, so there is no point trying anything else. That said, widescreen or no, the image should not be distorted. One thing to check, on the monitor itself is make sure the display mode (actually I'm not sure what it's called, but look through the on-screen menu) is set to 16:9 widescreen and not 4:3 mode.

[felix.reichardt]

Originally Posted by cadmium

I own 2 of these, my wife and mother also own them.

LCD's only have one resolution they work at properly, which in this case is 1680 x 1050, so there is no point trying anything else. That said, widescreen or no, the image should not be distorted. One thing to check, on the monitor itself is make sure the display mode (actually I'm not sure what it's called, but look through the on-screen menu) is set to 16:9 widescreen and not 4:3 mode.

Correct, widescreen does have nothing to do with the image being distorted. That woudl make no sence at all. Something with your settings wrong for sure. Another thought - maybe your built-in graphics card can't handle that screens resolution?

[seab3]

Not all video cards support 16:9 properly (or at all for that matter)
If you fonts look all weird, chances are you need to upgrade your card...

Richard

[swampler]

Originally Posted by seab3

Not all video cards support 16:9 properly (or at all for that matter)
If you fonts look all weird, chances are you need to upgrade your card...

Richard

Would the card even offer the widescreen resolution if it didn't support it?

[cadmium]

Originally Posted by swampler

Would the card even offer the widescreen resolution if it didn't support it?

In general no, it wouldn't. If all else fails you can get a card that supports that monitor for at little as $30, but I doubt that's the problem.

[JohnGalt_ny]

Again, thanks for all the suggestions guys.

I'll take another look but the 2209WA only has "auto-adjustment" on the front panel.

The video onboard supports 1650 x 1080 and that's my setting. I assume it wouldn't show up in "Settings" if it wawsn't available. I did just notice another set of OSD settings. If I can find that, it may help.

[kewk]

Originally Posted by JohnGalt_ny

Again, thanks for all the suggestions guys.

I'll take another look but the 2209WA only has "auto-adjustment" on the front panel.

The video onboard supports 1650 x 1080 and that's my setting. I assume it wouldn't show up in "Settings" if it wawsn't available. I did just notice another set of OSD settings. If I can find that, it may help.

OSD is On Screen Display. That has nothing to do with your issue. Is 1650x1080 a typo? Because it should be 1680x1050. Just for troubleshooting sake can you take a screenshot of your desktop? Just press your "Print Screen" button then open up whatever image editing application you have and create a new file then press CTRL+V. Save it out then upload it somewhere (imageshack.us photobucket.com ect) then paste the URL here?

To be extra thorough attach your dxdiag to your reply also... to do this click start > run > type in dxdiag. Now click save all information and save it some where you will remember then attach it here. With this information it will alleviate any further questions about hardware, drivers, and compatibility.

[cadmium]

Originally Posted by JohnGalt_ny

Again, thanks for all the suggestions guys.

I'll take another look but the 2209WA only has "auto-adjustment" on the front panel.
...
I did just notice another set of OSD settings. If I can find that, it may help.

There's definitely more settings than auto adjustments. If it's set to 4:3 it will override anything else, which could be it. But you would probably have notice the black bars on the sides.

[JohnGalt_ny]

Thanks Kewk and Cad. I'll check everything again tonight.

[JohnGalt_ny]

To all who responded THANK YOU for your help.

I went into the OSD menu, changed the display setting to 4:3 and voila, my images look correct. Since my 450D shoots 4:3 I'll stay there for PS work.

[kewk]

Originally Posted by JohnGalt_ny

To all who responded THANK YOU for your help.

I went into the OSD menu, changed the display setting to 4:3 and voila, my images look correct. Since my 450D shoots 4:3 I'll stay there for PS work.

Sounds to me like you put a band-aid on your issue and completely negated the purpose of having a widescreen monitor. Do you, now, have vertical black bars on each side of your monitor?