[Walker]

I just recently bought a used dell lcd monitor (i've been using the same old hunk o' junk since 99 before this).

Everything looks fine until I look at stuff like screenshots, or large pictures that seem to turn out grainy. Does anyone know of some troubleshooting I can do to fix this? I have the color quality to the highest (32 bit) and the resolution is set at 1024 x 768.

Any ideas?

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Check to see what the native resolution of the display is. If you do not run it at that, it will not look right (been there, done that).

[Kemasa]

Check to see what the native resolution of the display is. If you do not run it at that, it will not look right (been there, done that).

[Titan8990]

I usually find that LCD monitors always look a bit off when hooked up with VGA as opposed to DVI. Follow the step in the post above me.

[Walker]

how do i know what the native resolution is? even when i put regular windows wallpapers up (such as the red sand wallpaper) they look grainy.

[Titan8990]

If it is only your desktop that is grainy then it is because the image is being stetched to fit your entire monitor. Try to find higher resolution wallpapers. Typically (not always) your native resolution is the maximum you can set it.

[Walker]

it's actually like that on all high res pics, i was just trying to give you guys an idea by mentioning a well known general windows image. sorry for any confusion!

it even blurs small thumbnails such as the pictures of friends that show up in messages.

[Walker]

any suggestions?

[Titan8990]

Is this monitor hooked up with a VGA or DVI connector?

Is the monitor widescreen? 1024x768 is a standard 4:3 aspect ratio and will not look right on a widescreen monitor.

Can you post some screen shots?

[Walker]

i will post some screenshots when i get a chance to get on my desktop. how do i check to see if it's vga or a dvi connector? let me know what to look for please.


and no, it is not a widescreen monitor.

i watched some special features from a dvd on it last night and the picture came up very clear, if that helps.

[Titan8990]

You can see what the different connectors look like here:

[Troy]

I'm guessing you could try a bunch of different drivers for your video card, I've had this problem before. Using an ATI card, when I had Catalyst 7.4, everything was fine, then I upgraded, and it was just wonky for a while, and then 7.7 on fixed it again...

So try updating (or down-dating) your drivers and see if that helps.

[Walker]

it is definitely a vga connection, i will try to get updated/downdated tomorrow when i have some free time. i am on a very unreliable connection so it might take some time to deal with the drivers. thanks guys!