Laptop bothering my eyes. Uneven screen with shadows.

defenstration

Recently bought a Dell Inspiron 9400 and it seems to be giving my eyes a bitta trouble. Have been working in IT for the past 4 years and have been sitting in front of a screen all that time without it bothering my eyes at all, so this would seem to be a problem with the laptop or the way I have the display configured.

It uses an ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 display adaptor. I've played around with the settings on this (gamma, brightness and contrast) and while I've managed to improve things a bit, I'm still having trouble. Not sure if it is glare or what but I always feel my eyes straining when I'm trying to read from or concentrate on the screen.

Can you buy anti-glare screen covers for laptops? I'm sure you can? If so, any advice on what ones to get and/or what to look out for?

Another thing I've noticed is that the screen seems a bit uneven in the way that light reflects off it. This could be what is messing with my eyes either. Hard to describe but it seems to be moreso towards the left hand side of the screen that there are shadows. If I move my head to the left then the shadows disappear. Any ideas on what could be done there? Would this be common for laptops or should I be getting onto Dell about this?

petes

http://www.geocities.com/introduction2computers/computers-and-health.htm

Haven't really heard too much about this. Do you wear glasses? If so, do you need a new pair? Does it have a truelife screen?

defenstration

Not sure if it is a Truelife scrren. The spec says:
17" Wide Screen WXGA (1440x900) TFT Display
Does "TFT" denote Truelife?

Never wore glasses, and never needed them.

It doesn't seem to be a problem with the way light is reflected off the screen because if I bring the laptop into a completely dark room, I notice the same problems.

defenstration

Says on the document you gave me that the refresh rate should be 70Hz or over. Mine is set to 60Hz, and that is the only option available (in Display Settings -> Advanced -> Monitor). Does anyone know how I could change this or if it is even possible to change this?

defenstration

Also says in the document that higher resolutions may have inadequate refresh rates, so I should find the highest resolution that provides an adequate refresh rate. Thing is though that even though there are 6 or 7 resolutions to choose from, there is only one widescreen resolution, which is1400x900. Anyone know if there is any way I can download patches or something that would provide me with a few more widescreen resolutions (and refresh rates)?

defenstration

Basically, the problem is that the light coming from the screen is not covering the whole screen uniformly - some parts of the screen seem to get more light than others, depending on the position of my head in relation to the screen. That's what I mean when I say "shadows".
Is that standard for laptops?

Capt'n Midnight

60Hz is standard for LCD displays, laptop or monitor,
70Hz and higher are really for modern CRT that have fast phosphors, very old ( early 1980's) CRT's are fine at 60Hz.

what resolution are you using on the screen and does it match the number of pixels 1:1 ?

if your eyesight isn't perfect then 1440 on a small screen may just be too small, try large fonts to see if that makes a difference

the light is provided by a fluorscent lamp usually on the right hand side edge of the screen

defenstration

Have changed to large fonts and set the DPI to a bit larger than it was, but after using it again, I still think it is the light or glare coming from the screen that is bothering me. What you've said about the lamp being on the rhs of the screen would probably explain the uneven lighting of the screen, so there's probably nothing I can do about that. Can you get anti-glare screen covers for laptops?

Tom Dunne

defenstration wrote:

Does "TFT" denote Truelife?

TFT = Thin Film Transistor, it's what the screen is made from.

Does the laptop screen have an extra light for using it in a darkened room? On my IBM, there is a key combination that activates a small light that illuminates the keyboard. The light is in the top-middle of the screen and shines down on the screen and onto the keyboard. From what Capt'n Midnight is saying, you may have one on that model of laptop, do you?

Can you post up pictures (not a screen shot, a picture taken with a digital camera). Apart from the above, I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

TempestSabre

Might be a faulty screen. Try comparing it against some others.

defenstration

Yeah, plan on doing that. Compared it to an older Dell yesterday and that one didn't seem to be as bad, but it wasn't a widescreen. Will compare it to another widescreen and see. For the moment, I'm just wearing sunglasses and it seems to be helping!

At the moment, I'm looking to set my contrast, brightness, gamma etc, correctly. Thing is though, it's too bright when I have the laptop plugged in and too dark when I have it on battery power. Any way of switching this off so that it has the same level of brightness regardless of whether it is plugged in or not?
There are "Powerplay" settings on my graphics card but no matter what I set them to, it doesn't make any difference. I realise this is common practise with laptops, but surely there is some way of setting it up so that the level of power running through the lamp or whatever it is that lights the screen, is the same at all times?

Cheers for all yer help so far lads. And Tom, sorry but I don't have the camera with me at the mo, so no chance of taking photos of the problem.

Ghost Train

most laptops will have a keys to adjust the brightness settings. for the 9400 pressing the function key and up and down arrows should do it (if you can't adjust the screen backlight you might not have some driver installed)

TempestSabre

Most laptops can set the default brighness levels on AC or battery in the power profiles.

defenstration

Cheers eolhc - the function key+arrow keys allowed be to change the brightness, and it was this setting that allowed me to set a common brightness level regardless of whether the laptop was plugged in or running off the battery.

Is there a similar way of using the function key to change the contrast?

You say "if you can't adjust the screen backlight you might not have some driver installed" - does the fact that I can set the brightness in the above manner mean that I can adjust the screen backlight? I presume that is what changing the brightness involves?

Ghost Train

defenstration wrote:

Cheers eolhc - the function key+arrow keys allowed be to change the brightness, and it was this setting that allowed me to set a common brightness level regardless of whether the laptop was plugged in or running off the battery.

Is there a similar way of using the function key to change the contrast?

You say "if you can't adjust the screen backlight you might not have some driver installed" - does the fact that I can set the brightness in the above manner mean that I can adjust the screen backlight? I presume that is what changing the brightness involves?

Yes the the backlight level is the brightness you adjust with the function keys. Any other adjustments will be software adjustments, contrast, gamma, brightness that you mentioned in your first post. Not really anything else you can adjust on laptop displays. You could do a google search for "cleartype" to make see if you have it enabled, and also that you have the lcd set at it's native resolution for best results.

defenstration

Funny you should mention native resolution actually cos that's another thing I'm wondering about - the native resolution of the laptop is 1440x900, and this has the picture perfect, but very small, so I was hoping to use a lower resolution. I tried 1280x700 but the picture quality is pretty dreadful with that resolution. Originally, I was thinking that 1280x700 just wasn't a widescreen resolution, but 1280:700 = 1440:900, and even still the picture seems slightly distorted and the text seems a bit blurred on the lower resolution.

So it is common that only one resolution (the "native resolution") will display the picture correctly in a laptop? Or what could I do to get a good display on a lower resolution?

Cheers for all the help.

Ghost Train

defenstration wrote:

So it is common that only one resolution (the "native resolution") will display the picture correctly in a laptop? Or what could I do to get a good display on a lower resolution?

Cheers for all the help.

Yep, lcd are fixed to one native resolution, if you use another say lower resolution, things can look bigger but it will seem less sharp. A crt display can change its resolution so you dont get the same problem. Windows xp is pretty crap at resizing it fonts and stuff for higher resolution monitors using the dpi setting but still the best option, you get some programs not looking right, and still get small text in some programs etc. Vista is supposed to do a better job.

Probably your best bet is to leave it set at native resolution, set the dpi setting in display properties to a higher setting for bigger text. Depending what software youre using the laptop for, you might want to see if you can adjust the way the software displays things. For web browsing I use maxthon, one of the main reasons is it gives good zoom control for pages, can set it to scale any page to 150% or whatever you want with a zoom plugin. Firefox or other browsers probably have the same thing.

If you getting a blury picture at native resolution or uneven brightness it might be a fault with the laptop like someone else said

TempestSabre

Anything other than the native 1440x900 res is not going to look aswell as the 1440x900. On my Dell laptop which has a 1440x900 screen I change the DPI so the fonts are bigger, and use large icons etc. Works well enough.

Hate to say it but you should probably have bought something like a Sony Vaio which in my experience have much better screens than Dells. You might have preferred a lower res laptop aswell, 1280x800 etc.

Oracle

I have the same laptop as this and I've noticed exactly the same thing: there are shadows around the edge of the screen. When I first got this laptop and turned it on I noticed dark shadows around the edge of the display. I thought it might be a temporary thing, but months later they're still there.

They're most noticable when I turn on the machine, they seem to lessen slightly within 10/20 mins. It's as if the power to the screen is too low, because the centre of the screen is bright and unaffected. Adjusting the brightness makes no difference: the centre gets brighter and the edges remain relatively darker.

I also felt the display colours weren't as bright, vivid and impressive as I had expected. I have the integrated Intel graphics chip, I thought that might be limiting the screen performance; it's very interesting to hear this is happening with a laptop using a separate graphics card as well. I've worked with all types of computers for years, laptops and desktops, and I work mainly with a desktop LCD screen. I noticed this problem straight away, I'd say most computer users wouldn't even see it; so maybe it's an issue Dell know about but are keeping quite on.

I'm disappointed because in every other respect this is a super laptop, and I love it.

defenstration

Nice to know that I'm not the only one who's noticed this - thought I was goin' crazy there for a while! Just a bit of a disgrace that you pay nearly 2 grand for this thing and the basic hardware is pretty poor.

I'd be tempted to sell it off again if I thought I'd get a decent bitta money for it, although I doubt I would? Bought it only about 3 months ago from Dell online, 2GB RAM, 17" widescreen, Interl core 2 Duo processor - anyone have any idea what I'd get for it now?

The resolution (even with the DPI setting upped) is pretty annoying, so I would think that could be solved by just getting a laptop with a lower resolution (no flies on me!).
But am I wasting my time trying to find a laptop where the light from the lamp is evenly dispensed throughout the screen? If the lamp is positioned on the right-hand-side of the screen like someone said earlier in this thread, then this is probably just standard on all laptops?

Tom Dunne

defenstration wrote:

Nice to know that I'm not the only one who's noticed this - thought I was goin' crazy there for a while! Just a bit of a disgrace that you pay nearly 2 grand for this thing and the basic hardware is pretty poor.

That is pretty crappy, TBH.

defenstration wrote:

I'd be tempted to sell it off again if I thought I'd get a decent bitta money for it, although I doubt I would? Bought it only about 3 months ago from Dell online, 2GB RAM, 17" widescreen, Interl core 2 Duo processor - anyone have any idea what I'd get for it now?

You would suffer the same as a new car buyer - once you take ownership of it, you can knock some value off it straight away. You would get at least €1500, I would say.

defenstration wrote:

But am I wasting my time trying to find a laptop where the light from the lamp is evenly dispensed throughout the screen? If the lamp is positioned on the right-hand-side of the screen like someone said earlier in this thread, then this is probably just standard on all laptops?

No, I've been through a few laptops and have never seen this problem. My current IBM is fine, as is my HP Pavillion.

TempestSabre

I'd say some people are more picky about their screens and notice it more. I'd be one of those people aswell.

Generally 2nd hand is 80-60% the original cost.

No. The current range of Dell laptop screens seem to be patchy quality wise. Other makes seems to be better. Its a pity because other wise the Dell are a great deal. Some of the new Sonys use some new type LED backlighting. Don't know much about it though.

ckl1998

My Inspiron 9400 is 6 months old.

(T2300E, 1GB RAM, GeForce7900GS, 17" UltraSharp with TrueLife)

I wonder I am having the same problem like you. Recently my screen seems to have 4 darker strips at the edge of the screen though not obvious. It becomes more obvious after 15-20 mins the notebook was turned on. One need to observe carefully then only one can tell the difference. I think normal users don't even notice.

Called Dell, and they sent me a document. Went through the document but it doesn't seem to explain fully my problem. I am arranging with them to replace my screen.

Attached is document from Dell for your reference. I also attached an edited picture just to tell my problem to you guys.

Are you guys having the same issue like me?