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*Read this
summary first*
April 20 |
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Other people have contacted me
about similar problems |
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April 17 Update:
The same problem existed on the new Win98SE system that was delivered on
April 17, 2001, both with the NVidia and Matrox cards (single monitor
setup) After spending an hour on the phone with Dell tech support it was
determined, through trial and error, that the only possible explanation
was the Pentium 4 chip set. I am now going to send the
Pentium 4 - 1.5 gHz chip system back for a Pentium 3 1 gHz chip Win2K
system. |
| On March 6, 2001 I ordered an new computer
from Dell to use primarily for Photoshop and scanning. The
system configuration is listed below. I immediately noticed that the
monitors didn't look right, especially compared to my existing
Win 98SE system (Picture B). They were a
colder gray and there was nothing I could do to get them to match the
monitor on my existing system. I also noticed that the Photoshop color
picker was showing strange gradation (Picture A)
that appeared to be less than 16 bit color.
Continued below the pictures. |
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A
Photoshop Color Picker
Showing less then 16 bit Color |
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B
Photoshop Color Picker
Showing 32 bit Color |
| I ordered an OptiCal
color calibration system consisting of a spyder and software from
ColorVision to see if the monitors across two different operating
systems could be calibrated to match. In trying it out on the Win 2000
system, and on the telephone with ColorVision's support, we discovered
that the PreCal calibration was giving me a purple colored logo on screen
where it should have been shades of gray. They immediately told me to send
the monitor back for a replacement. The new P1110 did give me the correct
cast for calibration but the resulting color depth was no different. My
next step was to send back the Matrox G450 for a replacement. |
| I should state at this point that there is
nothing conclusive because of inconsistent results of switching graphics
cards, cables, monitors between systems and, unexpectedly, different
monitor resolutions. |
| Only once did I manage to get the P1110
looking good on the Win 2000 system. That was when the A monitor with the
Matrox G450 was the 1626HT and the B monitor was the P1110, AND, I changed
the monitor resolution to other than 1152x864. All the other times the
P1110 gave me the exact colors you see in Picture A. |
| Now for the P991. It looked bad as both the A
monitor and B monitor on the Win 2000 system, AND as the A monitor on the
Win98SE system. |
| If you're having a difficult time following
this it's OK, so am I. Over this past weekend I spent an hour on the
telephone with Dell's tech support and I couldn't get the P1110 to look
good with either the NVIDIA or Matrox cards. The support person told me to
ask my sales person for a new DIFFERENT monitor, or have the system
replaced. |
| Dell, being as they are, told me they would
send me a Win 98SE CD to reformat the computer and see if that fixes the
problem. BUT, they refused to extend my 30 day return date, which was only
six days away. So I opted for them to take back the complete system and
send me the exact system with Win 98SE pre installed. At least I get
another 30 days to make sure it's working. I'm also going to purchase my
second monitor locally and save the shipping. |
| Besides the video problem, I'm totally
frustrated with Win 2000 as an operating system. After three weeks I still
can't get my Epson scanner to scan through Photoshop due to a twain
problem and I can't get any of three CompactFlash card readers to load
drivers, except for the SanDisk ImageMate which needs to keep a CF card in
there at all times in order for the drivers to load and be recognized by
Windows. And get this, it need to be the exact card that was in there when
it was first installed. If it wasn't for Ed Hamrick's
VueScan scanner driver I wouldn't be able to scan at all. It works
great with my Epson flatbed and my Polaroid SprintScan 4000. |
| Summery: |
 | I've experienced the video problem across two
operating systems, Win2k and Win98SE. See the two
pictures above.
 | Both systems had the problem with identical
graphics cards, both the NVIDIA that came with it and Matrox G450 that
I installed so I could have a dual monitor system. |
| Both systems had identical configuration in that
they had the same components including the Pentium 4 1.5 gHz chipset. |
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| I've been contacted by a representative from Intel
and they tried to duplicate my problem until they discovered that Dell
was using a motherboard that was not an Intel board.
(I'm not sure of the facts here but I'm sure I'll be corrected as soon
as someone more knowledgeable reads this) |
| I've been in contact with Adobe's tech support and
they are trying to duplicate the problem. |
| Matrox has admitted that they have a problem in that
some of their G450 cards don't let the Pentium 4 system boot.
| But that doesn't have anything to do with what I'm
seeing, although it did happen to the G450 card that I was using and I
had to send it back. |
|
| I uninstalled Photoshop 6 and installed Photoshop 5.5
to see if it was a Photoshop problem - same result |
| I changed my power supply from the UPS to plugging
the system directly into the wall - same result. |
| There is one more consideration. Both systems came
with the same Sony monitors, the P1110 - 21 inch and the P991-19 inch.
| Do you think there could be a monitor problem? |
|
| Dell tech support was no help on this one. Though the
technician was able to see the pictures on this page, he recommended
sending the Pentium 4 system back for a Pentium 3 - 1gHz chip system. I
think I'll wait until this can be solved before doing a backwards
upgrade (downgrade). |
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If anyone has had a similar problem
please contact me about your
experience.
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| My Win 2000 system consists of a Dell Dimension
8100 |
| Pentium 4 - 1.5 gHz chip |
| 512 megs of ram |
| Dell P1110 (21" Trinitron Monitor) |
| Dell P991 (19" Trinitron Monitor) |
| Matrox G450 Dual Monitor Graphics Card from Matrox to replace the
32MB NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 4X AGP Card that I didn't want |
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| My existing Win 98SE system consists of a Dell
Dimension 4100 |
| Pentium 3 - 550 mHg chip |
| 384 megs of ram |
| Dell 1626HT (21" Trinitron Monitor) |
| Sony 100ES (13" Trinitron Monitor) |
| Matrox G400 Dual Monitor Graphics Card |
|
November 2001
Having sent the Win 2000 system back within the 30 return policy and
eventually replacing it with a Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop, I'm still
working with my dual monitor Win98 SE (550) system but have now upgraded
it to Windows 2000 Professional in November 2001. It's still running fine
just as expected. I didn't just upgrade. I purchased a second Matrox 60
Gig 7200 RPM hard drive and did a clean Win2K installation, making my
previous C Drive into the D Drive. |
