OT New Monitor update & question.

[The Medway Handyman]

Decided on the Acer at £99, printed off the page & toodled off to Comet. Right next to the Acer was a rather nice HP monitor, managers special, £30 off so also £99.

"I'll have that if its got built in speakers" I said to sales droid. It had. Droid started to put it in the box.

TMH; "Where's the cable to connect the speakers" Droid; "It hasn't got one". TMH; So how can I use the speakers?" Droid; "Just buy a cable". TMH; "How much are they?" Droid; "Don't know, we don't sell them". TMH; So how can I use the speakers?" Droid; "Errrm. Dunno".

Finally bought the Acer & blagged a half price deal on some cheap speakers which are fine.

So, when viewing UK-DIY (with OE6) I have the option of highlighting a watched message in a variety of colours. If I expand the message all the post headers are that colour.

I have the option to Mark Conversation as Read. If a new unread post comes in, it used to be a brighter colour than the read posts so it was easy to spot.

That now doesn't happen. Didn't happen with the little standby monitor I've been using either.

Any ideas? Should be Tools, Options but I can't spot anything there.

[Adrian]

Right-click on your Desktop On the drop-down menu, left-click 'Properties' Left-Click 'Settings'

What does it say under 'color quality' ?

Adrian

[The Medway Handyman]

Medium 16 bit

[Rod]

I think the implication was, change it. To Highest (32 bit).

[The Medway Handyman]

Thanks Adrian, that gave me the clue I needed to sort it myself. Ta.

[John Rumm]

About par for the course!

Sounds like you are running in 16 colour mode or something like that (note 16 colours, not 16 bit (i.e. 65,536) colours).

Check the display settings are appropriate for the monitor.

You probably ought to load the screen driver for the monitor. That will make windows automatically offer you only settings that match what the hardware can do. You can get the required driver from here:

the driver files into a directory, and then call up the display settings as described elsewhere. Click the Advanced button. Then the Monitor tab, then the properties button, then the drivers tab, then the update driver button. Point it at the directory containing the unzipped files, and select the monitor and ok your way back out.

[Adrian]

No implication - more a case of enquiring....

Certainly, if it 32-bit is an option then try to select it & see if that helps.... but if windows dones not recognise the new monitor then it may not offer the 32-bit option...

One thing with LCD displays is that you need to set the PC up to the same resolution (as in x pixels by y pixels) as the display - otherwise they can look pertty awful ('old-fashioned' displays are more tolerant)

See if the 'screen resolution' in the 'Settings' section matches the actual spec of the new screen (probably printed on the box or in the manual....?)

Adrian

[Rod]

Thought monitors usually told Windows what they support these days? (I.e. without 'driver'.)

Also, TMH, how were you sending sound to your old monitor? A cable?

[Adrian]

Adrian

[John Rumm]

The monitor will identify itself via plug'n'prey, but that requires windows to have an appropriate driver in its list to match it. I don't think they can actually pass a raw list of capabilities to the computer

- just an ID string.

[James R]

You should have mail ordered and got a further discount.

Why would you choose HP over Acer?

Oh dear, another pointless conversation that keeps everyone else in the queue with a life waiting.

So you paid for speakers when a monitor had them built in.

Yes, press HELP and read the instructions on OE.

[Rod]

I think this might be what I was thinking about:

[The Medway Handyman]

It would have cost an extra £5.82 for delivery you idiot.

Simply because I recognise the brand name and have an HP printer that has been excellent.

Pointless? So you are suggesting that I should have bought a monitor I couldn't use? Or that only nerds like you should be allowed to buy monitors?

Where did I mention that the Acer had them built in?

And what would I have looked for f****it? What search term would have given me the answer?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Don't they supply drivers with monitors these days? In case Windows doesn't have the correct one?

[John Rumm]

I stand corrected - It has grew some since I last looked!

Looking at that list though it does not seem to include the widescreen resolutions that many modern monitors use. It also does not seem to include colour profile / colour space definitions. So they may still be benefit in using the monitor profiles (you will note that the makers still release them for new monitors)

[John Rumm]

Why is suggesting that they really ought to sell all the bits that are supposed to come with it a pointless conversation?

Read a little more carefully. The Acer did not include speakers. The incomplete display model HP did.

OE help in unlikely to include help on configuring windows display settings.

[Adrian]

Not with the last couple of LCD ones I purchased (from CPC) - they're both running on this machine and WinXP seems to think that they're just PnP LCD monitors - but it seems to be driving them OK so I'm not about to argue

Adrian

[The Natural Philosopher]

In general the drivers are for the card.

If the card cant do the native resolution of the monitor, you need a new card that does.

There are other issues such as colour correction an gamma correction, but I am not sure windows has that ability. Macs do though. You can spend an hour or so going through tests to set the monitor up, and the select color temperature as well..and gamma.

It paid off when we had some phots printed off digital..the photos were very close to the screen colours

[Rod]

Photoshop for Windows always included Adobe Gamma. And it seems to work... :-)

[geoff]

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

I chucked out a load of manuals for cd drives, hard drives, monitors, printers etc.

The kids were both home for the weekend, so I showed them what computers were like 20 years ago (when they were in nappies)

It was a real eye opener for them

Dave, the answer is "no"

This afternoon was mostly spent interfacing the computer (via the A-V amplifier) to the 46" flat screen TV - which didn't want to know

the drivers are all in the video card, not the monitor