Gateway FPD2485W - 24" HD LCD

Kooch66 said:
I watch movies via my 360 in 1:1 mode all the time and I have bars at the top and bottom but the backlight is def bleeding through up there. Did I read this right that I can make the lights actually turn off where the black bars are?
Click to expand...

I don't have a 360 to know how it connects but when I hook up my PS3 over HDMI-to-DVI on 1080p and select 1:1 mapping then the top and bottom LEDs turn off and black is real black.

One note though, I checked again and on my PC I cannot make the 1920x1080p mode show up properly over VGA (it is detected as 1280x1024). To make things worse over DVI the mode 1920x1080p doesn't exist at all. Maybe my GC is kinda goofy.

The bottom line is that if you send any smaller size image than the native 1920x1200 and you select 1:1, then the screen should create black bars or a black frame which is pitch black. It's really cool but not as flexible as I thought.
 
Ferris23 said:
Sounds like your card, as my Gateway displays 1920x1080 fine.

Using an X1900XTX
Click to expand...

So Ferris23 can you verify that watching movies on your PC over 1920x1080 creates the real black bars essentially eliminating corner bleeding (assuming that you had some bleeding to begin with).

Also, do you use VGA or DVI to connect to your X1900XTX?
 
Ok guys, the stupidity in this thread is starting to get overwhelming.

First of all, there are no "LEDs" in your monitor to turn off and give you true black. The gateway FPD2485W has two long flourescent tubes behind the LCD in an "X" criss cross arrangement.

Putting this monitor into whatever mode you want has absolutely ZERO effect on the backlight bleed- the bleed is a design flaw, not a video output flaw.Just because you put the output into a certain aspect ratio does not "turn down" the backlight on the top and bottom black bars. The light is still behind there, just as bright as it ever was. If you have bright colors on your entire screen you may not see the bleed, but if you have a very dark or black screen, AT NIGHT IN THE DARK, you will easily see the bleed.

There are one or two extremely expensive (4k and higher) monitors out there that use LEDs for backlighting and can actually vary the brightness of the backlight by selectively dimming or brightening themselves, but I can 100% assure you that your Gateway LCD does not have LED backlighting.

Wow, seriously guys, stop talking out of your asses. If you can't understand what I said in this post then I suggest you return your monitor to the store and buy a pencil and paper, because you're too dumb to own a computer.
 
tzitziki said:
So Ferris23 can you verify that watching movies on your PC over 1920x1080 creates the real black bars essentially eliminating corner bleeding (assuming that you had some bleeding to begin with).

Also, do you use VGA or DVI to connect to your X1900XTX?
Click to expand...


I don't have corner bleeding, but I do have black bars on the top and bottom and they are black when running 1920x1080. I use DVI. Corner bleed is a symptom of a monitor with backlight bleed, no bars will get rid of that. Like Steele said, it's not shut off. However it is not a design IMO flaw as there are plenty of units out there (like mine) that do not have the problem.

It is the nature of LCD, they are like snowflakes, no 2 are alike. I'm sorry but any LCD model will have units out there that bleed, while others will be flawless.
 
steelie69 said:
Ok guys, the stupidity in this thread is starting to get overwhelming.

First of all, there are no "LEDs" in your monitor to turn off and give you true black. The gateway FPD2485W has two long flourescent tubes behind the LCD in an "X" criss cross arrangement.

Putting this monitor into whatever mode you want has absolutely ZERO effect on the backlight bleed- the bleed is a design flaw, not a video output flaw.Just because you put the output into a certain aspect ratio does not "turn down" the backlight on the top and bottom black bars. The light is still behind there, just as bright as it ever was. If you have bright colors on your entire screen you may not see the bleed, but if you have a very dark or black screen, AT NIGHT IN THE DARK, you will easily see the bleed.

There are one or two extremely expensive (4k and higher) monitors out there that use LEDs for backlighting and can actually vary the brightness of the backlight by selectively dimming or brightening themselves, but I can 100% assure you that your Gateway LCD does not have LED backlighting.

Wow, seriously guys, stop talking out of your asses. If you can't understand what I said in this post then I suggest you return your monitor to the store and buy a pencil and paper, because you're too dumb to own a computer.
Click to expand...

Gtfo? Seriously, the gerbil that crawled up your ass this morning must've had indigestion because you're getting all worked up over nothing. Not everyone is going to know all the details about how LCDs work and not everyone cares enough to correct every misconception about them.

They're not that far off though. The "louvers" in the panel do their best to block light when set to 1:1 when theres no signal for those pixels. You could've simply said that instead of making yourself look like a flaming asshat.

Anyways, stopped by BB today and MGQ71 is definitely a go for January run panels. Gonna stop by later and swap my panel. Thanks for the heads-up for those who saw the new serial #.
 
steelie69 said:
Wow, seriously guys, stop talking out of your asses. If you can't understand what I said in this post then I suggest you return your monitor to the store and buy a pencil and paper, because you're too dumb to own a computer.
Click to expand...

While your point may be valid, there is no reason to be a total ass\douche about it. Your aren't special because you know about backlight bleed.

:rolleyes:
 
tzitziki said:
So Ferris23 can you verify that watching movies on your PC over 1920x1080 creates the real black bars essentially eliminating corner bleeding (assuming that you had some bleeding to begin with).

Also, do you use VGA or DVI to connect to your X1900XTX?
Click to expand...

If you're running an nVidia 8800 the flat panel scaling features in the drivers don't work atm. :mad:

I'm assuming you're referring to movies via a software DVD decoder? If that's the case, you still should be limited to what your video card is mapping. With PowerDVD though, there are darker bars when running full-screen mode and set to "maintain aspect". Some movies will have lighter black bars before the picture depending what aspect the film was shot and mastered.

Either way, with 16:10 and a widescreen movie, movies look great when you enable Pan and Scan which will fill your entire screen. There is some stretching but its barely noticeable since the aspect is very close and everything is being interpolated anyways (by your DVD player).

If you're using an external player you should get the black bars dependent on the resolution your DVD player outputs.
 
steelie69 said:
Ok guys, the stupidity in this thread is starting to get overwhelming.

First of all, there are no "LEDs" in your monitor to turn off and give you true black. The gateway FPD2485W has two long flourescent tubes behind the LCD in an "X" criss cross arrangement.

Putting this monitor into whatever mode you want has absolutely ZERO effect on the backlight bleed- the bleed is a design flaw, not a video output flaw.Just because you put the output into a certain aspect ratio does not "turn down" the backlight on the top and bottom black bars. The light is still behind there, just as bright as it ever was. If you have bright colors on your entire screen you may not see the bleed, but if you have a very dark or black screen, AT NIGHT IN THE DARK, you will easily see the bleed.

There are one or two extremely expensive (4k and higher) monitors out there that use LEDs for backlighting and can actually vary the brightness of the backlight by selectively dimming or brightening themselves, but I can 100% assure you that your Gateway LCD does not have LED backlighting.

Wow, seriously guys, stop talking out of your asses. If you can't understand what I said in this post then I suggest you return your monitor to the store and buy a pencil and paper, because you're too dumb to own a computer.
Click to expand...

I have been reading this thread since I was somehow directed to it while doing my initial research on this display way back in the beginning of Dec. 06.
This board stands above so many others on the net in as much as it is a great compatible mix of the very, very knowledgeable and the very, very new user alike.
Lets not trash it by hurling insults at those who don’t have as much experience as others.

best

JMD
 
Thanks to phobic for starting this great topic. Thanks to the eleventy billion folks who replied to it with exceptionally useful info. Because of you, my son will be receiving a well researched monitor for his 16th birthday on the Ides of March.

A fellow named darkl4805, posted this semi hot deal at Slick Deals last week, which is good up till today. I cherry picked a MGL6C and got out the door for $617.09. I know many of you have done better, but I've got nearly a month to better this one, and a bird in the hand, if nothing better pops up.

I'll be happy to add my two cents to the topic when the unit is plugged, but that day is weeks away. Till then, I'll just keep on reading!

Thanks Again,
John
 
Grats John, I'm sure your son will be ecstatic.

I got it for the same price, but anything under $600 for a monitor like this is a great deal out the door from a B&M with the assurance you can simply exchange it if its not to your liking.

I would recommend maybe tracking down a MGQ71 if you haven't opened it yet (not sure when its your son's birthday).

I just exchanged mine after seeing a few MGQ71 pop up in this thread and now I can honestly say I'm 100% satisfied with my purchase. The one I exchanged wasn't that bad except for some serious bleeding and panel uniformity and also had 2 unnoticeable dead pixels. This one has absolutely zero backlight bleed (corners are still warmer though) and the colors are also better out of the box. I'm not sure if its because my EzTune settings carried over, but I don't see the EzTune icon in my task bar. There is also no buzzing whatsoever coming out of the back of the panel.

For anyone looking to buy this monitor, it looks like Gateway is making significant progress in terms of build quality with every passing month. There's nothing left for me to be discontent about, although the issues people have with it and every LCD will still be there depending on your tolerance level (banding, ghosting, color reproduction etc). This is now the 4th panel that has sat on my desk and it will be the last until the next time I decided to upgrade. Thanks again to those who mentioned spotting MGQ71 Jan models out there.
 
steelie69 said:
First of all, there are no "LEDs" in your monitor to turn off and give you true black. The gateway FPD2485W has two long flourescent tubes behind the LCD in an "X" criss cross arrangement.
Click to expand...

I had no idea that the tubes of the Gateway are arranged in an X, good to know. I got the wrong impression about the back-light of the fpd2485w by reading the review of the BenQ fp241wz with BFI at: http://www.behardware.com/articles/646-1/benq-fp241wz-1rst-lcd-with-screening.html

As you can see there, the BenQ uses (and I quote) "16 neons in the back of the panel" which are turned off sequentially to create the inserted black frame (similar to CRT). I thought that the Gateway was also using a similar arrangement and that the 2 edge neons would be completely off when in 16:9 1:1 mode.

I still believe that the combination of selectively turning off the edge back-light of the BenQ BFI when in 16:9 1:1 mode would be cool.
 
I would recommend maybe tracking down a MGQ71 if you haven't opened it yet...

There's a best Buy right behind my house, but they only had a couple November units. Had to drive about 15 miles to get the December build I now have. I've got 14 days to return this one. 30 if I see the manager that sold it to me, and it's unopened. I'm not only waiting for a better price between now and mid-March, I'm also keeping an eye out for those January units.

One other thing I'm interested in, is a an extended warranty beyond the one year. I called Gateway, and they said I'd have to purchase the monitor from them to do that. I'm not about to pay for one from Best Buy, since it's a one shot deal. In the end, the unit we end up owning, may not be from Best Buy at all.
 
I just seen this monitor bundled with a Gateway desktop computer at my local Costco today. The bundled computer had a Intel 6300, 2 Gigs of ram, 400 gig sata HDD, TV tuner, front Firewire and composite AV jacks, Vista, wireless keyboard and mouse,the Gateway 24" monitor and the audio SoundBar attached all for $1649. Not a bad deal - they were not running it at the max resolution so the text and desktop shortcut icons looked jaggy, but when the screen saver kicked in the photo images looked great. I was able to play with the monitor menu, however, I couldn't figure out how to change the resolution - maybe it's Vista because I couldn't right click on the desktop to get the graphic card properties and I ran out of time since I was on my lunch break and I had to get back to the place I work at.

The monitor box had a white sticker covering up all the bar codes and serial info. I did make out some of the serial # but only remember part of it(...6C...) I didn't see a month or date on it, and on the other box it had a big orange sticker that read "Do not sell before January 30" So probably not the January model but maybe Nov or Dec!?

I want to go back soon to check out the setup and have another look at both the monitor and the SoundBar.
 
ctishue said:
Nope he's right. I just picked up an fpd2485w from Best Buy today thats is MGQ71, build date of January 2007.

The colors pop a lot more than my HP L2335 23" panel. There's a slight ghosting, but nothing as bad as the original Dell 2405fpw I returned due to input lag. One thing thats bothering me though is World of Warcraft seems to flicker in certain areas now and I seemingly get more texture tearing. It's also hard to get the brightness/contrast right. I can see some banding in the sky in WoW also. I use a Mac Pro so I can't try Gateway's EZtune software. I get no buzzing or anything like that. I have some slight bleeding in each of the 4 corners. Right now I don't know if I'm keeping it. I'll fiddle with WoW some more and see.
Click to expand...

Well, I am in the same boat with this WoW stuff, and I am very disappointed.

I had a 21" version of this monitor that I sold yesterday, and went down to Best Buy and bought a 24" MGL6C December 2006 build (hand picked it).

Through component on 720p or 1080i, my Xbox 360 looks quite bad, and a DVD played on it...forget it. I have weird horizontal lines running through the letterbox top and bottom of the movie.

Anyway, on to WoW:

When I move around, I get the "flicker" or "strobe" effect on the ground. It is fine when I stand still, but when I move or rotate the mouse, it is like a quick flashing on the terrain. I can't stand it at all, and I can't remember this being an issue on the 21". I only play WoW, so I can't keep this monitor...no way.

So, should I roll the dice and exchange the panel and hope for better, or just get a refund?

For specifics, I have a 3800 X2, 7900 GTO 512mb (91.47's), Asus A8N-SLI
 
dcmix5 said:
Anyway, on to WoW:

When I move around, I get the "flicker" or "strobe" effect on the ground. It is fine when I stand still, but when I move or rotate the mouse, it is like a quick flashing on the terrain. I can't stand it at all, and I can't remember this being an issue on the 21". I only play WoW, so I can't keep this monitor...no way.

So, should I roll the dice and exchange the panel and hope for better, or just get a refund?

For specifics, I have a 3800 X2, 7900 GTO 512mb (91.47's), Asus A8N-SLI
Click to expand...

I can walk into any best buy, circuit city, you name it, and if they have this monitor on display, I can recreate the flicker. Its one of the main reasons why I took it back and got the benq. I have tried MANY different ones, and they all have this problem. At first I was hoping, it was just certain panels that had it, but it seems to be all of them. Unless it has been recently corrected, which as of last week, at the local stores here, still had this problem.

It seems some people notice this, others dont. Personally I couldn't live with it. I felt like I was watching a light show, when trying to play half life 2. (Especially in the sewers section).

If you have access to photoshop, or any photo/picture editing program. Create a new canvas at about 640x480, fill it with a nice bright color, give it a nice sandstone texture and save it to desktop. Open it with any image viewer in a SMALL window (Small because you want to be able to move it around your desktop). Move it around at a slow steady pace, and watch the flickering light show.

I think it has something to do with lag, and trailing. Not sure, but just a guess.

So to answer your question, because you are NOW seeing the flicker, you will ALWAYS see this flicker on this monitor, I'd get a refund. Of course thats provided that Gateway hasnt done anything to correct this issue, which I dont believe they have.

Those that cant see this issue, enjoy your monitor.

jball
 
You should see the flickering in Flight Simulator......
Looks Absolutely horrible while flying over the terrain.

From what I can tell it does have to do with the screen ghosting.
It will even show up in movies on occasion. Annoying to say the least.
Generally I quite like this screen, but I do have thoughts of replacing it not too far off.
 
I don't remember this on my 21"...so maybe I missed it? I might return this for the 22" version, come to think of it.
 
Yeah, no flicker here either. Sorry yours had it, don't speak for all monitors like you are all knowing. I've had 3 and none of them had it, Half Life 2, you name it, no flicker. Explain how this flicker you see has anything to do with LCD ghosting?

Again not saying that some don't have issues, but mine certainly have not and I am overly picky.
 
To address a prior comment...

If it was the vid card and driver, why did my 21" Gateway not have this issue?

I guess I will return this monitor, exchange it for another, and another, until I get one that doesn't do this?
 
Ferris23 said:
don't speak for all monitors like you are all knowing. I've had 3 and none of them had it, Half Life 2, you name it, no flicker. Explain how this flicker you see has anything to do with LCD ghosting?
Click to expand...


Not sure if this was addressed to me or not, but as I said in my post, some see it, some dont. I have been able to see the flicker in at least 20 panels of this monitor. Maybe more. I havent seen one that HASNT had it. The 22 inch gateway doesnt do it, that usually sits beside it at bestbuy.

I believe the flicker does come from some kind of lag. Shifts from white, to grey or black, and vice versa, somehow this monitor tries to over compensate, and just cant quite do it. On a static image its fine. I dont claim any technical knowledge on the matter, all I can tell you is what I and others are seeing. The fact that I can recreate the problem at any time, tells me there is indeed a problem. Even the guys at bestbuy see it when I show them. No, Im not expecting any answers from them, but they plainly see how awful it is too.

As I said... If you see it, then exchange it, if not.. then enjoy your monitor...


jball
 
I really want to like this monitor...in a BAD way, because I sold my 21" for it.

So, now I may have to go from the 21" to a 24", an and then back to a 22", essentially wasting my time and money for an extra inch of monitor.

In WoW, I can stand on some forest or darker terrain, and just tap the "W" key once to walk one step. Every time I tap the button, the dark terrain flashes to a lighter color, and then returns to normal when I stop and stand still.

So, tonight, I am going to exchange the panel. If my next 24" does it, I am going to bite the bullet and downgrade to the 22".
 
Ferris23 said:
How have you seen 20 panels?

Just curious...
Click to expand...

I believe i said at least, its probably been more. In my exchange we opened several boxes, to see if others did it, and they did. In my trips to area stores over the past 3 months, yes... yes I have seen more than 20.

jball
 
dcmix5 said:
I really want to like this monitor...in a BAD way, because I sold my 21" for it.

So, now I may have to go from the 21" to a 24", an and then back to a 22", essentially wasting my time and money for an extra inch of monitor.

In WoW, I can stand on some forest or darker terrain, and just tap the "W" key once to walk one step. Every time I tap the button, the dark terrain flashes to a lighter color, and then returns to normal when I stop and stand still.

So, tonight, I am going to exchange the panel. If my next 24" does it, I am going to bite the bullet and downgrade to the 22".
Click to expand...



Tell us how that goes, Im getting sick of the smearing and debating wether to get rid of it or exchange it.
 
Bought a Dec2006 model from the best buy around the block from me for $580. Price matched with Circuit City($659.99), signed up for reward zone and used that 12% coupon which I forgot to print out in high quality so it could scan the barcode.. so the cashier went to go find someone to see if the coupon was acceptable.

Luckily the guy couldn't find anyone and just manually gave me the 12% ;) I'm assuming he felt bad cause he was taking forever cause he screwed up signing me up for reward zone.

Only thing I've tested so far was a PC through the VGA, I will see how DVI and everything else works tonight.


Ferris23, I know you say you have no problems with flickering, but have you tried the test that Jball has recommended?

jball said:
If you have access to photoshop, or any photo/picture editing program. Create a new canvas at about 640x480, fill it with a nice bright color, give it a nice sandstone texture and save it to desktop. Open it with any image viewer in a SMALL window (Small because you want to be able to move it around your desktop). Move it around at a slow steady pace, and watch the flickering light show.
Click to expand...
 
dcmix5 said:
To address a prior comment...

If it was the vid card and driver, why did my 21" Gateway not have this issue?

I guess I will return this monitor, exchange it for another, and another, until I get one that doesn't do this?
Click to expand...


It could be because the 21" had a max native res of 1680 x 1050 while the new
Gateway 24 " is 1920x1200. That may not seem like much but that is 35% more pixel real-estate your vid card has to move around.

Best

JMD
 
No, I have not. However I have run previous tests mentioned in this thread as well as games he mentioned and just don't have a "flicker" issue.
 
JMD FLA said:
It could be because the 21" had a max native res of 1680 x 1050 while the new
Gateway 24 " is 1920x1200. That may not seem like much but that is 35% more pixel real-estate your vid card has to move around.

Best

JMD
Click to expand...

So, the 7900 GTO doesn't have enough power to push the display?
 
dcmix5 said:
So, the 7900 GTO doesn't have enough power to push the display?
Click to expand...

Well after finding your previous post and then reading your system specs you shouldn't have a problem "pushing' the display.
Since others site they don't have a flicker effect nor does mine it could be that you have dud monitor.

best

JMD
 
Jball said:
I believe i said at least, its probably been more. In my exchange we opened several boxes, to see if others did it, and they did. In my trips to area stores over the past 3 months, yes... yes I have seen more than 20.

jball
Click to expand...

If you were checking DEC or later models it could very well be a characteristic of the entire panel line. Checking display models, as I've said, isn't a good indication of how this panel looks and performs. Every display I've seen is a NOV model which had the most serious problems based on the comments in this thread. There's been significant improvements in each later production run. This monitor is only 4-5 months old, so growing pains are expected.

I'm pretty sure what I saw and described in an earlier post is the same as you and dcmix5are seeing:

One thing that is kind of weird is there seems to be a "mask" when running 3D games...like changing your view in-game slightly drastically changes the color of every object when it should be very subtle. I'll try to give an example but again, it might just be a calibration issue.

I noticed it the most in Dark Messiah, where the differences in lighting from shifting perspective/angle shouldn't have been enough to change the lighting so drastically on so many textures. I swapped my monitor yesterday and it seems to be superior to my DEC in every way (2 dead pixels, but I'll take that over ghosting/bleeding any day), so I'll check to see if its still there or as bad as it was before. Still not enough of a deal-breaker for me to take it back though.
 
tzitziki said:
Now some odd PS3 things:



2. 1920x1080 60Hz
Another odd thing. The monitor has an advanced menu that displays information about the input signal. On all the signals that I have tried outputing from the PS3 I get the correct signal information, for example 1080i, 720p, 480p, except for 1080p. When in 1080p mode the monitor information displays 1920x1080 60Hz making me think that it's either a misprint on the monitor firmware or something deeper which I cannot understand. As I said though, the monitor played the BD movie perfectly which means that HDCP should be working, but then again I have my reservations.
Click to expand...

The PS3 outputs 1080P60. So the resolution is 1920x1080P at 60hz. This is correct. When they have the March update we will supposedly get 1080P24 as an output option. But right now the only 1080P output option is 1080P60.
 
dcmix5 said:
To address a prior comment...

If it was the vid card and driver, why did my 21" Gateway not have this issue?

I guess I will return this monitor, exchange it for another, and another, until I get one that doesn't do this?
Click to expand...

Note, the 21W and 24W have different native panel resolutions. You should first try to update your video driver to the latest and greatest first.
 
If 1920 x 1200 is an available resolution in my current driver, will I still need to update it?

I will update it anyway, and I am quite sure I will see the same problem, but it is worth a try.
 
dcmix5 said:
If 1920 x 1200 is an available resolution in my current driver, will I still need to update it?

I will update it anyway, and I am quite sure I will see the same problem, but it is worth a try.
Click to expand...

Its probably the panel if you weren't getting the effect on a different panel with the same card. Its not out of the question though. 1920x1200 is the highest resolution you can run before needing dual-link DVI to carry the signal. Technically 1920x1200 is out of spec for single-link DVI. In the past there were problems with the DVI output for certain cards from certain makers based on the video output components used on the card, but I haven't read anything like that in a very long time (this was GF4 series, so ages ago).

I had a flickering backlight problem in some games with certain 3D effects with an E228wfp and a Dell 2407wfp but those were probably power supply/outlet issues that I cleared up by getting a power conditioner (fancy power strip). I thought the mask/color shift issue you described might be an 8800-series problem because the card is still new and the drivers are still a bit buggy, but its probably the panel now that more people are reporting seeing it. Doesn't hurt to try the latest drivers though.
 
chizow are you saying that your Dec model had ghosting in games and this Jan does not?

Also what color was the sticker on your Jan?
 
Ferris23 said:
chizow are you saying that your Dec model had ghosting in games and this Jan does not?

Also what color was the sticker on your Jan?
Click to expand...

Not much ghosting, but it was there. Typical dark on light or light on dark would leave slight tracers, nothing like my old 19" Dell but it was there. I ran that Prad.de test again and there's even less ghosting on the January, the tracers are very close to the square and much lighter. The December was much better than the person who posted the test with a video showing their ghosting, and the January is a little better than that.

Also, the January's colors are better out of the box, I haven't touched them yet but I may have to turn the contrast down a bit. It might be my residual EzTune settings coming into play but EzTune is no longer in my task bar and I believe its based on the panel's EDID. Text also seems to be sharper and the panel is overall more uniform. Still a slight difference in viewing angle from the left to the right, but by the time I exchanged the DEC, I was really, really unhappy with the color/backlight uniformity across the panel.

Oh ya, sticker is light purple. I'm not sure if these stickers are even Gateway related. Looking around BB there's identical stickers with different colors on lots of different products. They might be internal BB shipping/stocking labels.
 
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