HD monitor distorts - distortion normal for all big displays ?

[buddhaseeking]

I moved from 24" Samsung & ASUS monitors to 27" IPS (model LG 27MP36HQ). It is great to have a bigger monitor, but i have noticed that there is distortion/stretching on sides of the monitor. It is very subtle/small, but you can see it in this image here that i have taken using my cell phone. Very noticable, if i try not to focus my eyes on any specific area of the screen, but rather look at the entire scene (like how you would do in a gaming situation). I do not use this for gaming, but use it for web surfing and netflix. Is this distortion common among flat screen displays ? This is my first 27" monitor, and did not notice this in the 24" monitors i had before.

BTW, the monitor is set to its native resolution 1920x1080 and is being used as the extended external display of a Windows 7 system on Lenovo T410. The laptop has native resolution of 1280x800. If tried to reduce it to 1280x720 resolution, in order to match up the aspect ratios of both displays (just to see if that would help), but nothing changed. This seems to be a monitor issue, since the built in Intel HD graphics video is capable of supporting 1920x1080 (obvious point, but wanted to clarity in order to avoid answers from uninformed).

 

[Rooster__]

I moved from 24" Samsung & ASUS monitors to 27" IPS (model LG 27MP36HQ). It is great to have a bigger monitor, but i have noticed that there is distortion/stretching on sides of the monitor. It is very subtle/small, but you can see it in this image here that i have taken using my cell phone. Very noticable, if i try not to focus my eyes on any specific area of the screen, but rather look at the entire scene (like how you would do in a gaming situation). I do not use this for gaming, but use it for web surfing and netflix. Is this distortion common among flat screen displays ? This is my first 27" monitor, and did not notice this in the 24" monitors i had before.

I don't believe this is normal, but probably a design flaw in the particular monitor. I could not see particularly on the picture unfortunately so i am guessing, perhaps you are using the wrong resolution? Check to see if it is the maximum res in windows

 

[buddhaseeking]

Thanks rooster for your reply. I will try the other monitor (same specs) that i have, and see if this is specific production flaw in this hardware. I updated my original post before i saw your reply, so it is not directed at you. YES, 1920x1080 is the maximum for this LG external and 1280x800 is the maximum for built in display of the laptop. These are the recommended native resolution under Windows 7.

 

[bumnut53]

Hard to tell from the pics but you should return it if you are not happy.

 

[DeauteratedDog]

Check to see if the monitor has a pin-cushion adjustment. Tweak that to correct the problem.

 

[10tacle]

Usually if there is pincushion at the top, you will see the same at the bottom as it is tied together (same with side pinching left and right). The bottom in the pic looks straight. With that said, I haven't seen a pincushion concave/convex adjustment option on modern LCDs...just on old CRTs. And we are assuming he has not adjusted the vertical display positioning to make the bottom higher up than the actual bottom of the screen is (meaning we are not looking that the true desktop representation of the bottom of the screen).

 

[buddhaseeking]

There is no pincusion on any side of this LCD. I noticed that the curvature at the top edge of the screen becomes less noticable if i move down to lower resolutions (below 1600). At 1920x1080 it is small, but can be seen if you also have a 27" monitor. I think you guys are not able to see it on the image, possibly because of lower screen size. Maybe it will become apparent at top corners, in the letterings on the browser tabs, if you zoom into that area. I tried the other monitor and it has the same effect. I am not sure at this point if it is because of the monitor or the display driver on the T410 which is 5 years old. Just wanted to start a thread, in case other people with 27" monitors have noticed this on their monitors too. I will look into updating the video driver (if one is available), and post the result later.

 

[10tacle]

We can see the "dipping" of the screen at the top of your screenshot fine. I was just making an observation that old CRTs had screen settings that would take away the pinching of the top/bottom and left/right sides of the display.

What's interesting is that the bottom of the screen in that screenshot is flat like normal. This is something I've never seen in an LCD before, and it leads me to believe you have an internal defect.

No matter what resolution you use that monitor as, native or not, or the source output to it, an LCD monitor should not have that pinch at the top. Hopefully you bought it at a physical retail store for a quick swapout instead of having to RMA it through shipping. That's one reason I almost always buy my monitors and HDTVs at retail stores even if it costs a little more.

 

[buddhaseeking]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

I happened to buy this at the local Electronics shop, but it was over a month ago. So, i will have to contact the manufacturer. I have to wait on this for sometime, since i need to purchase alternate set of monitors to use while these 2 are getting replaced..... might be for May or June timeframe, since this is not seriously interfering with work - just an eye sore which i am not willing to live with for another few years.

Hopefully, i can get confirmation from another person that this diagnosis is correct in the meantime. I did look closely and could see the pixels curving up at top edges. At bottom edges, the pixels seem to be perfectly lined up with bottom of screen (perhaps there is another line of pixel hiding at the bottom edge too, which i can not see due to the plastic monitor wrap around LCD). I moved the screen to the laptop display, and I see exact same problem on the laptop screen too. At the top edge there is atleast couple of pixels of empty space, and curving of pixels at top corners. In addition, if the letters are big enough on the webpage, i can notice the entire line very so slightly dipping at the center (just like top). This is visible only because of high resolution in this big monitor. I am wondering if this could be a driver problem or if this is common to all LCD ? I can not immediately update drivers, until my backup SSD arrives in couple of weeks. Don't want to make any changes until i safeguard all data with disk image. I will know for sure, if more owners of 27" monitors reply in this thread during next month or two.

 

[10tacle]

I moved the screen to the laptop display, and I see exact same problem on the laptop screen too. At the top edge there is atleast couple of pixels of empty space, and curving of pixels at top corners. In addition, if the letters are big enough on the webpage, i can notice the entire line very so slightly dipping at the center (just like top). This is visible only because of high resolution in this big monitor. I am wondering if this could be a driver problem or if this is common to all LCD ?

Well generally Windows finds the drivers for the monitor automatically. What interests me now is that you see the same on your laptop screen only when you have the monitor connected to the laptop and the same issue on the other identical monitor. I have a work 1366x728 Lenovo T400 and have been using it with both a 1080p monitor and 1680x1050 monitor for years swapping between the two, one for home, one for the office cube farm.

You never had this problem on the 24" monitor apparently, but now you do on the new 27" screens. Judging from your screenshot it appears you are at the full native desktop 1080p as I see no clipping or weird distortion in the display area. Generally they are plug and play, but apparently there may be a "handshake" problem with these monitors and the graphics output of your T410 for whatever reason. It's rare, video card makers for PCs have had to issue a BIOS update that needed to be downloaded and installed to work correctly with some newer monitors (Gigabyte being one of them). But these laptops having Intel onboard graphics, who knows.

Do you have a friend with another make/model of laptop that can come over and connect it to one of these new monitors?

 

[buddhaseeking]

I connected it to another laptop (that has Nvidia NVS 4200) and the distortion shows, with small variations in the distortion now. So, i am guessing this is something to do with the interaction between the 2 different video drivers and the LG monitor. My guess is that LG is not handling the edge cases properly, because this is showing up in seperate systems with 2 seperate GPUs. I can not notice it when focusing on a specific area of the monitor (like when browsing and reading). But i can feel it when i keep my eyes not specifically focused, but sort of looking lazily at the center and trying notice what happens in the edges (like when you are watching a movie). The entire monitor has to be absorbed by the eyes, in order to notice these distortions. Guess i will wait till July 4th sales come around, and then initiate a RMA. I wonder if LG will pay for shipping it back to them, because this is happening on both monitors i bought at the same time during christmas sales. Would be too much to ship both to them at my cost, and i will be forced to dump it at half price locally.