Horrible colors on new LED IPS monitor

[fxeconomist]

Hi guys,

Did something really stupid this week, bought myself a brand new IPS LED monitor.
Not that I wanted. I had two 19" perfectly working LGs (E2251T and older W2243S with a dead pixel). My current video board is a GTX 260, with 2 x DVI. To each of these DVIs I attached VGA convertors and got VGA input to both monitors.

Now the images were really great, and I never felt any brutal change even when I switched from CRT to LCD. However my new gaming rig will be having an R9 390X, therefore I had to scrap one of the monitors, meaningly the old W2243S, and connect via HDMI.

So I decided to buy one of these praised LED IPS monitors, meaningly a cheap LG 27MT46D. The family asked me to get one that is also a TV. The others were cheap too and they never caused big problems.

So the monitor came in, unpacked and installed. Was quite a big surprise to see a VGA input on it. So I connected the computer to it.

First thing that I got was VGA flicker and a faint alarm-like sound. However, after switching the cables, the VGA flicker was gone. Installed new Nvidia driver (sadly no damn monitor driver for this) and rebooted. VGA flicker came back. Switched cables again, no flicker. That's when I realized that a turn off and back on stops it. So no big deal.

But the next issue was color quality. Colors are not necessarily washed out, but simply... different.
Later I found out that there is increased yellowness in them. Checked it in Paint. Pictured monitor, color picker, edit colors, and indeed they had too much yellow.

Games had a completely different coloring. So damn different I don't even get the "wow" feeling anymore. Feels completely foreign. As I wanted to get back to Elder Scrolls Online, I realized there's no way back, at least until my new computer will arrive in probably two days. The sky especially doesn't look the same anymore. Pictures look like made at different ingame times.

Check out these pics made with the phone. To the left is the E2251T and to the right is the new 27MT46D. The images are online pictures displayed in Firefox. I choose Firefox because Chrome is misleading (the dim effect when not hovering with the mouse).


Auridon


Stros M'kai


Stormhaven


Coldharbour


Skyrim


Skyrim

Can't even see the mountain line in Skyrim.

Anyway, after reading more, I managed to correct the images a bit with the Nvidia Control Panel, by increasing the blue brightness and contrast to counter the yellowness. It still has some problems now, but not like before.

However I'm not happy with it and I don't understand this.
I'm thinking it may not like the VGA input at all, though I heard HDMI might be a problem too.
I don't know how a LED IPS monitor has to look. Perhaps it's a new trend and people accept this brutal change in coloring.

For the moment I'm waiting for my computer to test the HDMI. However in time I may be changing the E2251T with a monitor, and in this case the 27MT46D will be connected thru a DVI-VGA cable, which means the problems may return, however it will stay secondary (not for gaming). It's worth to mention that movies don't seem to be affected (at least now after the blue correction) and also I don't see any problems on the TV side.

I don't know what to do. I'm thinking to return it, but what if I'll get the same problem with another monitor ?

 

[ShadyHamster]

I would try a DVI cable first.

To me the new monitor looks sharper and has better colours, it does look a little to bright though.

 

[fxeconomist]

I would try a DVI cable first.

To me the new monitor looks sharper and has better colours, it does look a little to bright though.

I'm starting to get the hang of it. Followed ShadyHamster's advice and bought a DVI-HDMI cable to bypass the VGA port. Didn't get too much except that the Nvidia Control Panel let me change the color format to YCbCr444. And then I remembered I had an old Samsung LE32B53 in the kitchen. I never connected HDTVs to my rusty PC in the past. And, surprise! The damn colors were the same!

Then I started to dig more about configuring the monitor. In the end I came with two solutions, one of them starting off the "Vibrant" setting on the monitor. However all solutions include now setting the blue brightness to 80% and blue contrast to 100% so it must be having a natural yellow tint...

However I am still worried with the flicker and alarm sound on Windows startup. I can, of course, keep the monitor closed at the time and turn on after ; or turn off and back on, but still keeps me thinking...

 

[ShadyHamster]

So the monitor itself has an alarm? That's odd never seen that, does it have built in speakers? That may be causing it.
Not sure about the flickering, could just be normal for that monitor when it changes to a black screen or something.
If your monitor has the option, try disabling 'auto source switching' (your monitor might name it something else), that might help removing the flickering.

If you are still not happy with the colours after manually setting it up i would return it and see if its possible to get a different model or even brand monitor.

 

[fxeconomist]

So the monitor itself has an alarm? That's odd never seen that, does it have built in speakers? That may be causing it.
Not sure about the flickering, could just be normal for that monitor when it changes to a black screen or something.
If your monitor has the option, try disabling 'auto source switching' (your monitor might name it something else), that might help removing the flickering.

If you are still not happy with the colours after manually setting it up i would return it and see if its possible to get a different model or even brand monitor.

Well it has. It's an HDTV. But it's considered monitor because of the 5 ms response time. I don't know about the colors.
Today I visited my neighbor who uses an 85 cm Samsung and the Auridon picture looks similar, with the same turquoise sky. I'm starting to think this might be a natural bias that occurs within LED technology which doesn't happen with LCD. So I'm not so upset anymore.