G55 : Faint lines in light gradients?

[snapperwhip]

Hi,

So I've had my G55 for a week or two, and am generally very happy with it. Having just moved my graphic tools over from the old laptop, however, I just noticed something....weird with the display. When I'm working with a particular color gradient (at 50/50 brightness/contrast, this is usually beige to pink), the color will not be....smooth. There are very, very faint but perceptible lines that look like scanlines running through any area of that color, and the pinkier areas will actually FLICKER, as if it's dithering gone wrong.

Using the refresh rate trick for the bands in G75's dark areas help with the problem somewhat, eliminating the flickering almost entirely and helping a lot with the yellower areas in beige gradients, but does not make it go away. Setting brightness/contrast at 47/62 will make the lines nearly imperceptible in beige (though SLIGHTLY more perceptible in pink, grey and light blue gradients).

This is one of the problem beige gradients at 50/50 brightness/contrast. Does anyone else see the lines, or is it just my monitor? The lines are more visible if the batch of beige is in the upper/lower part of the screen, off-center. (At center the lines themselves are nearly imperceptible, but you can still see that it's not a smooth gradient.) I suppose I can live with it if I must, but I'd like to know if this is endemic to the G55's, or if it's just me. If the former, fair enough, it bugs me but I'll live. If the latter, I'll RMA.



I'm using Windows 8 + Nvidia's newest 314.21 beta drivers, just in case this is just a problem of Nvidia's W8 drivers being screwed up. (In which case I have a copy of W7 standing by.) My dark areas are perfectly lovely, by the way. The monitor reports itself as being LG Philips Samsung, apparently, unless something can screw up hardware IDs.

Thank you in advance for your time!

EDIT : Oops.

I could've SWORN it said it was an LG Philips when I looked at the properties for the first time (about a week ago, when I first noticed this problem, I was still on a different driver then). Now I just rechecked my Hardware ID again and it's....actually a Samsung. SEC314C. MY BAD. I DON'T KNOW WHAT MY BRAIN WAS ON. (I'll edit this into the post below later, when it's gone through moderation.)

[Pitcher1]

could you try other vga driver version?

[snapperwhip]

Mike_Lu@ASUS wrote:
could you try other vga driver version?

It was like this with the drivers the machine came with (I believe it was 307.something, but I'm not sure). I updated to 314.03? and finally to the 314.21 beta, and it was the same in all of them. If you have any other version you'd recommend, I'd be happy to try them!

However this is the first i seen of it on a LG Philips Take a few pics of the display showing some gradients make them all high res.

EDIT : Er, actually, it's a mistake. I could've SWORN it reported as LG Philips, but I just checked again today and the Hardware ID says it's a Samsung. If there's anyone else with this problem, maybe nobody else noticed? Everything else looks very pristine. Light lines on dark colors are very easy to notice, but these are light lines on very light colors, and I'm not sure I'd notice them at all if I didn't happen to use beige gradients a lot. Would a regular camera do just fine? They're quite hard to see in the first place, and I've never had much luck photographing things on a screen. (They are more visible at more extreme brightness/contrast settings, though.)

At any rate, if not all G55s have them, I might go ask the ASUS service what I can do. It's at least worth a try....? I have to go talk to them about a stuck key on my keyboard, anyway....it's like the C key only works when you hit it in the middle.

[Vicodin]

Don't see what you are describing.

[bignazpwns]

snapperwhip wrote:
Hi,

So I've had my G55 for a week or two, and am generally very happy with it. Having just moved my graphic tools over from the old laptop, however, I just noticed something....weird with the display. When I'm working with a particular color gradient (at 50/50 brightness/contrast, this is usually beige to pink), the color will not be....smooth. There are very, very faint but perceptible lines that look like scanlines running through any area of that color, and the pinkier areas will actually FLICKER, as if it's dithering gone wrong.

Using the refresh rate trick for the bands in G75's dark areas help with the problem somewhat, eliminating the flickering almost entirely and helping a lot with the yellower areas in beige gradients, but does not make it go away. Setting brightness/contrast at 47/62 will make the lines nearly imperceptible in beige (though SLIGHTLY more perceptible in pink, grey and light blue gradients).

This is one of the problem beige gradients at 50/50 brightness/contrast. Does anyone else see the lines, or is it just my monitor? The lines are more visible if the batch of beige is in the upper/lower part of the screen, off-center. (At center the lines themselves are nearly imperceptible, but you can still see that it's not a smooth gradient.) I suppose I can live with it if I must, but I'd like to know if this is endemic to the G55's, or if it's just me. If the former, fair enough, it bugs me but I'll live. If the latter, I'll RMA.



I'm using Windows 8 + Nvidia's newest 314.21 beta drivers, just in case this is just a problem of Nvidia's W8 drivers being screwed up. (In which case I have a copy of W7 standing by.) My dark areas are perfectly lovely, by the way. The monitor reports itself as being LG Philips.

Thank you in advance for your time!

Faint lines is the wide spread problem of the G series. Don't expect a fix from Asus as more then a few people sent their units in for the same issues and they were never fixed.

However this is the first i seen of it on a LG Philips Take a few pics of the display showing some gradients make them all high res.

[Vicodin]

I have seen many threads about these screen issues. I am thankful I have a G55 with no issues. Knock on wood.

[snapperwhip]

I hate double-posting, but figure I'll post this here.

If anyone else here ever gets a Samsung SEC314C model with the same problem, it's definitely got something to do with refresh rate communication between card and monitor. Turns out you don't need to change refresh rate to 67 Hz. You just need to change it. Once. To anything, it doesn't matter. Even testing it and reverting it 60 Hz works fine. Then, once you've done that, drop your brightness to 47% and contrast to 45%. This setting will eliminate all lines left in beige/pink/blue gradients, without wrecking your black levels/white balance too much. Color will be sliiiiiiiightly duller, but it's nearly imperceptible on anything except white, which will still be quite bright anyway. (I did a blind test.)

You will STILL get lines on a very specific shade of very very light grey, but it's a lot more ignorable than the ones in colored regions. (They'll be gone at different brightness/contrast settings, but at that point it's not worth the loss in black levels/colors) Much easier to live with than the guys who got lines in black areas, at least.

P.S. I still think this is the best laptop I've ever bought.