Distorted LCD monitor

[qwinkan]

 :-?

I have a BENQ FP7IE LCD monitor for my PC.  The screen is elongated vertically such that if you made a perfect circle in illustrator or MSpaint, it'll appear stretched and elongated or ellipsical.

Even if you changed the screen settings into 800x600 resolution, everything still appears stretched out.

Is there a way to rectify this?  Please help!

[Flame]

Have you tried updating your video card drivers? When did this start? Has it always been like this? Have you made any changes to your system recently? Which operating system are you using? Do you have virus and Spyware protection?

Flame

[qwinkan]

I haven't updated  my video card drivers.

It's always been like this.  All of my co-workers here at the office have the same problem (all are using flat screen LCD monitors).  The thing is, the physical LCD monitor itself is square in shape, not rectangular (landscape orientation) like the usual computer monitors.  And when I go to the monitor settings (you know those little buttons at the bottom part), there's no vertical and horizontal resizing.  

No systems changes recently.

Window XP OS.

It has McAfee.

Thanks!

[Flame]

Go to your video card manufacturer's website and download and install the latest drivers for your card. Also, do you have IT people at work?

Flame

[qwinkan]

unfortunately we don't have IT people  
my video card is an "NVIDIA Geforce 6200 turbo cache (TM)" so I checked the site for drivers and found : "84.21 forceware_winxp2k_english_whql.exe"  for some reason it won't install when I run it, it's saying something about freeing up 22mb space on my C drive but when I checked I still had 29mb free.  I could really delete anything else on the C drive coz all of them are program files...

[Dilbert]

I haven't seen a hard drive that crowded in years!

The reason it won't install is that Windows needs a "buffer" of hard drive space. Denying it this would cause severe instability, so the designers made it impossible to wreck your system that way. My advice: Get a second hard drive, perhaps an external one, to keep programs in. If you do this, keep the bare minimum on the C: drive as it's obviouly not large enough to handle all you've got on it.

It need not be external, but you're going to need more hard drive space... soon. As for the display, can you set it even higher? What happens when it's set to something like 1024 X 768?

And what brand of monitor is this? It may have a "auto adjust" button you don't know about.

[qwinkan]

  apparently the hard disk is 80GB but it was partitioned 30(program files)/50, plus it has another 80gb hard disk.

it's the same with all settings, even for 1024x768.  What I do to check is if it's still distorted is I make a circle in Illustrator, then I hold up a CD over it on the monitor.  

Generally, the distortion is no big deal I mean it's negligible when you're checking emails etc., It's just that I'm a 2d and 3d designer and it just bugs me when whatever I'm designing doesn't come out exactly as what I'm seeing on the monitor.  :-/  you know, things tend to be shorter or wider in actual than what I've made.

the model is BENQ FP7IE, there is an auto adjust button, doesn't help though. it just centers and stretches the display area to the monitor, which is square and not rectangular (landscape, like most monitors)


THanks for your patience

[Dilbert]

My two-layer answer:

*Try to find a way to install those drivers.
*If that doesn't work or cannot be done, my best advice is to play with the monitor settings until that circle matches up with the curves of the CD. But to do that, you would have to know the radius/diameter of the CD, right? If it's anything like AutoCAD...

[Fed]

I would email BENQ.

[qwinkan]

Thanks!

I did manage to increase the display area width until the circle was a circle, but the display area exceeded the monitor so I couldn't get to the scroll bars.

anyhow, I'll keep at the driver installation.

Thanks again!  

[Rob Pomeroy]

This monitor may provide a more proportionally correct image when running at a different resolution - i.e. not 800x600 - a resolution which clearly isn't square!!!  Did the monitors come with "driver" disks?  Technically these aren't drivers - just information files that tells Windows the resolutions that the monitor can handle.  I don't think it should be necessary to update your graphics card drivers - just make sure that Winodws knows what the monitor can do (which it won't if it just knows it as "standard monitor" or "plug and play monitor").

[kouzen]

helo check your mail :p

[qwinkan]

problem solved!!!!  [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

I'm feeling very silly right now...   I just set the screen resolution to... 1280x1024 and it was fine... I got my perfect circle =P hihihi

Like robpomeroy said, the monitor was recognized as just plug and play so I updated the monitor driver, which could have only been a good thing. =)

Thank you all for putting up with my PC ignorance  

Thanks for all the help!!!

[Rob Pomeroy]

Glad it's sorted.  Come back if you have any other PC problems!