Horizontal 'static' when play DVDs on Dell 2005FPW display

evoweiss

Hi all,

I'm experiencing a curious problem. I have a large dell flat panel display and am running it off a nvidia geforce fx5200's DVI port. While everything seems fine overall, when I play a DVD or sometimes a divx or xvid file, I get this odd horizontal static for lack of a better word. It doesn't completely foul up the picture, but it's visible and annoying when you're sitting close to the screen. It's as if small horizontal lines appear and vanish at various heights on the display.

I tried to upgrade my nvidia driver and that didn't help out. It's much more common when playing a DVD, too. I am running xorg-7.0-r1, have a P4, 512 megs of ram, and never had this problem when running a CRT and *maybe* even when I had the flat panel monitor. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Best,

Alex

nukem996 · l33t Joined: 13 Nov 2003 Posts: 776

hmmm I have a Dell 2405 FPW and ive never had this problem. Id suggest calling Dell, I had a small dent in mine and they replaced it(even shiped it to me before I had to ship mine). You could also try putting another video card in(my dad runs a Dell 2405 FPW off an eVGA 6200 just fine).

evoweiss · Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 10:00 am Post subject:

Hi,

nukem996 · l33t Joined: 13 Nov 2003 Posts: 776

Hard to say if it only happens when playing a DVD Divx or xvid. Could you hook something else up to the monitor to test(laptop, normal DVD player, etc)? I know mine has a number of different ports(DVI VGA SVideo HD). Also make sure to test with different media engines(xine, mplayer, and possibly VLC).

nukem996 · l33t Joined: 13 Nov 2003 Posts: 776

Could this possibly be your problems? Its suggested here that to fix it you should leave a full screen white image up for an hour or so and/or keep the monitor off for about 24 hours.

evoweiss · Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 10:40 am Post subject:

evoweiss · Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 10:42 am Post subject:

One other thing... I tried playing a DVD off the HDD and still no luck.

Best,

Alex

evoweiss · Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 10:44 am Post subject:

nukem996 · l33t Joined: 13 Nov 2003 Posts: 776

It sounds like the monitor. If you really want to test it download knoppix boot into it. If you use binary drivers(nvidia or ATI) then kill X mount your drive and install the driver(the plain package should be in /usr/portage/distfiles) and then copy your xorg.conf file over to knoppix. Start up X again and try to play a movie off your hard drive. If you see the same stuff its not a config thing its your monitor.

evoweiss · Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 11:20 am Post subject:

Hi,

evoweiss · Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 11:25 am Post subject:

Hi again folks,

Forbid the post-chain, but I may have found yet another clue as to what may be going on... Let me know if this suggests anything at all to folks.

Somebody on a forum somewhere suggested that DVDs may not be high enough in resolution to play on this monitor when it's in fullscreen mode. I then happened to come across the demonstration videos on the micro$oft website. I downloaded the 720p and 1080p versions of "The Living Sea."

The 720p version plays fine in non-fullscreen mode, but once you put it into fullscreen mode the problem I described begins immediately. Changing back to non-fullscreen clears up the problem right away.

The 1080p version plays perfectly in either non-fullscreen or fullscreen mode.

Might it thus be that, for some reason or another, my system is not set up so that it switches into whatever the better resolution is for whatever is playing? In my xorg.conf, I only have a modeline for 1680x1050. Might having other modelines would solve the problem?

Best,

Alex

evoweiss · Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 12:10 pm Post subject:

Hi again,

The above suggestion *definitely* seems to be at the root of the problem. Case-in-point, I can make the static go away in the demonstration video that had the problem if I changed the resolution via control-alt-pluskey. I tested this on the DVD, too, and same thing happened, i.e., I was able to get rid of the problem!

Now, the big question is, how do I automatize this? Would it be as simple as adding extra modelines to xorg.conf, and, if so, which should I enter in there?

Best,

Alex

evoweiss · Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 10:56 pm Post subject:

Hi,

Just an update (and bump) on the problem. I reported the potential bug to nvidia and they were able to reproduce the problem, meaning, obviously, that it's not hardware related.

Best,

Alex

evoweiss · Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 1:34 pm Post subject:

Hello,

Just a bump to wonder whether anybody has additional thoughts or has run into the same problem.

Best,

Alex