LCD Computer Monitor advice needed

[mjncad]

I must be lucky....I have three HPs in the office, two on my desk, all between 24-30 months old. The two on my desk are on probably 100 hours each week, the other probably 30-40 hours. I have added RAM, and replaced a couple of fans, and replaced one optical drive. That's it. I also have an HP laptop, seldom used, 30 months old, no problems. My worst problems have been with so called custom built machines I had made locally. Did that twice, two different small businesses in the area, both were wretched experiences.

I'm an old school HP fan. I have an HP 11C calculator that I bought over 20-years ago that I use regularly. Great calculator and I love that RPN (Reverse Polish Notation). I had a LaserJet 4 that lasted 12 - 13 years of almost daily use...great printer. I had the first ScanJet scanner that came out after Carly Firorina arrived at HP and the 6100C was discontinued. That scanner was a piece of crap. I bought a 6100C with automatic document feeder off of Fleabay. That was the last great desktop scanner HP made and is probably 10+ years old. I have a dead CP1700D 11"x17" printer that lasted 2 - 3 years tops. I got it's equally overpriced cheap successor the 2800dt as a replacement; but I'll be amazed if it lasts 3-years as its a clunky, flimsy piece of junk.

So when I hear that a couple of fans and an optical drive have puked on machines that are 30-months old or less...that is not the HP I remember.

Locally built PC's are hit or miss depending on who is building them. I could build my own too; but I don't have Dell's, HP's, Gateway's resources to buy components and test them for compatibility.

having lots of desktop real estate via multiple displays is worth FAR MORE than you may think.
texasjohn

I've had multiple displays, and I'd rather have one big display than multiples as getting multiple displays to work right can be a nuisance depending on the video card and its related software.

 

[EddieWalker]

...after Carly Firorina arrived at HP

I really think this person ruined HP. It was a great company and top quality before she got there. Then she came up with the idea of multipe model numbers for the same thing, making cheaper versons of it and selling as many as possible without any quality control. It was a disaster and it might have killed the company. It's rare to find a HP fan anymore since so many people have been burned by them and the junk they put out.

Maybe there commercial stuff is better then what they sell to the general public, but I'd buy Epson over just about any other printer out there.

Eddie

 

[LMTC]

I buy an inexpensive (relatively speaking) printer just about every year due to our usage....I'd rather do that than put out the capital for a better printer and I have space issues. I have not been happy with the last couple HPs, and did recently buy a Canon Pixma MP530. However.....I don't consider an optical drive and a couple fans to be much when you consider I run those machines 100 hours a week. The optical drive was a Lite-on and it didn't just quit, it started malfunctioning. Had the exact same model Lite-on in a generic machine do the same. Replaced both with a $30 Samsung DVD-RW that has been fine. One fan quit, one just wasn't providing enough air flow so I replaced it with two. Not trying to argue with anyone, as in general I agree their quality has decreased (whose hasn't?), but I remain happy with the PCs I have.

 

[mjncad]

I really think this person ruined HP. It was a great company and top quality before she got there. Eddie

Let's just say I refer to Carly on a regular basis with a four letter word that women hate.

I don't consider an optical drive and a couple fans to be much when you consider I run those machines 100 hours a week.

My current POS Dell had the Chinese made fan arrive installed in the Chinese made case backwards. I discovered this when the fan started failing and I got thermal alarms and shutdowns. I installed a top rated fan from a PC components store, and that Chinese made fan puked within a month. I ended up going to my scrap box and getting a 120VAC box fan out of a 1980's vintage Sperry-Univac minicomputer. Great American made fan that is rebuildable when the dirt and gunk start to slow it down. Before I got that fan and a couple more like it, it ran 24/7/365 for close to ten years on the S-U. My PC probably runs 40 - 80 hours a week.

 

[EddieWalker]

After several attmepts to buy the LG monitor, I finally bought one today. It's been sold out the previous times that I've been there.

It's called the W2252TQ and cost $269 plus tax at Best Buy. The Dell and Samsung looked about the same to me in picture quality, but Steph said the LG had the brightest, clearest picture. She also has 30/20 vision and I never doubt her when it comes to what she can see compared to what I see, or other mere mortals. LOL

Setting my computer to it's maximum setting gives me an amazing picture. We looked at pictures for awhile, just to see how bright and nice the look on the LG monitor. I had to switch to the largest icons and font size, which helpt with most pages.

On Yahoo and some other websites, it's awesome. I get a huge picture that's centered on my screen. Here on TBN, I get a full screen, but it's all stretched super wide and the fonts are very small. It's actually painful to look at. Then on a few other sites like ebay, I get a small image in the center of the screen. It's like the old sized monitor, but small and with allot of empty space on either side.

Any thoughts on how to fix this?

Thank you,
Eddie

 

[JayC]

Are you running the monitor's native resolution? My monitor is a 17" Samsung with a native resolution of 1280x1024 (5:4 aspect ratio).

 

[EddieWalker]

I raised the resolution to the max that I can on this computer, and what they recomend on the instructions. 1680 x 1050 and then made sure that I was at 60hz for my frequency.

On yahoo and craigslist, it works perfect. On ebay, I can hit Control and roll up my mouse button to zoom in the page, which works, but makes pictures a bit fuzy. Here on TBN, it's the worse. If I do the Control and scroll trick, it gets bigger, but the sized of the pages go off the screen. To get the fonts large enough to be comfortable to read, I have to slide the picture from right to left.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[mjncad]

Eddie:

Are you having your browser completely fill the screen? Try resizing the window downward so it doesn't fill the screen.

I also have my text size set to medium. In IE, go to View>Text Size and pick something that's comfortable to you.