Samsung 204b Blanking Issue

[sidewinder]

Folks,

I have a Samsung 204b and an 8800GTS card. I recently upgraded (downgraded??) to Vista (32-bit) and installed the new 169.44 driver. When I was running XP Pro, I had made the "CVT Reduced Blank" change and eliminated the blanking issues I had experienced.

Well, the blanking is back and I have searched for all possible ways to fix the problem and can't find any. I tried PowerStrip but the "Advanced timing options..." never highlighted so I could not select them. I even tried the 169.25 driver but no joy.

What I need to be able to do with the 169.25 or 169.44 drivers is enable "CVT Reduced Blank" or be able to change the the horizontal scan rate to 74,000 Khz and the vertical scan rate to 59,200 Khz. Or I need a Vista compatible driver other than 169.25 or 169.44 that allows me to make these changes.

The problem is definitely the 204b.....

Any help is appreciated!

Does anyone have a solution for these new drivers? If not, I guess I will go buy and EVGA cable and use that....

Thanks,

S-

[AsRock]

Blanking ?. Do you see any thing at bootup ?.

Ok looked a little in to blanking why not just change it back to default or is that not possible at all ?.

I don't remember what it was but there is button combo's that you can do to get the monitor to show you hidden settings. If there's a reset or some thing i'm not sure..

IF the the program that used did not change the LCD timings ? try booting into safe mode. Have you tried hooking the monitor up though the Analog D plug ( or other way around try a digital cable?.

[sidewinder]

AsRock,

It is as hardware problem with the Samsung 204B LCD display when using the DVI interface. The monitor is set to its default settings as is the video card and associated driver. The 204B can't quite handle the 165 MHz transfer rate of DVI, and 1600x1200x32 output on high end cards is real close to it.

The solution is to drop the refresh rate from 60.00 Hz to 59.92 Hz. I could do this with the XP driver I was using by turning on the hidden "CVT Reduced Blank" option using the old-style control panel. I can't find a Vista 32-bit driver that lets me enable the old style control panel or that has this option.

Yes, I could use the VGA connector, but that lowers the video quality noticeably.

S-

[lemonadesoda]

This is interesting. I have a similar problem on one of our Syncmaster 204TS. The screen is rock steady most of the time. But when changing window contents, like going to a new web-page, the screen blanks out occasionally (not always). It blanks for about 0.5 secs, and then comes back.

I never got to the bottom of the problem. I will try the lower refresh rate trick and see if that will fix the issue.

[AsRock]

Originally Posted by sidewinder

AsRock,

It is as hardware problem with the Samsung 204B LCD display when using the DVI interface. The monitor is set to its default settings as is the video card and associated driver. The 204B can't quite handle the 165 MHz transfer rate of DVI, and 1600x1200x32 output on high end cards is real close to it.

The solution is to drop the refresh rate from 60.00 Hz to 59.92 Hz. I could do this with the XP driver I was using by turning on the hidden "CVT Reduced Blank" option using the old-style control panel. I can't find a Vista 32-bit driver that lets me enable the old style control panel or that has this option.

Yes, I could use the VGA connector, but that lowers the video quality noticeably.

S-

Kinda crazy really as mine says 60Hz @ 16x12 res as i play all games like that. NEVER seen it lower lol...

O yeah my v card is pretty high end too... Only differance i see here is Vista at this time but then again not noticed it there either..


Anyways why not have a look at the XP driver is there's a .reg or soe thing to add or even a .inf file.

Only time mine blinks is when a games going to start or CCC just loaded up. It was fine with my 7900GTOCSC too.

[sidewinder]

AsRock,

The problem only occurs in 204B displays made in China. If your 204B was made elsewhere, it won't have the problem.

It's not a Vista problem. It is a display hardware problem that requires a slight change to the signal sent to the monitor by the graphics card.

If you don't know what you are talking about in regards the nVidia drivers, you might as well not speculate. I know how to configure the old XP driver...as I explained I had done that. I need to know if there is a way to do the same thing with the newer drivers that work with 32-bit Vista.

S-

[lemonadesoda]

sidewinder: how to adjust the refresh rate to 59.99?

[sidewinder]

lemonadesoda,

What nVidia driver are you using and with which video card?

S-