Adjusting an LCD monitor

I have quite a cheap LCD TFT monitor - a 'Xiod' (Samsung) and I was having trouble with some weird effects: wavy lines across solid colours (a moire effect), fonts thicker on some parts of the screen than others, and other odd effects with thin lines becoming thicker depending on where they were on the screen. Oddly, these problems would go away if I dropped from 'True Colour' in the monitor settings to 'High Colour'. I thought it was a problem with the monitor, but didn't want to send it back as I'd have nothing to work on.

Thanks to some helpful posts on a story on LCD monitor problems on Slashdot I discovered my monitor just needed adjusting with the right sort of image.

I'd only used the 'auto' button once on my monitor while I was trying to fix the weird problems that were happening, but I did it either showing my desktop (black with lots of icons) or just my editor. Apparently if you use an image with lots of sharp edges it gives the monitor a better chance of adjusting itself properly. I tried it, and now my monitor works fine.

Note: this apparently only works with LCD monitors that have the standard VGA connection, if you have a digital connection and use that, you shouldn't need to do this adjustment.

I've now built the image I use in to a web page so I can easily auto-adjust it if I change resolutions, or the PC it's connected to (which I do every now and then.) And so other people can use it easily.

Instructions for use

1. Bring up the Monitor adjust page in your browser and maximise it on your screen. Even better, use 'Full Screen' (in the View menu, or press F11).
2. Press the 'Auto' or 'Adjust' button on your monitor, or find the option in it's menu.
3. When it's finished, you can go to another page that doesn't give you headaches to look at.

That's all I've needed to do, and now the little problems the monitor was having have gone away. Great.

Paul Silver, October 2004