Ghosting at high bandwidths on Marvel G200

[paradyne]

Hi everyone,

I have just bought a Belinea 10 80 60 21" 115Khz 274Mhz monitor so I can run at the highest resolutions and refresh rates but have a problem. At high resolutions and Hz I get ghosting which is very visible on text. It is about 1-2 pixels to the right so makes that nasty MS Sans Serif font go very smeary and hard to read. With black text on a grey or white background it appears as a bright image of the text underneath the black text up to 1-2 pixels to the right, if the background is full white the ghost appears as extra full white plus a bit..

I have been given a BNC cable by Belinea and that does seem to have sharpened the image a little but the ghosting persists (and with 2 different HD15-HD15 cables. I did some rough calculations based on the distance to the ghost and I think it is about the right timing to be the image reflected at the monitor end and then back again at the card (~8ns or so).

I was briefly able to try a completely different machine (monitor in same location) which had a Millenium G200 and it seemed to have no (or a greatly reduced) ghost. I think it may also have been slightly less sharp though.

So my question then, is has anyone had this and cured it or have any suggestions for further tests I can make before I go and buy a G400. If I need to buy a G400 (I'd rather not yet, would miss the video capture) is it really worth me getting the MAX version (I mostly want to use Visual C++ with lots of text windows (1600x1200x85Hz etc.), rarely playing 3d games, don't care about highest 3d performance, just best 2d image quality.

Thanks,

[cswan]

I'm sure you already know this, but you're just having a problem with cheap VGA cables not being able to handle the type of image you're pushing across it. Were you implying that your current video card was might be the culprit? If it's not a Matrox, it would not surprise me--but I would think that the G200 and G400 would both work well for that monitor.

You already went the route of a BNC cable--was it a good quality one? Cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $50? What about a high quality DB15-DB15 cable?

Make sure you don't have any speakers near the cable that might be mucking with the image, other EM sources in the wall (or on the other side of the wall), or any grounding issues (plug both comp and monitor directly into the same wall socket.)

I've seen this problem very often on video switchboxes with cheap cabling.

[The PIT]

More likely it's the monitor. Belinea are cheap monitors and not very good. I've sent three back with the onsite warrenty and the one I've got now isn't perfect. It's a 19 inch unit if you go above 1280 x 768 text gets blurred. The Monitor is supposed to do 1600 x 1200. Also it's not very good with white text on a black background. Other things I noticed with all the monitors is that the text tends to blurr as you move to one side of the screen. The amount varied with each monitor. This effect disappears at 800 x 600 and can be reduced by playing around with the refresh rates at higher res.
Things improved by downloading the latest inf file from Belinea.
I think your G400 is innnocent if your overclocking it drop it down a bit. (From experiance this). Also mess around with your refresh rates. What it says it can do in the book doesn't mean it can!
I've seen three or more monitors of the same type from belinea as these showed the same syptoms all these at work. So that makes six.
If I where you I would send the monitor back and change to a different manufacture. If you get the chance test one out first preferrable with a G400. If it looks perfect say you want that one.

[paradyne]

I think I need to clarify a few points..

The card I currently have is a AGP Marvel G200.

I have tried 3 different cables, 2 DB15-DB15 and one DB15-BNC (It looks a good one, Belinea tech support sent it to me so I don't know how expensive it was). The BNC did give a slightly sharper image but no effect on the ghosting.

A friends PC with a Millenium G200 card *did not show ghosting*.

The monitor has excellent corner to corner focus, convergence & geometry. I have in the past used a Iiyama VM 500 21" with a Millenium II card and also a VM510 Pro 22" NF with a G400 (though I really don't like aperture grill displays, I prefer shadow masks for text display). This monitor seems quite comparable if it weren't for the ghosting.

I believe that the ghosting is caused by the signal being reflected back from the monitor (or cable connection) and then being reflected *again* at the video card. I also know that the Marvel card will have different board layout to the Millenium G200 card and that kind of thing can be critical, so I have taken the plunge and ordered a G400 SH 16Mb card, since I would like 1600x1200x32bit anyway which the G200 can't do.

The PIT: Were all the Belinea monitors you had trouble with the 19" type? as far as I've seen no 19" monitor has had good reviews, most manufacturers seem to have used the 17" electronics with the larger tube rather than the 21" with a smaller one, so they lack the dynamic focusing etc. that's really needed with displays of that size. I bought mine because I got someone a 17" belinea for Christmas and they are extremely happy with it, the picture wasn't quite as good as my 17" Iiyama VM400 but for price/performance ratio it blew the Iiyama out of the water. I rejected the option of buying a 19" from any manufacturer because of past experience and the lack of any positive reviews.

[The PIT]

Sorry misread your post and thought you said you got a G400. You did say it had reduced ghosting or none on the second G200.
Are you overclocking? Because I managed to get my G400 to do that by pushing to far.
I've seen two good reviews and one bad for the Belinea. Unfortunatly Magazine reviews aren't that reliable. I've seen them say things like it was pain in the ass to install and then give 9 out of 10 for ease of use. The best option is always if possible to see the monitor in action since your're going to spend hours peering into it.
I've seen a very good Ilyama 19 inch monitor.
Unfortunatly thats out of my price range for now.
Do you still have ghosting by using the d-sub ?

[paradyne]

Problem solved now..

I have fitted a G400 16Mb SH this morning and the ghosting is completely gone, I am looking right now at 1600x1200 32bit 85Hz and I'm entirely happy with it.

I notice that the analogue circuitry by the DB15 connecter looks better on the G400 board, and includes some small surface mounted coils that the marvel does not have, better filtering perhaps?

Anyway, the Marvel is going to get built into my backup system that I'm slowly putting together where it will do an excellent job so things haven't worked out so bad.