Unofficial Dell 2405FPW FAQ / INFO page 2405

[HN]

Originally posted by: Cheesetogo
DOes anyone have a picture of the inputs on the bottom of the screen? I've seen them before, but when I searched I couldn't find them.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/m...405fpw/English/about.htm#Bottom%20View

 

[NCTurner2002]

I am considering getting the 2405 especially after reading all the comments on here! I backed off of the 2005, as I don't think it would give me really any more screen real estate than my current 17", except more horizontally.

Anyway, my questions are:

1) what video card would you recommend, that wouldn't break the bank? I don't do much gaming, but mostly photo editing and surfing. I'm a "prosumer" photographer, and I really want my monitor to reflect my prints. I'm currently using a Dell Dimension 2400, 2.53 ghz, 1G ram.

2) what tuner would you recommend, so I can watch TV on this monitor? I presently do not have HD.

thanks for your help!

Greg

 

[Cheesetogo]

You'll probably want a pci card as the dimension 2400 has no agp slot. Here's a tv tuner thread: Text

 

[NCTurner2002]

Originally posted by: Cheesetogo
You'll probably want a pci card as the dimension 2400 has no agp slot. Here's a tv tuner thread: Text

yes, but which pci card? (anyone?) Thanks!

 

[Bmott]

I would get the Hauupauge PVR-150 its around $60 and a good deal for a TV Card. I have a PVR-250 and i love it.

 

[NCTurner2002]

Originally posted by: Bmott
I would get the Hauupauge PVR-150 its around $60 and a good deal for a TV Card. I have a PVR-250 and i love it.

Thanks for the tip! I had the PVR-250 ordered from Amazon, but it was taking them forever to ship it seemed, so in the meantime I did some more research, and wound up ordering the ATI "TV TNR PWRCLR T55-P03 550 PRO RTL", so we'll see. It had better reviews actually than the Hauppauge, although it seems that they are pretty close!

What type of software do you use to control the PVR-250? I ordered Beyond TV (3). Both of these are to arrive today, supposedly!

 

[FP]

Just received this monitor and all I can say is wow. I expected to be floored but I was honestly speechless when I saw the thing for the first time. I have 1 stuck pixel and 1 dead pixel but no backlight bleed through that I can tell so I am keeping it.

One thing I never really though about though is how much work your arm gets dragging the cursor over all that real estate!

 

[sirfergy]

Thats why you increase your mouse sensitivity.

 

[FP]

Originally posted by: sirfergy
Thats why you increase your mouse sensitivity.

Yeah, I increased it a bit but too much and the mouse is too hard to control.

I played Doom3 for a few hours last night and didn't notice any ghosting at all.

Amazing monitor.

 

[koitsu]

How about updating this "unofficial FAQ" with some useful information, like where the 2405FPW monitor profile INFs on Dell's site have disappeared to?

Good luck finding them. Makes me wonder if Dell deems their 2405FPW a cash cow and nothing more...

 

[NeuronBasher]

ftp://ftp.dell.com/monitors/R91058.EXE

 

[nippyjun]

Are drivers needed for 64 bit windows XP?

 

[FP]

What do those drivers get you?

Do I really need them?

 

[FP]

Does anyone know what Dell does with the RMA'd monitors that people return because of slight backlight or a couple dead pixels? Do they resell them as new?

 

[MogyBear]

I have the freaking annoying sound with mine; another one is already on its way, 2nd day delivery. Not bad.

 

[sirfergy]

Wow, noise eh? That's a bummer. So far I've been loving mine. Too bad my machine can't handle two of these.

 

[videoclone]

Originally posted by: NCTurner2002

Originally posted by: Cheesetogo
You'll probably want a pci card as the dimension 2400 has no agp slot. Here's a tv tuner thread: Text

yes, but which pci card? (anyone?) Thanks!

This is the one i would get ...
POWERCOLOR R92P-LD3 Radeon 9250 256MB DDR PCI Video Card - Retail

As its got a 128Bit Memory bus, DVI and its also comes with DDR 400Mhz Memory....

Go here for the full list of cards!

They all kinda suck .. a few others also come with a 128Bit memory bus but no DVI
If you wanna save money get a cheaper 64bit card .. but at high rez may get choppy with Digital ART.

 

[FP]

Received my 2nd replacement today.

No dead pixels and minimal backlight bleedthrough. I swear the white Dead Pixel Buddy test shows a yellow tint on the border of the monitor but my wife says I am crazy. Either way I am very pleased with this one. Such a great monitor I wish my desk was big enough for 2!

EDIT: Argh... Spoke too soon. IT HUMS! I have heard people complaining of this. Looks like this one is goin back too. This is ridiculous.

 

[cthunter30]

[/quote]

I just got my 2405 yesterday. I found that I could only get the aspect ratio setting available on the monitor's OSD when I was using one of the monitor's preset display modes, like 1600x1200 or 1280x1024 for example. If I used a resoluton that wasn't one of the preset modes, like 1280x960 or 1360x768, the monitor scaled the image to fit the screen, and the aspect ratio setting was greyed out.

When not in native resolution, or in 1:1 scale, there is a sizable drop in visual quality. For the desktop, it's ok, but for a detailed game like The Sims 2, the loss in detail was a shock. You would never play a game that looked that bad on a monitor that costs this much. At 1600x1200 and 1:1 scale, TS2 looks awesome, but the in-game text and control panel is very small - a trade off I guess. UT2004 looks phenomenal at 1920x1200, and I got playable frame rates (for me). I've forgotten what I had AA and AF set to when I was playing last night. And UT2004 scales the HUD/text up at higher resolutions, which is great.

I wasn't aware there was a 1:1/center setting in the latest Catalyst drivers as mentioned earlier. I'll look for that tonight when I get home. But I am a bit disappointed in the lack of resolution flexibility with this monitor. I expected (naively) that 1:1 scale would work with more resolutions. But I can live with it's limitations. For web surfing/email/etc, the widescreen is great, and UT2004 was quite immersive but certainly not too big for me. My previous monitor was a 20" Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 2060U, that had about the same height screen, but obviously was not as wide. I haven't tried any other games on the 2405 yet.

Specs: Athlon64 3800+, 1 GB RAM, and a Radeon X800 Pro using Dell's DVI-D cable.[/quote]

Hi, I plan to buy 2405 but after I felt a bit worry after read through your review. There are a few questions in my mind:
1) We need 1:1 scale to get the good picture - in other words, does this means this unit is not suitable for playing xbox / xbox 360 /PS3 games in the format of 480p/720p/1080i/1080p?
2) If I plan to buy a LCD mainly for DVD/HD viewing and console gaming purpose, what is the difference of 2405 compare to AV LCD that normally come with lower resolution 1360x768?

 

[MIDIman]

bump - just joined the 2405fpw club. Hooked it up at work to an FX5200, but it didn't work out too well, so I'm going to wait to review it until I get home, where I have a 9600 and 9800 along with a comparison with my Sony G400. My initial reaction is that its WAY too bright, but coming from a history of fine CRT's, that's probably typical. I would say pulling down the gamma would be a must.

Can't wait to play mame shooters in vertical 16:10!!!

[edit] - OP - here's a review you can add:

Mame32QA Dell 2405FPW Review

 

[sirfergy]

What issues did you have with the FX5200?

 

[MIDIman]

Originally posted by: sirfergy
What issues did you have with the FX5200?

As mentioned in an earlier post, it wouldn't display 1920x1200 correctly. Again, this is at work, where I won't be using it, so I didn't look into it in too much detail.

I downloaded the latest Nvidia driver. 1920x1200 was still not available. I added a "Custom" resolution @ 1920x1200. After applying it, (again, as mentioned in an earlier post) it displays 1920, but only showing stretched 1600x1200, and as you go right, the screen scrolls (a Nvidia panel feature). Going into the monitor's settings, I noticed that it was set to Fill, so I put it on 1:1 and it again only showed 1600x1200, but cropped/centered 4:3 in the middle of the screen, and the screen still scrolls. In other words, the monitor was still reading the incoming signal as 1600x1200.

Not sure if this is fixable or not, but I'm not going to bother. It should be noted that the FX5200 is NOT on the 2405fpw list of supported graphics cards.



Other issues...during bootup, there was a lot of "not in sync" mess going on before I physically got into Windows. BIOS screens were fine, but when you get the "loading WinXP" screen, it was all over the place. Also, once in Windows, I noticed that sometimes I would get odd green streaked lines on the screen, particularly when opening folders.

SOOOOOoo....no real qualified review until I get home!

 

[sirfergy]

I had the exact same problem with my geforce4mx. I just reverted back to the nvidia drivers that ship with XP that output 1920x1200 just fine over DVI.

Anyone else able to solve this?

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

My 2405 came about three weeks ago with nary a dead pixel or noise issue and paired with a BFG 7800GTX OC at 521 and 1420mem it is a vision to view. It is lovely and now I am saving up for that second one! I just am praying that the copy protection rumors of Windows Vista don't shut me out of a $779 monitor, lol.

Edit memory on the video card should read 1402 not 1420

 

[James3shin]

are DRM monitors even out yet?