Weird Screen problem on my dell

Okay, here's the deal:

I've had my dell xps1530 for around 3-4 years and never been satisfied with the screen(LCD). Among other problems I've sent it in to get replaced many times, and it has ALWAYS come back either worse, or no better. There is always at least 1 dead pixel, in addition to the screen being typically grainy or screen-bleedy. Now I cant send it in anymore due to the warranty being up, and although I will just try to bear it for another year there is another issue with the LCD I am unfamiliar with.

The last two replacements have introduced me to a NEW problem entirely(in additon to all the other stuff), and I have NO-IDEA how to classify this.

There is VERY slight distortion when I inspect my screen closely and change my viewing angle (can be as simple as moving my eyes around the screen). It's pretty much like a faint grid pattern (like tiny rectangles) that appears in the background on the screen, it shows up more easily against solid colors and dark fore-grounds and it appears to affect the majority of the screen. I notice it as well when there is lots of motion on the screen. I tried hooking the computer up to my HDTV with a HDMI cable and I couldn't see it there.

Does anyone have any idea what this is about? What could cause this to appear just by me shifting my eyes/head back-and forth?

(And for the record the current and previous LCD(s) are the notoriously crap SEC samsung brand)

 

Well, if its on the screen and not outputting to TV via HDMI, then its probably not the video card. I hear you on crappy sec screen. I bought a 2007 1420 and I never liked the sec screen. Due to cracked hinge i replaced that one with another with AUO screen which was worse, grainy, and vasoline/greasy looking crap. Luckily, Dell used to have a return/refund policy in those days (like HP still does) and I got my money back.

I believe Dell is like best buy now and charges a hefty restock fee. This is why I would NEVER buy a dell again. What happens if you have two dead pixels on a brand new machine? According to dell, that's good enough and I would not like having to cough up 15 percent of a machine's price because of dead pixels. I personally won't accept a new computer with dead pixels. IMO, once Dell quit standing by there products and threw away there 100 percent refund policy I lost complete interest in this company.

 

Yeah, well I was just hoping someone could help me identify whatever is going on here (knowing is half the battle). I know I wont be getting another dell anytime soon.

I dunno if this is software or hardware problem. Perhaps the techs were sloppy hooking everything back up? Does safe-mode disable your video card driver? Cause I can still see the effect in safe mode.

 

Maybe that distortion is the glossy coating used? Is that a 1440x900 screen? As I recall, the 1400x900 upgraded screens in those days were all crap. The regular 1280x800 were better. The 1440 sweet spot was so bad that no matter how you angled it, parts of the picture would get washed out. I'm not sure how bad the 15" screens were, but I recall on the 14" 1420's it was impossible to get a good wxga+ screen.

I don't think its you hardware and or drivers. Usually when the video card goes bad you see green lines, or the screen goes blank. Which video card you you have? The nvidia 84xx series cards do have known failures for bad soder.. big lawsuit over that mess.

 

Well it does happen to be glossy 1440 x 900, though I have been through abunch of screens and this problem has really only noticeable on the last two(both terrible samsungs).

The card is a nvidia 8600 gt (havent had any real problems with it).