Blurry images with new Inspiron 6000

I just got my Inspiron today, and the logos (such as Google's logo) is slightly blurry and seems to be low quality. The text is fine, however. It is a WUXGA screen with the Radeon X300 128 mb video card. Should I reinstall the drivers or something? If so, where are they located?
Also, during video games, the mouse cursor repeatedly blinks when I move it, and when I don't move it it completely disappears.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

I'm afraid I won't be much help with the game part Bennerkla. But I beleive that it is normal for many of the low resolution icons, like google to be blurry on a high resolution screen. Thats also the norm for the standard low resolution wall papers that come with Windows XP.

 

What does its the user mean?

Thanks for the replies. My friend said that he fixed the problem by right clicking on the screen, going to properties, settings, maybe advanced, and testing something in there. Does any of that make sense?

For example, my logos such as Internet Explorer or iTunes are blurry in my system tray, it isn't just the logos. Notebookreview.com logo is blurry in this window right now.

Anyone have an idea? I sure hope I just don't have to deal with it.

Thanks so much,

bennerkla

 

Dell by default changes the Windows dpi setting on high resolution screens from the 'Normal size (96dpi)" to "Large size (120dpi)". What this does is make everything look bigger, but when it scales pictures they turn out looking all blurry.

You're friend was right, follow his instructions, after 'Advanced' a new window pops up, it should be in the 'general' tab. Change the DPI setting back to Normal size (96dpi). Everything will look smaller now though.

 

Thanks exactly what you want to try Ben. A blurry Dell screen is almost always due to a misconfigured "resolution". Unless the screen resolution is set to the "optimum" for the screen, your going to see blurry edges.

Try this: Start->Control Panel->Display. Now click the Settings tab. Within that screen, find a box on the left hand side that says "Screen resolution". Left click, hold and drag the slider all the way to the right. You're selecting the highest resolution this way, which is almost always the "optimum" for the screen. Now click Apply and see what you think.

 

lazybum is right. dell ships their WUXGA screens with the dpi set to 120 instead of 96. this will make some pics/logos blurry. change it back to 96 and it will be crystal clear.

 

Thanks guys, the help you gave me fixed the problem for the most part. I still have some slightly blurry edges on things but I guess that is just the fact that I have more pixels than the picture has.

I was on Dell On Call for about an hour last night and the guy in India had absolutely no idea, so I really appreciate your help.

Here are just a few questions if you all don't mind...

1- I have a program called "Power DVD" and the picture is grainy. Since I have such a nice screen, could I use that to my advantage while watching DVD movies?

2-My screen I believe is 1920x1200. Right now I have it set to
1680x1050 because that is about as small as I want to go. There is also 1280x800, but is that pointless? I like that size slightly better, but the pictures are less clear on that setting.

3-Do computer games use their own resolution? For example, would Half Life 2 look better on one setting than another?

Thanks guys so much, you've been more than helpful

-Ben

 

Well I just tried to play Age of Mythology, and my cursor is still really unresponsive to my mouse and the cursor is gone with my mouse is idle and flashes when I move my mouse around. I have the exact same problem with Sim City 4, so I don't think it is the game.

Any idea on this one? Thanks so much.

bennerkla

 

Well...I can think of one thing off the top of my head to resolve that issue. If you go into the games options menu. There should be a section for video. Change the cursor option to hardware. This will change the mouse from software version to the one that Windows uses.

Hope this helps. I am sure others will have ideas too.

 

Where is the games options menu? Are you talking about inside the game itself? If so they don't have that option.

Hopefully I can figure this out. Thanks for your help.

 

the reason it's still blurry is because you are running outside of your native resolution. for it to be crisp and clear, you need to run at WUXGA (1920 x 1200) and set your dpi to 96. nothing will help if you run outside of 1920x1200. if you don't like that resolution, you should return your notebook and get a smaller res LCD.

 

Ok, I'll leave it as 1920x1200. I'll get used to the size. Thanks for the reply.

Any other help is appreciated. TIA

 

1. the picture is grainy because you are running outside your native res. try setting back to 1920x1200 and see if the problem goes away

2. -

3. i have a wuxga screen as well. when i play half life 2 and run at a res lower than 1920x1200, i get black borders around the playable area. you can turn this "feature" on/off in the BIOS.

 

Okay thanks for the info. The only problem I have now is my game cursor. Should I reinstall the drivers? If so, does anyone know the link to the ATI Radeon X300 128 mb video card driver? I tried Dell's but it wouldn't work.

Thanks alot,

Bennerkla

 

I found the drivers and it worked!! Thanks for all your help guys.

-bennerkla