New Video Card Causes Eye Strain

Has anyone here ever had trouble with an ATI video card causing eye strain?

I just bought a Radeon 9550 card for my CRT, but I can't seem to get it adjusted properly. There is a cartain brillance, glare, brightness that I cannot remove without having to dull the image down until it is too dark to to enjoy.

I am running XP Home.

 

James

I am running a 9250 and it looks good.

You may have your monitor refresh rate set too low. I'm running mine at 75 hertz and my screen res is 1024x768, 32 bit, 75 hertz.

Another thing that can cause eye strain is the monitor brightness and contrast settings.

Brightness is set to see the dark parts of the picture properly and contrast is set to see the white parts of the picture properly.

Set the brightness so that the black parts just turn a nice black (no grey). Set the contrast just so the whites are not blooming. Some interaction of the two controls may happen on some monitors.

 

I'm with Bmoore, check your refresh rate first. A rate of 60hz will give you eye strain, maybe headaches, maybe nausea.

Gary

 

Followup...

Been talking with ATI over the phone the last 2 days. At first they said it was my card causing the problem, so I took it back and swapped it for another one (From a different store this time), but the problem never changed.

Not sure what to do about this now, except to maybe return the card for a refund.

As for the monitor controls...I've tried to fiddle with the settings, but I never could find anything that looked right, or didn't bother my eyes. I have the Samtron 77v model.

My onboard video (32mb shared--S3 Graphics) looks mighty fine, except that after a while, my eyes get a little tired after staring at the monitor for a few hours...Guess that happens to all of us though.

One question about the brightness control on my monitor--I have it turned all the way down to it's lowest setting--Am I supposed to be able to see anything at that setting or not? This monitor has digital controls, FWIW.

 

ATI drivers are very fussy. I would be certain to remove all trace of the S3 drivers before installing the ATI drivers.

To be certain all drivers were working, I would update the motherboard/chipset drivers first (find them at the motherboard manufacturer's website).

After updating the m/b drivers, I would boot into Safe Mode and remove/uninstall any graphics (display adapter) items in Add/Remove Programs and/or Device Manager.

Reboot. When the Hardware Wizard runs at startup click Cancel. Run the ATI driver installation when you get to the desktop.

If the S3 graphics are still enabled, I would look at disabling them from the BIOS/CMOS settings.

Matt

 

I'm running at 85hz w/1024 x 768 resolution, 32 bit color.

I tried Mattman's suggestions, but no luck there. I guess this card is just not jiving with my board for some reason--Might try Nvidia next time.

I really hate to take this card out though--It has been a big boost to my pc's performance.

Edit: If I can see flicker at 60hz--Does that mean that my monitor is dying?

 

The reason I ask, is because I have a smaller 13" CTX monitor that I ran around 60-65hz, and it did not flicker. The 17" Samtron that I have now does flicker at 65hz.

 

A 13'' monitor would be lucky to support a resolution of 800 X 600 with a low colour setting. "Refreshing" means changing the colours of all those pixels involved. If you could run the 13" at 1024 X 768 I might guess it would flicker at 60Hz (if smoke was not coming out the back ).

There should be a listing of the recommended resolution/refresh rate combinations in the monitor's manual/User Guide, but they will also specify that it dependent on the capabilities of the graphics card.

Drivers, I might be flogging a dead horse, but check for updated chipset drivers at the motherboard manufacturer's website.

Just a thought, check the BIOS settings at startup. The Aperture can be set to half the amount of your system RAM.

Check that the graphics card is not AGP 8X only running on a 4X motherboard. Check the AGP settings.

Changing the the order of "Graphics boot to...PCI or AGP" may have an effect.

If the onboard graphics are not disabled, the motherboard will be allocating system RAM to it. This may need to be set to zero, but will mean the onboard graphics will no longer work (by themselves, no added AGP card) unless the CMOS is cleared.

Matt

 

It worked nicely at 800 x 600 resolution; 32bit high color, if I remember correctly.

Ha!...I tried that setting just for the fun of it...The icons were so small that I almost needed a magnifying glass to see them.

Never saw any flickering though.

It is set at the monitor's native resolution of 1024 x 768.

Check.

I already have the latest drivers...ATI confirmed it as well.

I'll have to get back with you on this...Not sure if I have such a setting, or maybe it's called something else on my system.

The card is rated at 8x / 4x. My board is set at 4x (max setting).

I tried that, but couldn't see any change in image quality.

When I was running my onboard graphics, it shared 32mb (max) with the system ram. Now it is (In the BIOS) set to 128mb. I know I didn't change it...Maybe the new card had something to do with it? Maybe I need to examine this more closely.

I remember the system ram jumped up 32mb after I installed the new card.

 

Ok, this is referring to the Aperture setting instead. The card is rated at 256mb, so the BIOS must have changed this setting from 32mb to 128mb.

 

An aperture of 128Mb is a good setting for 256Mb of system RAM. The aperture may not have a direct effect unless you are running somewhat graphics intensive programs, but should allow the system to fully utilise those resources.

I am a little concerned that the onboard graphics may be still enabled. Usually the BIOS will automatically turn off the built-in graphics when an add-in card is installed or you can disable it manually in the BIOS settings. Having both onboard an add-in graphics running at the same time will be "confusing" for the BIOS and difficult to allocate resources. Do you have the motherboard manual? It may be easier to scan through the settings there, the setting for disabling the onboard graphics may be under a sub-menu. Post a link to the download of the motherboard manual if I can help you look.
Edit: there may be FAQs at the motherboard's website regarding how to disable the onboard graphics (it may even be by using jumpers).

It may just be the combination of that ATI graphics card with that motherboard, but motherboards with built-in graphics are not really "specialized" to run add-in graphics. If these tests and checks don't work, you may want to try an equivalent Nvidia card, but don't throw too much money at it because add-in graphics are not the primary way the system is set to work.

Matt

 

Here is link to the board specs, drivers, manuals, etc.

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=411

 

In the FAQs at MSI, it states that the onboard graphics are disabled when an add-in card is installed. If you try connecting the monitor to the onboard connector it should not function while the add-in card is installed.

The BIOS settings seem basic, so I suggest that you check they are set to default by using the Load Failsafe Defaults setting and after a few boots run the Load Optimised Defaults setting (if there is any instablity go back to Failsafe, but the cause will need to be identified).

I have just been replacing one of my motherboards. Previous graphics were S3 built-in and new is an ATI card. I though I might see something during the installation of the new drivers. One thing I found was that S3 had 4 service programs listed in Add/Remove Programs. Initally I only removed the one program and thought that was all, but when I had problems installing the ATI drivers I had another look (when in Safe Mode) and found the others.

I don't suppose you have a spare HDD lying around? When I first started working on graphics problems I loaded a fresh install of Windows, motherboard drivers and graphics drivers onto a spare HDD. That can identify a lot the possible sources.

Matt

 

My system will not run in Fail-Safe mode. Maybe it's because some of my hardware will not run in that state.

I could not find any more S3 programs installed in Add-Remove programs. I did use Driver Cleaner Pro in safe mode though.

Yes, I do, but they are less than 2 gb in size.

About the only thing I haven't done is to upgrade the BIOS. MSI kinda discourages folks from doing that unless absolutely necessary. My version is 1.1 -- The latest version is 1.4 .

 

BIOS upgrade? I think it's well worth trying. They discourage you from using them like driver updates, but if you have specific problems that are not being repaired by other methods then that's the time to do them.
I strongly suggest not to use the online or Windows method. If the system is flakey, that's when the worst outcome could happen. All it takes is for Windows to freeze. Use the boot floppy (DOS) method. I have seen people lose their motherboards with the online and Windows methods.

Upgrading the BIOS is not hard and it is good experience. Read the instructions very carefully. The main factors to watch are that it is the correct BIOS for your motherboard (even to the revision/version of your model) and not to stop while it is running (accept the defaults, don't try "tricks" like putting in your own splash screen, etc) and don't do it if there is a risk of power failure at the time. It's finished in two or three minutes.

I can't think of any other avenues. We've traced all the way back to the BIOS. You could reread the answers here in case there may be something that was not completely investigated. Apart from that, it may just be the motherboard/graphics card combination.

Matt

 

I'll give it a try Mattman.

If I don't post back in a day or so, then you know something has gone wrong.

See you later.

 

Looks like my BIOS flash went well.

My DOS was a little rusty, but I did ok considering that this was a first for me....Except that it didn't change anything as far as my video card is concerned.

Maybe my card/board/monitor combo is not jiving together for some reason. I guess I'll have to return the card, or sell it to someone else, since I have no extra monitor to try it on.

Thanks for the help all.

 

Well, shoot.

My font size seems to want to change on me from time to time. Could the BIOS upgrade have been the cause of this?