Resolved Fuzzy lettering on left side of NEC FE700 monitor

I am using an NEC MultiSync FE700 monitor. I find that the left side of the monitor is fuzzy. Lettering is clear by about 1 3/4" in from the left side. Is this saying that the monitor is going out or is there an adjustment somewhere to fix this?

 

All of the Monitor adjustments are usually right there on the bottom of CRT monitors. And if adjustments don't fix the problem, time for a new monitor.

 

Nothing there adjusts just part of the screen. I was afraid I would have to get a new monitor. I'll just put up with it as long as I can, unless someone has found a solution to this slight annoyance.

 

Using the monitor adjustments, you might try moving the picture way over to the right.

 

I realize I can move the entire picture over and then shrink the width, but the fuzziness isn't that extreme, yet.

 

Well that's good.

One of my last old CRTs was this humongous IBM 21" flat screen. One day it flashed, went blank, and came right back on but the text was overlapped on itself about an inch on the left side. In order to "fix" it, I had to move it to the riight and then reduce the display size so that it had like a ~1" black border all the way around. It lasted maybe another year.

Oh, and it had also grown so dim maybe three years earlier I had a friend (TV man) add a "brightener ". Near the end of it's life though it had become so bright that there was almost not enough contrast to make out between black and white.

I finally gave up trying to keep her running. Wasn't worth the time, trouble, or the electricity.

 

I like making the most of whatever I have, but I realize there is an end of life for everything, including ourselves. It's nice to know there are others who feel it isn't necessary to fill landfills, just to have the latest toy. When it starts getting in the way and complicating my life, I'll start researching replacements.

 

Know what you mean. Still using plain old telephone service, touch-tone phones, natural gas water heater and stove and a Radio Shack roof antenna. They all work, even when the power goes out.

Course I have a bunch of new-fangled stuff as well. Just saying.

 

My old dial phones sound better than the fancy phones I bought for my home. I pump my water from the ground, have propane delivered, but I do make my own electricity with solar panels. I didn't get my first computer till 2001, my cell phone in 2010, and I still get TV over an antenna.

I was at UCLA in 1969 when the first internet connection was made with Stanford, though Stanford's computer crashed before the 3rd letter of “login” was received. After my first and only computer class, I was so turned off by computers (endless stacks of cards) that I saw no reason to get one (till my son showed interest). We made his first computer from scratch, all from knowledge gained from windowsbbs.com. Now, he is patenting cutting-edge aerospace inventions, while I continue to be the slowest person he knows (when it comes to moving into advanced technology). The computer I used when I flew in the USAF was a circular slide rule. It is interesting to watch our kids pass us by.

 

Something I've always aspired to do!


As for replacing your monitor, the widescreen that came with my Dell displays spectacular color. Flat screen monitors are better than they used to be, so don't fret about buying a new one - and a maybe a matching graphics card to boot.

 

If your entire screen were fuzzy, you MIGHT be able to use the monitor's adjustments to correct. But with just one side going, that tells me the focusing magnets are out of align - and they are internal to the vacuum tube and cannot be fixed.

One last thing I would try is degaussing the CRT. Most CRT monitors have degaussing coils built in. Some automatically degauss when powered on, some degaussing must be started manually by the user via the monitors OSD menu. In any case, your degaussing circuits may be bad, or weakened.

Is the fuzzy just out of focus, or are the colors somewhat distorted too - like the reflective rainbow effect you might see looking at oil floating on water? If the colors seem a bit distorted too, I would definitely look at degaussing the CRT.

You may need to purchase (or hopefully borrow) a Degaussing Coil.

A degaussing coil runs house (110VAC) voltage through it to create massive amounts of magnetic energy that you wave in a circular motion in front of the CRT, then slowly back away 15 - 20 feet as you continue to move the coil in circle. Then turn off the degaussing coil to dump the magnetic field. If you do not back away far enough when you turn off the coil, the magnetic field will collapse right back into the CRT!

It is a bit of an odd physical sensation when operating the coil. You can "feel" the magnetic energy as it resists your circular motions - kind of like the feel you get when you change the orientation of a spinning gyroscope.

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I know what you mean about the landfills. It is particularly bad with CRT monitors because they contain a fair amount of lead and mercury - 2 elements that should stay out of the landfills.

There are typically electronics recycling centers in most population centers, but do note many do not take CRTs because it costs more to safely recover the mercury and lead than the recycling value of the materials. So the recycling center here wants $10 per CRT they take in. I ended up putting 6 perfectly good, but old 15" and 17" inch CRT monitors by the curb with a "Free" sign on them. I had not even got the 6th one out there when some guy in a truck took them off my hands.

That said, as far as hanging on to electronics that still work, do note that a CRT monitor is a massive energy consumer - at least 2 to 3 times that of a (larger!) LCD. On top of that, CRT monitors are lousy (very inefficient) energy consumers with all that wasted energy converted into heat. Heat which (at least in the summer time) must be countered by your home's air conditioning.

My point is, annual operating costs may be costing you more money by hanging on to old, inefficient technologies than it would to buy new, efficient electronics. Considering there are dozens and dozens of "new" 24" Widescreen LCD Monitors for under $160, it may be time to simply bite the bullet to save money (and your eyes!!!!).

 

This was my first monitor, bought in 2001, so I must really be on borrowed time. I feel the same about my '94 Toyota pickup that has about 305,000 miles on it and just passed its smog test with flying colors.

The fuzziness is caused by double letters, one slightly higher than the other. The color is normal. I do degauss the screen when the color goes off, and that fixes it quickly, but that is rare. I have a degauser I used to use on my reel to reel tape deck, so I understand the sensation while degaussing. I can relate to it being similar to holding onto my son’s “Power Ball” when the gyroscope is spinning.

Another concern with dumping CRT monitors is that many are just shipped to 3rd world countries to be disassembled without regulation, polluting their environment and killing or sickening their population.

Since the electric company only recently increased what they pay me for electricity, from 3 ½ ¢ to 4.738¢ per kilowatt hour, I’m not losing much money by running the CRT. Even if I ran it 24/7, which I don’t, how many kilowatt hours would I use in a year? I figure it costs me no more than 2-3¢ a day, and being in my 60’s, I’m not sure I have enough years left to feel it is cost effective to save a penny or two a day on a $160 investment. Sure, it may be nice to have something new, but not because it would be less costly. I feel the same about refrigerators.

I designed my home to be very efficient, so I can’t even remember the last time I ran air conditioning. The little heat coming off the CRT doesn’t even raise the room temperature 1°, so I don’t notice it.

Saving my eyes is always a nice consideration, so I’ll have to pay attention to that aspect.

 

And if they dump into rivers or the ocean, it will eventually affect our environments too.

The electric company pays you? You running solar or wind powered generators?

 

I have solar panels on my roof. With the amount of wind out here, wind generators would also work well, though I like the silence of the solar panels. I just get a slight humming at the inverter.

 

http://www.nodevice.com/driver/FE700/get33316.html#.Ux-7tYWxe70
Have you updated the Drivers? Neil.

 

Neil, that driver seems very old. It is for XP and below, 35kb in size and added to the site on 26 May 2006. Their FREE scan for NEC FE700 Driver related errors is a 14.2MB binary file, so I didn't go with that, also.

Here is what my present driver information says:
Device DISPLAY\NEC4272\5&6b9bdbb&0&UID1048832 was configured.

Driver Name: monitor.inf
Class Guid: {4D36E96E-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
Driver Date: 06/21/2006
Driver Version: 6.3.9600.16384
Driver Provider: Microsoft
Driver Section: PnPMonitor.Install
Driver Rank: 0xFF2000
Matching Device Id: *PNP09FF
Outranked Drivers:
Device Updated: false

I guess the other driver would be an earlier version.

 

For anyone that's interested, there's a national organization available called Freecycle where you can post offers of unwanted items. The intent of the organization is to help keep unwanted items out of landfills. You have to ask for permission to join first, as these groups are usually moderated by local folks.

Our's is Yahoo-based, so I can sign-in to it with my Yahoo mail account. Just this week, I gave away a QWERTY keyboard, and an HP scanner. You can also posted wanted ads for specific items like monitors and just about anything else you can think of as long as it is not in violation of the rules (no prescription drugs, etc.)

Check it out. Just type-in your city or zip code to see what's available in your area.

 

Hi Barry, If your drivers are up to date - then James suggestion would be the cheaper option.
My daughter works in a medium sized office where the Media was updated and they were trying to dispose of the Viewsonic LCD Monitors 17 ". She asked me if I needed any and I ended up with 2 FREE Monitors.
The rest went to local schools. Neil.

 

Freecycle looks interesting, though I was surprised to find 6-month-old ads posted. I'll keep my eye on that. Thank you.