My heart is pounding, my throat is dry, my palms are sweaty…no, I’m not looking at one of those Web sites. I’m setting up and testing out the three Dell 24″ LCD monitors that showed up today. For those keeping score, I just went through this last week, so I’m feeling a bit pessimistic about whether or not this is going to work out. Drummer, start that drum roll…
- Monitor 1: Ashley unpacked the box, no missing parts, looks like it’s brand new. No cracked LCD. Plugged it in over VGA (connected to the Fujitsu 17″ laptop). Ran the colour gradient test, no banding – sweet. Ran it through the solid colours…what’s that speck? Augh! NO! Wait…oh, it’s a piece of dust. Checks monitor, nearly blind now from examining it so closely. 100% perfect – no dead or stuck pixels. We have a winner!
- Monitor 2: Looks ok coming out of the box, hooked it up…display comes up. Looking good so far. Fire up the gradient test….AUGH! Stuck pixel in the bottom right corner. Damn damn damn. Fire up Jscreenfix and run it by placing the pop-up window under the dead pixel – not sure if this is an elaborate hoax or prank (I’ve never seen these things be successful before), but it can’t hurt to try. Play with the positions on the monitor a bit while it’s Jscreenfix’n (reminds me of Rubberneckin’), monitor goes down to lowest position, snaps into place – now can’t get it back up. Button on back of monitor is supposed to release it to move up, it’s locked. Press harder. It’s locked. Move monitor down a little more, button releases, monitor is free to move again. Still Jscreenfix’n. [leaves it for 60 minutes] Jscreenfix didn’t do a damn thing, like I thought. Maybe there’s some real science behind it, but it didn’t work for me. Curses.
- Monitor 3: Unpacking it, the monitor looks new, not a re-pack. Good stuff. Hook it all up, power it on. No obvious dead pixels – wait, what’s that in the bottom left corner? It’s a…scratch?
It’s not on the upper layer of the monitor, it’s on a layer beneath, so it looks like the actual LCD is damaged. I didn’t even think LCDs could scratch. Well, whatever it is, it’s huge and nasty and not staying in my office.
So there you have it folks: one out of three monitors is good, the other two are going back. Now it doesn’t seem so crazy that I ordered three monitors in three separate orders, does it? For those keeping score, I’ve now had nine of the 2407WFP monitors since I first started buying them in August of 2006, and I’ve just now found my first one that is actually worth keeping. This has now reached comical proportions, so I’m going to keep going down this crazy trail. The price is still $699 CAD, so I’ll be ordering two more and returning these two defective monitors. But at least I have one good one – so even in the pixellated darkness, there is hope…(but Dell, your quality control SUCKS).
I’m curious, you seem to be able to swap monitors with one stuck pixel. I’ve always been faced with the manufacturer quoting the ISO 13406-2 Guidelines. Most monitors seem to be class 2 and class two allows the monitor to be considered okay with up to about 5 dead pixels depending on size and position. i.e. if 5 are bunched together they have to change them.
Is this just a UK thing? I couldn’t find the Iso class for your monitor so it could be its just a way for manufacturers selling to the Uk to keep as happy with sub standard goods…. (you know the old british “mustn’t grumble thing”)
British? I’m in Canada…so I guess that’s sort of right in a round-about way. 😉
Dell has a 15 day “No Questions Asked” return policy with all of their products in Canada (and I believe in the USA as well). That’s how I’m returning these monitors each time.
You’re 100% right that Dell’s policy is 5 dead/stuck pixels – if I kept these beyond the 15 days and tried to go through Dell tech support, they’d refuse to send me new ones. The only way this gambit of mine words is to use the 15 day return policy to order, check them, and do what I’m doing…
I’m on the phone will Dell online sales right now trying to order two more…this is now a comical affair.