Problem with my Dell 2405

[ricleo2]

I have had the 2405 for a few days now. The picture clarity or sharpness has degraded over the last 2 days. I called Dell tech support and they said to switch the monitor out with a known good one. If the problem does not exist on the change out monitor then Dell will ship me another one. Anybody here have any suggestions about my picture clarity? Will Dell send me a refurbished one or will it be a brand one? The tech did not know.
I just read Dell's reselleratings reviews and I am very concerned about any dealings with Dell. I think I would not have even ordered this monitor if I had read those reviews before hand. Thanks for any response.

 

[Thorny]

My understanding is that if your purchase is less than 21 days old it will be replaced with a new product, anything over 3 weeks old is replace by a refurbished or "like new" (as they like to call it) product.

 

[Heinrich]

hmm...

The term "degraded" is pretty important. If you've really done nothing with your PC as far as software changes or Microsoft updates, and the LCD has truly 'degraded' then by all means swap it out.

IF however, you've arrived at a rather hasty decision that the monitor has degraded, I would challenge you to think at least twice. I say this because there are millions of little LCD pixels in this unit. If you've got a good one and there are no/few dead pixels AND your light leakage is good, then you should really go to many lengths to be absolutely certain that the problem is with your LCD. If you go out of your 21 days, you'll have a far worse time dealing with Dell. Remember that shipping time is INCLUDED as dell goes by INVOICE date not "received date." So let's play worst case scenario - let's pretend that there is a complication - lets say that the problem is your video card drivers, and you return a perfect monitor for one with 2 dead pixels, and you are now 45 days into your purchase, you are in deep deep trouble and will spend many hours hassling with Dell.

I offer this because in several years of heavy investigation of display devices AND video cars AND PCs, I've not seen a single claim of a person's display "degrading" over 2 days. Plus, your wording "a known good one" scares me. Sounds like a refurb.

My advice is to take some time out of your life, hook the monitor up to a different PC, experiment, do video driver upgrades, video card swapouts, try a DVD player, and be very very cautious about drawing the wrong conclusion. However, do your testing QUICKLY and THOROUGHLY becuase you want to get a 2nd chance within your 21-day window. One of the drawbacks in dealing with Dell is that within your 21 days they will do anything, but outside of the 21 days you will go through HELL getting a refund, getting a replacement especially if you swapped out a good one with a bad one....

One thing to consider as your continue down yoru journey is to return the monitor for a full refund. Then you can repurchase, and begin the 21 day journey again...

I have learned much from dealing with Dell across 2 LCDs and 3 laptops and offer this advice with several battle scars!!!!!

 

[jevans64]

Good advise. ^^^ Running it with VGA won't look as crisp as DVI ( Did you switch cable type? ) Some people have reported bad results using another DVI cable becides the one packaged with the LCD ( Did you switch cables? ) Did you install / update anything that might have messed with the fonts, etc? Did you change Windows resolution to something other than 1920x1200? Did you install new / update your display drivers?

 

[ricleo2]

Much good advice here. My monitor came with a 3 year warranty. I will check out the fine print in a little bit. I will perfrom all the suggestions here that I have not done yet. Thanks everybody.