Samsung 215TW Owners - Help Me!!!

[HoboKnife]

Hi there... I really want to own a Samsung 215TW. In fact, I already bought one but had to return it, because I could not get it to recognize a DVI input from my laptop. A very weird situation... after having no luck at home, I actually went back to compUSA where I bought it, to check my laptop output (brand new alienware m5550). I was able to plug the DVI cable from my laptop into any of the other LCD flatpanels there, and to a model, each one showed my extended desktop (once I enabled it). But not the 215TW... I checked the floor model, too, and same deal.

So I called Samsung tech support (got to level 2) and described the problem. They said that I had to power cycle the monitor and then press the source button, with no input cables attached to the monitor. While it might take a few presses, ultimately this is supposed to kick the input over to digital from analog. So 215TW owners, I'd like you to do this with your 215tw right now if you can, and report back. I even called a second tier 2 support rep to confirm this, and they said the same thing. But all I ever got was the 'analog' box up in the top left, followed by the check analog cable screensaver box.

So, the store demo unit, the one I bought, and another one we opened at the store, ALL failed to behave as Samsung's tech support said they should. By their own admittance, a 215TW that did not ultimately kick over to the digital input under these circumstances would be defective. But I can't believe that three 215TWs are all bunk out of the box.

To summarize, my laptop DVI output is known good. In fact, the other weird thing is that my laptop is picking up the presence of the 215TW and allowing me to enable it! Just no sign that the 215TW is getting the signal. So what's going on here? Does samsung have a massive QC problem? Is this just a freak occurence?

Thanks in advance for anyone that tries the source search technique above.

David

 

[ginfest]

Are you using the DVI cable or the one that comes withn the 215TW? I was gonna use the same cable that I was using on the DVI output of my old monitor but I read where someone had just used thier old cable and had problems. When I compared the pin-outs with the cable Samsung provided they were indeed different so I used thier cable and have had no problems.
Either that or the monitor could be messed up. I know when I press the source button with no cables it just shows a "no signal" message, when I hook up to either D-Sub or DVI the monitor automatically picks the right source.

 

[HoboKnife]

Everything described above happens while using the DVI cable that was supplied in the box with the 215TW. In fact, suspecting the cable, I ran out an bought a totally overpriced and underlengthed (?) monstercable, and same result.

David

 

[HoboKnife]

I should add that the 215TW I bought and had at home picked up a VGA signal just fine (from my old computer) and also the S-video signal from my laptop. It needed no special help to detect those. This is really weird.... normally I'd at least have a hunch as to what might be the cause or problem, but nothing makes sense. Least of all the fact that I've now tried three different new units, none of which are behaving as Samsung tech support says they should!

David

 

[Lujones]

Have you resolved the problem? I tried running the 215tw on VGA and have no picture at all. When I hit the source button on the monitor, the "Analog" signal shows up but just a black screen. I do get a Windows splash screen when I reboot but as the login screen shows up on my laptop display, the 215tw goes blank again. When I try connecting with S-video, I get a horrible looking picture no matter what resolution I try to run.

I am connecting this Samsung to an older Vaio laptop with an ATI Radeon Mobile video card, 16MB and wonder if it isn't an ATI problem. I have tried all the resolutions available on the laptop video card, and still no luck.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[MustangSVT]

Originally posted by: Lujones
Have you resolved the problem? I tried running the 215tw on VGA and have no picture at all. When I hit the source button on the monitor, the "Analog" signal shows up but just a black screen. I do get a Windows splash screen when I reboot but as the login screen shows up on my laptop display, the 215tw goes blank again. When I try connecting with S-video, I get a horrible looking picture no matter what resolution I try to run.

I am connecting this Samsung to an older Vaio laptop with an ATI Radeon Mobile video card, 16MB and wonder if it isn't an ATI problem. I have tried all the resolutions available on the laptop video card, and still no luck.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

try vgamode.

F8 on bootup choose vga.

or, try safe mode. it shoudl work. my guess is that your resolution refresh rate settings dont go well with mointor.

 

[Lujones]

Thanks for the help MustangSVT. You are right, it does run in plain old VGA Mode. When I try to change the resolution beyond, I get the blank/black screen back on the Samsung. I tried changing the refresh rate from 60 to 70 running in 1280 resolution and still no help.

Samsung states Sony has a known problem with the Vaio and there is a patch available. Sony states they only have patches for intel graphics drivers and none of the issues specifically state Samsung Monitors.

I also tried this monitor on two newer Vaio's, one with an NVidia Graphics card and one with the Intel. They couldn't run it either. I am getting close to the end of my rope here.

Any other suggestions? I really wanted to run this monitor as it supposedly has very good color rendering for photo editing. Thanks all.

 

[Rangoric]

The DVI cable should be plugged in, then flip the power switch for the Monitor and get it over to DVI Input (if you can)

Then turn on the laptop and the Monitor should work.

With my comp if I have the monitor off when I boot up I will have to reboot to get it to work. I have 2 monitors so the seonc dtends to have this issue if my PS2/DVD Player/ or Second Computer are using it and I switch.