Hi

Having a big problem here. I have an almost-new Samsung 955DF which has been giving me problems since day one.

The monitor initially had a huge brown patch in the center of the screen, almost like dirt. Increasing brightness/contrast did nothing for the picture. In addition focus was very poor, there was a lot of bloom and reflections. The service center said they replaced the CRT.

Now, it is unable to reproduce black. Everything has a reddish cast to it, apparent even at the lowest brightness setting. Even when Windows boots, the initial screen has a reddish tinge to it, which grows more and more prominent as the monitor warms up. After a few hours it is unusable. Since black is not coming correctly, everything looks blurred and indistinct. Using Adobe gamma helps a bit, but in 3D mode the problem starts again, and besides the red never does really become black. The only time when it is not apparent is under very strong light, such as the middle of the afternoon with all windows open (as in doors/windows, not Windows XP et al).

In addition the focus is really poor, and when switching colour areas (for example viewing a Ferrari and quickly closing the window) all fonts get badly blurred for a few seconds before coming back into their poor focus (though I think the focus is related actually to the colour issue).

I have some electronics experience, and have adjusted TVs before for such anomalies, and so opened up the monitor (I don't trust technicians who give back half-repaired products) to adjust the colour strength. I can see only one pot, which sets the screen horizontal center. Even the CRT board has no controls.

The only other controls visible to me the the ones on the flyback transformer, which I am not going to touch. Any ideas, apart from giving it back to the giuys who always seem to tell me the monitor is working fine when it isn't (that is the real issue)?

Samsung's manual is viewable with Adobe Acrobat Reader and it seems helpful. There are links to the correct monitor drivers for your operating system.

It appears in a photo that there are controls on the front of the monitor for brightness, contrast and menu. Try pushing the middle button to see if you get a menu. Good luck.

if i had a almost new montior acting like that i would take it back where i bought it !

Yeah, I have the model that has the controls up front, but these don't help at all. There are basically three controls that control the colour temperature, the video input level, and the basic brightness/contrast.

None of these have made a difference, I've even tried calibrating the monitor extensively and only in desperation I opened it up.

After extensive research I now know that those two controls on the flyback are the ones that need to be adjusted. I'm a bit leery of doing it myself but I don't trust these guys, as they have twice already said the monitor was OK (when it was not!) as it is displaying a picture. The fact that the display was not correct didn't seem to bother them.

caperjack: I would have returned the monitor, if I could have. I'm more or less stuck with this piece of electronic crap for the next few weeks before I can get an RMA, while they have another go at it. These (for our economy) are expensive hardware and a return really puts a monkey into their sales plans/targets/declarations. They will eventually take it back, but kicking and screaming.

Yeah i know what you mean,thats why its important where you buy something ,I'm freelancing right now doing RMA's for a privately owned electronics /computer store that doesent have a database of its inventory setup yet ,I have to go through every slip looking for ser#'s .But i have noticed that they only pay about 150.ooCDN for a 17 in monitor and just around 200$ for a 19 ",so they are not tying up much money on 1 monitor !

Without a doubt, replace the whole monitor. The problem never was the CRT, it's clearly electronic. These monitors are microprocessor-controlled, so you have to have the alignment software to set them up. The basic problem is that the low-light (screen) control for red is either misaligned or defective. This is the control for setting the baseline (dark areas) of the brightness range.