Trouble Shooting Bad Image Quality

17 inch LCD/Keyboard Rack Kit Installation Guide

Image quality problems (blurry characters, distorted images, etc) are usually caused by one of the following:

The frame buffer is running at the wrong resolution for the LCD monitor:

The monitor optimally runs at a resolution of 1280x1024x60Hz unless the frame buffer cannot provide this resolution. To display the monitor resolution, press the Menu Button at the top of the LCD twice. The on-screen display will display the current resolution and frequency. If this is not what was expected (variances of a fraction of a hertz in the displayed refresh rate are not significant), it is possible that the frame buffer has been manually configured. To reset the frame buffer on a system running Solaris 8 or above, use the command “fbconfig –defaults” followed by rebooting the system. With earlier versions of Solaris the reset command is specific to the frame buffer. Use the appropriate command to the reset your frame buffer (E.g. “ffbconfig – defaults” for the Creator[3D] frame buffer).

Some older frame buffers such as the Creator or Creator3D frame buffer are not capable of running at 1280x1024x60Hz resolution. In this case the optimal resolution will be 1152x900x66Hz. To check supported frame buffer resolutions on systems running Solaris 8 and above, use the command “fbconfig –prconf” . With earlier versions of Solaris, use the appropriate command for your particular frame buffer (E.g. “ffbconfig – prconf” for the Creator[3D] frame buffer).

The monitor has not been adjusted for the particular frame buffer driving it:

Perform an "Auto Adjustment" after logging in (ensuring a full screen image is being displayed prior to running the Auto Adjustment). In some cases it may be necessary to power cycle the monitor prior to running the Auto Adjust function (e.g. like when the resolution is altered during the system boot sequence).

Improperly matched timing:

If the Sun system did not read the monitor timing data properly when it was initialized, the timing may be improperly matched. For the timing data to be read properly, ensure that the LCD monitor is powered on prior to booting the Sun system.

A KVM (Keyboard Video Mouse) switch is being used in conjunction with the LCD monitor:

In some cases, the KVM may not allow the Sun system to communicate with the LCD monitor at boot-up. When this occurs the frame buffer may not configure correctly, resulting in a less than optimal resolution setting in combination with the LCD monitor. If this occurs, it may be necessary to manually configure your frame buffer to the optimal resolution. The optimal resolution for the LCD monitor is 1280x1024x60Hz. If your frame buffer will not support 1280x1024x60Hz set the resolution to 1152x900x66Hz. To find resolutions supported on your frame buffer and you are running Solaris 8 or above, use the command “fbconfig –prconf”.To configure the frame buffer use the command “fbconfig –res 1280x1024x60”. If 1280x1024x60 is not available, use “fbconfig –res 1152x900x66”. If a previous version of Solaris if being used, the commands used will be dependent on the type of frame buffer. Use the appropriate command for your frame buffer.

NOTE: When the frame buffer is configured manually, the system will initialize using 1152x900 resolution, and only switch to 1280x1024 once CDE starts.

Refresh set rate is too high.

For LCD monitors it is recommended the refresh rate be set to 60 Hz. The monitor is capable of running at higher refresh rates, but optimally runs at 60Hz. The LCD Monitor uses advanced

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