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Saturday, 21 September 2024 15:08

Washed out colours on my Dell U2414H monitor

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I have written these instruction while trying to diagnose and fix washed out colours on my Dell U2414H monitor attached to my Dell E6540 laptop which uses the Intel HD Graphics 4600 GPU however the solutions and logic will apply to al lot of setups.

Solutions

Some of these options might not realise unless you restart your PC.

  • Calibration (settings can be changed at the monitor and through Windows)
    • Run the Windows calibration tool (in particular, increasing Gamma)
      Use an Online Gamma Calibration Tool
  • Windows
    • check the brightness in the Action Center (bottom right of screen where screen snip is)
      • This will only affect the inbuilt panel
    • Make sure `Night light` is not enabled.
    • Make sure no 3rd party screen brightness utilities are running.
    • Disable accessibility colour filters
    • Make sure the monitor is set to native resolution and the correct refresh rate.
  • Intel / nVidia / AMD Utility
    • Ccreate a custom resolution in 1080p
  • Hardware
    • Use HDMI and put to full colour range
    • Use external USB graphics card
    • Use another graphics card (not so easy in a laptop)
    • Try different cables. The HDMI signal is especially susceptible to cheap cables.
    • Laptop display panels have a hardware brightness control, look at this, but should be tied to action centre brightness setting.
    • Cehc the monitor is being correctly detected.
  • Graphics Card
    • use the `Intel HD Graphics Control Panel` to alter the colour and gamma (or the nVidia/AMD equivalent)
    • nVidia cards only: This can be rectified for both DisplayPort and HDMI by creating a custom resolution with a 59.999Hz refresh rate. This will be treated by any application* as 60Hz but uses the correct Full Range RGB 0-255 colour signal. The process for setting this up is shown in the video below.
  • Dell U2414H monitor
    • Make sure it's device driver is installed and does not display as "Generic PnP Monitor" in device manage
    • Install the ICC profile for the Dell U2414H monitor. You will find this in the driver package.
    • Check the monitor's viewing angle. Depending on how you look at it the picture can look bad.
    • Check the monitors physical settings (colour, gamma, brightness, contrast, etc...). There is no harm in having a play as you can always put them back.
    • If you have several monitors of the same model, there can be differences between the revisions.
    • Your monitor is old and failing. Get a new one.
    • Try all of the ports (miniDP, DP, HDMI) and see if you get a better picture through one over the others.
    • Daisy chaining the DP ports should not cause any issue, but no harm i trying a single monitor on its own.
    • Try Display Port v1.2
    • Try your monitor with a known good laptop or PC to test to rule out the computer.
    • Confgure the monitor via `EDID` which I assume will require `DDC/CI` to be enabled. This monitor might not be EDID capable.
    • Enable DisplayPort 1.2
      • This might not be compatible with your devices and can cause the monitor to no longer recognise an input (not permanently though)
      • It might make the picture better.

Dell U2414H monitor settings

These are a reference for my monitors but if you have a Dell U2414H you might as well use them.

  • Custom Colour:
    • R:100,
    • G:98
    • B:990
  • Brightness: 100
  • Contrast: 75
  • DisplayPort: v1.2 (optional)

Research

  • Windows Calibration
  • Intel 4600 HD GPU / Intel  HD Graphics Control Panel Calibration
    • Best settings to fix washed out colors in Intel HD Graphics Control Panel? | Reddit
      • You need to set the quantization range to full range both under Display > General Settings or under Video > Color Enhancement > Input Range, where you have to click Use Driver Settings first.
      • HDMI tend to default to RGB limited mode, which is what non-HDR televisions use, but it's not suitable for computer displays.
    • Fix your laptop's color and brightness with Graphics Command Center | PCWorld - Fix Windows 10 auto-brightness and color problems with this hidden Intel app.
    • Potential fix for Intel graphics washed out colours (non native HDMI displays) | Reddit
      • When I tried to change the resolution of my monitor to something else I realised that my monitor was using the full colour range. It was only in the case of the default 1080p resolution that it would show washed out colours.
      • The solution was to create a custom resolution in 1080p
    • windows 10 - External monitor is washed out with Intel HD Graphics - Super User
      • This is what worked in my case. My monitor was being incorrectly detected as a HDTV with limited range and adding a custom resolution with "CVT-RB" timing fixed it.
      • How To Geek may have the answer! Essentially HDMI sometimes defaults to RGB Limited. You need to go into your graphics card control panel and change it to RGB Full. On Intel cards it's at the bottom of the General tab according to HTG's instructions.
      • The technical difference is that full range RGB uses full 8 bit range from integer value 0 to 255 where 0 is black and 255 is white. Limited range RGB transmits the image with 8 bit integers but all values 0-35 result in black and all values 235-255 result in white. As a result, the image is actually using only integer values 35-235 meaning you get better compability with old displays but lose about 22% of all possible colors due less effective bits available for the signal.
      • If GPU and display are both compatible, you always want full range RGB support.
      • Some technical information here.
    • How to Avoid Washed Out Colors When Using HDMI on Your PC - Black colors may look washed out and gray if you connect your PC to its display via an HDMI cable, and it's not your display's fault.
    • Quantization Range Option Is Not Visible in the Intel® Graphics
      • Describes expected behavior of the Quantization Range option that’s found on the Intel® Graphics Control Panel and the Intel® Graphics Command Center depending on video connection type.
      • With the most recent drivers (xx.xx.100.xxxx and newer), the Quantization Range option will only be visible if the video output on your computer is native HDMI. Using a DisplayPort (DP) video output or adapters such as DP-to-HDMI or USB Type-C to-HDMI will cause the option to disappear.
    • Quantization Range Option in the Intel® Graphics Control Panel or... - Expected behavior of the Quantization Range option that’s found on the Intel® Graphics Control Panel depending on video connection type.
  • 3rd Party Calibration add Tools
    • LCD monitor test images - Welcome to the Lagom LCD monitor test pages. With the test images on these pages, you can easily adjust the settings of your monitor to get the best possible picture quality.
    • Best free Monitor Calibration Tools for Windows 11/10 - Learn how to calibrate your monitor using these free Color or Monitor calibration tools for your Windows 11/10 PC. Good for Photographers or Gaming.
    • 10 Best Monitor Calibration Tools for Windows in 2022 - To calibrate your monitor, you’ll need calibration software, special calibration gadgets, or a combination of both. Let’s review software and hardware to find the ideal calibration tool for your monitor. 
    • Best Free Monitor Calibration Software Windows 10 - TechWiser - You can always buy a hardware colorimeter but, if you have zero dollars to spend, here is some free software that will get the job done. 
    • Gamma calibration - Lagom LCD test
      • This is a gamma calibration test image. The gamma defines how the luminance (the amount of light) on the screen depends on the 8-bit RGB values. As of 2007, computer monitors are supposed to adhere the sRGB standard, which is very similar to a gamma value of 2.2.
  • Screen Brightness Tools (ie night light)
  • Dell U241H Monitor
    • Dell U2414H Review | PC Monitors
      • A review of the Dell U2414H, a 23.8 inch AH-IPS member of the UltraSharp family with exceptionally thin bezels.
      • This can be rectified for both DisplayPort and HDMI by creating a custom resolution with a 59.999Hz refresh rate. This will be treated by any application* as 60Hz but uses the correct Full Range RGB 0-255 colour signal. The process for setting this up is shown in the video below.
    • Dell U2414H Review - TFTCentral - Dell's UltraSharp range always attracts quite a lot of attention and they always seem to do a good job of updating their screens to offer buyers something a bit new and different each time they do.
    • U2414H Banding using sRGB preset. | DELL Technologies
      • Q: My monitor is exhibiting banding with the sRGB preset. It doesn't do this on the Standard preset, but I would like to use the sRGB preset since that's the one that was factory calibrated. Is there anything I can do to correct this?
      • A:
        • Factory default does not over write calibrations. I would reset and check all modes.
        • Install the driver from the File Library. The driver includes the INF, ICM (ICC), CAT files.
    • Calibrating Dell U2410 and U2414H using Colormunki Display | DisplayCAL
      • Hi! I'm new to display calibration and bought and X-Rite Colormunki Display for calibration and profiling of my Dell U2410 and U2414h.
      • I followed an advice from some guys in the Dell forum and used the factory menu for OSD adjustment of the white point (because usually SRGB preset doesn’t offer RGB sliders).
  • Misc
    • If you turn all the brightness up full and a pure white page does not get any brighter then this is the maximum whiteness that the monitor will show white. If the white looks off colour at this point, then it is a limitation of the monitor.
    • sRGB - Wikipedia - sRGB is a standard RGB (red, green, blue) colour space that HP and Microsoft created cooperatively in 1996 to use on monitors, printers, and the World Wide Web.
    • DisplayPort - Wikipedia - DisplayPort (DP) is a proprietary[a] digital display interface developed by a consortium of PC and chip manufacturers and standardized by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA).
    • DISPLAYPORT 1.2, DISPLAYPORT 1.4, DISPLAYPORT 2.0 and DISPLAYPORT 2.1 - To help you understand the evolution and the differences between DP standards, today’s article will walk you through the differences between DisplayPort 1.2, DisplayPort 1.4, DisplayPort 2.0, and DisplayPort 2.1.
    • GitHub - dylanraga/win11hdr-srgb-to-gamma2.2-icm - Transform Windows 11's virtual SDR-in-HDR curve from piecewise sRGB to Gamma 2.2
Read 217 times Last modified on Sunday, 06 October 2024 15:57
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