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Geek Culture / Strange Gradient Banding Issue on an AMD Laptop

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Epimetheus
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Posted: 9th Dec 2011 23:29 Edited at: 9th Dec 2011 23:30
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I recently got a new HP laptop with an AMD A8-3500M and integrated Radeon HD 6620G.

There are some strange banding issues on the screen affecting mainly white-to-black gradients, and they are also apparent when I hook up the computer to my 1080p external monitor(and every other monitor I try). The issue does not seem to be present in MS Paint, Photoshop, or programs like Chrome:

MS Paint:
http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/2577/paintyo.jpg

Photoshop:
http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/7849/photoshopjj.jpg


Windows Photo Viewer:
http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/1609/35351219.jpg


Also this problem affects most elements in windows such as the desktop background and start up screen background, where I can clearly see banding issues.

I've uninstalled the graphics drivers with Driver Sweeper and tried to tweak the AMD Vision control panel settings multiple times with only limited success in fixing the problem.

One success I've had was by changing my color management profiles in Photoshop, where changing it to that of the monitor seems to fix the issue, but just in Photoshop. Editing color management settings in the control panel has had no success system-wide.

I should note that when I got the computer I immediately set up a system restore with minimal elements not including most of HP's bloatware. I did not look through the computer thoroughly before this so I don't know if its graphics settings were fine before, but the reset settings might very well be the issue.

Any ideas on how to solve this? I hope it's not a defective graphics chip but that may be the case.
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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 10th Dec 2011 00:28 Edited at: 10th Dec 2011 00:38
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I have a solution. If you are heavy with photoshop, then it would be wise for you to buy a screen callibrator. If you cant afford a good IPS monitor for photoshop, A screen calibrator is the next best thing and a lot cheaper too. my friend has one of these and once he offered to callibrate my laptop screen (which was a very good screen and i had no complaints about it at all). To my surprise, the callibrator made my screen AMAZING (the image looked better by about 30%). I and i realised that my screens brightness was waay too high and i didnt even notice it.

So i think a calibrator would be a good thing for you to have and i am sure it will fix your problem

Unfourtunatley you sometimes get monitors like this, For example My 27" for some reason puts out a little more green than normal. Its barley noticable and dosent really bother me as i dont use it for photoshop or anything that needs correct colors.

Also, dont buy the cheapest calibrator you find since those have less accurate color scensetivity and are crap. The one my friend has is called "Spyder 3" i think. and from what i have seen it do i can even boast that IPS monitors are Obsolete if you have a good screen calibrator.


dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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Epimetheus
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Posted: 10th Dec 2011 02:05 Edited at: 10th Dec 2011 02:08
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thanks for the suggestion but this isn't a monitor calibration issue because it displays fine, but only in certain programs that I outlined above

really should be strictly a software issue, I suspected that maybe it worked in these programs because they did not take advantage of the graphics card, but I verified that Photoshop was utilizing the card with my AMD system monitor, so it would suggest that the last place to change settings would be in color management

however I've tried and failed at that, unfortunately I'm not too experienced in tweaking color management
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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 10th Dec 2011 03:53
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so you are saying it screws with colors/image whenever photoshop or paint open up? This is a very interesting problem. You should try to reinstall the drivers, or if that dosent do anything, try installing ATI tray tools instead of the video driver and see what happens then


dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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Epimetheus
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Posted: 10th Dec 2011 05:27
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rather it is everything else that is screwed up except photoshop and paint

see the screenshots above, I'll try the ATI tray tools right now and see what happens because reinstalling drivers didn't seem to have an effect.
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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 10th Dec 2011 07:02
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Is the monitor LED?


dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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Epimetheus
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Posted: 10th Dec 2011 09:13 Edited at: 10th Dec 2011 09:15
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the computer is and LED while the monitor is an LCD

here are the specs on the computer:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c03068253&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&product=5177781

and the monitor I'm hooking it up to:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&dlc=en&docname=c01604006&lc=en&product=3770742
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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 10th Dec 2011 12:48
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It could be a defective screen or something. LED are still a new thing and defects are more common among them. YOu can either send into warrranty and possibly get another notebook (or at least a good screen replacement) Or you can go out and look for a good LED monitor and replace it yourself. Well thats proboly stupid as i have no idea where LEDs are sold. I would still do it anyway because thats how stupid i am.


dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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Epimetheus
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Posted: 10th Dec 2011 18:57 Edited at: 10th Dec 2011 18:58
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lol yeah I was looking at some 1080p laptop screens and considering replacing it because it's not the greatest contrast and resolution

but the issue appears on my external LCD monitor so it's definitely with the graphics card or drivers, maybe color management as the LED would definitely have a different configuration from a LCD
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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 10th Dec 2011 20:22
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i never worked with LEDs before so i cant say anything about those


dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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bitJericho
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Posted: 11th Dec 2011 03:05 Edited at: 11th Dec 2011 03:06
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I wonder if it's because photoshop is hardware rendered while paint and viewer are possibly software rendered? In which case, it could be the renderer at fault. What's it look like if you disable aero? Same? Different?


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Epimetheus
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Posted: 11th Dec 2011 09:46 Edited at: 11th Dec 2011 09:50
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@Jerico2day

Yeah I thought similarly, but MS Paint's display looks the same as Photoshop so there's definitely something weird going on, I tried disabling Aero, but same issues

According to HP, they were quick to say that the card was defective and needs to be serviced, of course the tech support guy could have just been looking for an easy way out of handling my issue

resetting the whole thing tonight, if it's still having issues I guess I have to send it back, ugh, and I just got the thing too
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Epimetheus
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Posted: 11th Dec 2011 12:28
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alright so I think I got it, it was a color management issue after all (still have to verify it completely though)

after resetting everything was fine except for the desktop background, but the moment I started messing with color management things got screwed up, luckily realizing that was the issue all I had to do was delete the color profiles and then they would automatically re-load

the desktop is still not totally fixed though, my theory is, when I switch on the laptop it loads the desktops color profile from it's own screen(which is crappy compared to my 1080p monitor), then when the other monitor boots up, it's still loaded and my attempts to refresh fail, but when new programs are loaded they look fine(having loaded the 1080p's color profile)

anyone ever have this issue working with multiple monitors and laptops?
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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 11th Dec 2011 18:26
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if its the color profiles i am prettty sure a calibrator should
fix that


dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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Epimetheus
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Posted: 12th Dec 2011 03:52
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the calibration wasn't the main issue per say, it was just that I needed to set the proper color profile for each monitor and everything was a go
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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 12th Dec 2011 07:09
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Well calibrators do create color profiles


dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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