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VG2230wm review -- 4.5 / 5

Over the weekend I received a ViewSonic VG2230wm 22" widescreen LCD monitor for my birthday. So far, I am very impressed with it.

Fedora Core 6 detected the monitor upon start up and instantly configured it to the manufacturer's recommended resolution of 1680x1050x32.

I had more difficulty setting it up in Windows XP though. It does not like to play nice with the NVidia FX 5200 (yes, I know, this is an older video card and I should upgrade). After updating the NVidia driver and the monitor's driver, I still was unsuccessful at even seeing this resolution as an option.

Upon searching on the Internet for over an hour, I found that using NVidia's control panel application, it is possible to create custom resolutions. After creating 1680x1050x32 and performing the control panel's mandatory test everything worked properly.

The only other problem that I encountered is unrelated to the monitor, but a feature of the monitor helped to give me a temporary fix. My KVM that I use to switch between my Linux box and my Windows box is beginning to flake out as evidenced by the fact that when, with my old monitor, I switched to the second computer, the picture would bounce. After connecting the VG2230wm to the KVM I was receiving "no signal" messages when I switched to the second computer.

Since the monitor has a built in switch to change the input source from the analog d-sub connector to the digital DVI connector, I am now using this to switch between the two. Not an ideal solution, but it will work until I can purchase a new KVM.

The only problem that I have had with it that is related to the monitor itself (as opposed to Windows, my video card, or my KVM) is that it was difficult to adjust the brightness and contrast properly. This was due in part to me wanting a level of brightness between two of the settings, and the adjust higher and lower buttons being backwards from what I expected.

Overall, I give the VG2230wm 4.5 / 5.

New Blog

I decided that I missed the technology blog that I used to have, so I decided to create a new one.

If you have a tech topic that you would like me to weigh in on, let me know. I plan on discussing hardware, software, technology news, and trends so anything is fair game.

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