2310 HDMI Problem

[kevslu]

Here's three screen shots of the corner of the menu page of a video playing on the 2310 showing the issue (the menu is a still frame, so the images aren't different because of the person moving). 

VGA is good, but anything plugged into the HDMI has its edges cut off.  The third image is from a stand-alone blu ray player that goes directly into the monitor and the computer is in no way involved.  So it can't be a computer or graphics card issue.  This cuts off the media player controls that usually appear across the bottom.

To get the HDMI from the computer to fit on the screen you have to lower the resolution from true 1920 x 1080 to 1680 x 1050 and then it's a little smaller than the screen and has black space around it.  Also, when a monitor is billed as "Full HD" I shouldn't have to lower the resolution to see the whole picture.

The "custom scaling" feature which the manual says should fix this is grayed out and cannot be accessed.  I think this is a problem with HPs in general.  The same issue happened on both the 2310 monitors I brought home and the one on display in the store.  One of the tech support guy said they couldn't access custom scaling on the one in their office either.

I saw one post that this has happened to someone else.  Has anyone seen an issue like this and solved it?

[Big_Dave]

What source format are the images in?  Did you ever try the source images on a different PC with a different monitor that was connected via HDMI using the same program?

[kevslu]

Hi Big Dave,

Yeah, I played my computer through the HDMI of two other 1080 monitors and a 1080 projector and all of them showed my desktop fine with no adjustments needed.  This DVD was played through two HDMI monitors at work with the same player and they were fine.  We even hooked a couple of computers to the display 2310 at Officemax.  If the computer had a 1080 resolution it cut off the edges.  If you lowered the resolution or the computer max resolution was less than 1080 (like the laptops) everyting showed.  Of all of the monitors I have played thesed devices through, the HP was the only one to have this issue. 

It's not an issue with the player program because everything, even the desktop had the edges cut off.  Below are pictures of the bottom left corner of my desktop and Hulu.  With my desktop you can see all of the icons on the left of my screen are virtually gone and my start menu and task bar are not at all viewable.  With Hulu, the controls are pushed off the screen.  On the left is the menu showing "custom scaling" greyed out and unavailable for adjustment.

 

I finally got tech support to bring on a supervisor who ran me through another 15 minutes of resets and cable changes and he concluded that the monitor is defective and and offered to exchange it.  I was still under 2 weeks with Office Max, so I just returned it and got my money back.  I just wasn't comfortable that the next HP wouldn't do the same thing.

I'm bummed because the monitor has a great picture and I would have liked tech support to have solved this.  If someone was buying this monitor with only the intentions of using the VGA connection I would recommend it.  My last computer was an HP and I really trust HP printers.  I will continue to buy HP products (except for monitors).

I do video and motion graphics, so I have lots of experience with graphics cards and computer resolution settings.

Here's my opinion:  Computers in this low price range only recently started including HDMI outputs and most people probably use the 2310 with a VGA cable.  If they are using an HDMI connection, they lower the resolution and move on or use the HDMI for a HD device and don't notice the edges cut off because video devices don't usually have the control functions right across the edges of the screen.  Not a lot of people hook up the VGA and HDMI outputs to compare them.  What I think will happen is that as people start using the 2310s with newer HD devices that stream the internet, they'll wonder why the play controls on Hulu and Netflix (which when set to full screen are moved to the very bottom edge) are cut off of the screen.  They'll call tech support and be told it's their graphics card.

[konk6i3]

Here is a post on the Intel forum where someone found controls within the Intel control panel for video over-scan under-scan control on HDMI. http://communities.intel.com/message/99968#99968

Cheers,

[kevslu]

Great, so it's back to being my graphics card again.

I'm going to ask two questions that not one of the 5 techs I talked to over the phone could answer.  Please show me that HP takes possible defects in its products seriously:

1. Why did a DVD player hooked through the HDMI monitor input WITH THE COMPUTER OFF AND NOT HOOKED INTO THE MONITOR IN ANY WAY also cut off the edges of the picture?  How is the intel graphics card in any way involved in that?  How would the graphics card on a computer that is off and unhoohed affect a stand-alone blu ray player.
2. Why couldn't I access the "custom scaling" function on the monitor's menu that the HP manual says should be adjusted to fix this problem?  Even when the computer was off and only the blu ray player was hooked up I couldn't access the function.

[konk6i3]

1. The DVD Player is a CE device, the monitor with HDMI acts like a CE device, your PC graphics card thinks the monitor is a CE device, a TV based on your earlier post.

2. Custom scaling is greyed out when the monitor thinks it is receiving native resolutions. I was looking at a PC with Intel grphics and there were quite a few scenarios where even when you change the resolution it still sends out commands about native resolution. Once I got it to send out say 1680 x 1050, I could go to Custom Scaling and change its default from Fit to Screen to Fit to Aspect.

Here is a screen shot of Intel Graphics control panel when the picture was actually over scanning. I was able to use the horizontal and vertical scaling slide bars to adjust the image. Not sure if you have this option with your graphics. This type of option is the same for most all graphics controls, ATI, nVidia or Intel.

Cheers,

[kevslu]

Thank you for admitting that the monitor is built to cut off the edges of anything plugged into the HDMI and that the "custom scaling" fuction is set in a way that it misinterperets signals automatically - particularly with Intel products, the most used computer chips around.  Now people thinking of buying the 2310 to use the HDMI are warned courtesy of HP that the monitor won't show the full picturer and should purchase another product like the Acer, ViewSonic, or Mitsubishi products that don't have this problem.

The screenshot shows a product other than a 2310m.  Why not try this with a 2310m?  Don't you have one?

After reinstalling the drivers on my computer, the graphics card came up and recognized it as "HP 2310 Monitor" and the problem still happened, so the thinking of it as  a TV wasn't an issue for me after all.

I also plugged the blu ray player into several other HD monitors / projectors and it was fine.  The HP was the only one to cut off the edges.  This was the same with the computer.  I ran it through multiple HD dispaly devices and the only one to have this problem was the HP.

It's funny, you say you were able to change the setting while in a very reduced resolution.  When you went back to 1920 x 1080 HD was the problem solved?  You didn't say in your post that it solved anything.

Keep blaming Intel.

[konk6i3]

I never said anything like that.

I was able to get a perfectly sized image on the monitor after changing the settings in the Intel control panel. That is the key. Nothing had to be done on the monitor side.

Cheers,

[PaulCanham1]

I managed to get custom scaling from lowering the resolution in windows screen resolution.

then i pressed menu and custom scaling was no longer greyed out.

[PaulCanham1]

But As i found out the custom scalling thing doesn't always work like i said above