Samsung SyncMaster 245BW Looks Horrible in Lion

I finally upgraded to Lion and while I like the features, my display looks quite a bit different and frankly, quite a bit worse since the upgrade. I have an early 2008 Mac Pro. I discovered that Lion changed some things in my System Preferences Display settings and so I had to go through the manual calibration - but the results are still underwhelming. Fonts look poor (and pixelated - such as in the url bar in Safari), colors are somewhat washed out, etc. I have checked that Font smoothing is turned on (but when I turn if off/on, it makes no difference - is it only on restart that smoothing changes state?).
I also made the fateful choice to download and try software from Samsung called MagicTune but that was a huge mistake as it took away my manual adjustment capability with the 245BW display. It installed but didn't run and I am not sure if I got all the files uninstalled as the uninstaller did not work with Lion. I trashed the app package then restarted but until I power cycled the 245BW display I could not manually adjust. I have a NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512 MB video card installed (upgrade from original).
Maybe it's time to upgrade to a new monitor. My wife has a new Syncmaster SA300 on her Mac Mini and it looks pretty good. The 245BW was considered a fairly good monitor a few years ago when I got it and while it's never been as good as an iMac display (IMHO) I was happy with it until the upgrade to Lion.
Any tips from the gurus on how to make the most out the 245BW with my Mac Pro / Lion?

I should have titled this post something other than Syncmaster Samsung...
I now am starting to wonder if I have a problem with my video card or driver. My Mac Pro is early 2008 and a couple of years ago I had to replace the stock video card with a NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512 and I wonder if the upgrade to Lion somehow messed with the driver settings for this video card.
I found a driver upgrade available from NVIDIA site but am hesitant to try it as I would have thought that Apple would have included any driver updates for this card as part of the Lion upgrade package.
I have to do something as my display is barely usable. Signals seem overdriven - lots of sharp contrasts and ghosting of fonts.

Similar Messages

MacMini looks terrible with Samsung SyncMaster 225BW

I have the latest Mac working with a Samsung SyncMaster 225 monitor, and the font aliasing look terrible! Is there anything I can do about this? I have gone through the colour calibration and it is slightly improved, but it still looks pretty poor.
I have connected this monitor to a PC and the font display looks good, except for Apple's webpages (such as these discussion forums)! What fonts are used here? And why do these look so poor on this 22" 1680x1050 DVI connected TFT monitor?
Any clue would be appreciated?

Thanks for the reply. I think it is half and half, the problem is both Apple and the Samsung. I believe the graphics adapter (Intel GMA 950) in the MacMini is pretty poor and what you said about Apple's font smoothing... and I think the actual Samsung panel is somehow not good with this adapter.
I tried the MacMini on an NEC 21" and it looked better, and I also tried it on a BenQ 24" and this was pretty good. I also have a iMac 24" and whatever panel they use in that, the fonts, etc looks pretty **** good!
So there must be something going on with the Samsung 225BW and the Mini itself! (Although, to be honest, my NEC 1770NX 17" LCD monitor is not giving that good a display at the moment!)
Is there a way of updating the driver for this Samsung (or this NEC 1770NX) monitor?! Are we all stuck with whatever driver the Mac uses when it detects the display?

T61 and external Samsung SyncMaster T190

I'm trying to configure my T61 to work with an external screen - a Samsung SyncMaster T190. What I want is the same desktop to appear on both screens, with the resolution of 1400x1050 on the Thinkpad, and 1440x900 (the best resolution) on the Samsung.
I can only seem to get these resolutions to work if I go to dual-mode, splitting the desktop over both monitors. If I go to clone mode, (same desktop on both monitors) it chooses a maximum resolution of 1360x768 for both screens which looks horrible on the Samsung.
I got to a point (by fluke) that I had 1440x900 on both, which was ok, but I can't seem to replicate that again since I rebooted. I can also get 1440x900 on the Samsung if I choose it to be the main screen, with no display on the laptop.
Not too clever with this sort of stuff. What do I need to do, or is this just not possible?
Thanks

Does the problem go away after short period of time?
It should work fine with direct HDMI connection.
Have you tried another cable and reseating the connectors on both ends?
You can call Apple since yo have 90 days of free telephone support
Complimentary Support (USA)

External monitor looks horrible

I've connected my Samsung SyncMaster 171v LCD monitor to my new Macbook with a mini DVI to VGA connector and get terrible results. I've tried setting to the native resolution of 1280 x 1024 as well as 1024 x 768(stretched) and 800 x 600 (stretched), but get a somewhat fuzzy picture. Nothing like what I get when I use my windows box with an old ATI 7500.
Can anyone give me some suggestions as it is totally unusable as a viable external monitor at this rate?

As Attila mentions, if you are mirroring the displays then that will explain the poor image quality. By the way, the native resolution of the MacBook is 1280 x 800 and not 1280 x 960.
With regards to DVI vs VGA, at resolutions of 1280 x 1024 you won't notice a difference.
EDIT : By the way, the normal cause for "fuzzy" looking displays is an incorrect resolution setting which is mismatched to the native resolution. Can you confirm the native is 1280 x 1024?

Mini Display Port to VGA cable can't detect Samsung SyncMaster 2693HM.

Just conected a Samsung SyncMaster 2693 to my Mac Mini (2.5 CPU mid 2011) with an Apple Mini DisplayPort to VGA adaptor it only sees the monitor as a VGA display and is limited to 1920x1081. I was using the same adaptor with an older Mac Mini (mid 2009) and had no problems getting the full 1920x1200 resolution. I've resarted and reinserted the cables, with no joy. Any ideas?

Looking into my problem more deeply it seems that the adaptor is a fault
As stated by BSteely @ this thread https://discussions.apple.com/message/9447077#9447077 it seems that the 1600 x 1200 @ 85Hz is most likely beyond the capabilities of the DAC onboard the adaptor.
Apple does make reference to this slightly in this FAQ http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3382 stating "The resolution available with the Apple Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter is 1920 x 1200. VGA displays that use higher refresh rates (such as 85 Hz) at resolutions of 1600 x 1200 or greater may not generate video properly until you lower the refresh rate."
Begin Rant: "May" As far as my understanding goes the chip inside this adaptor is either designed and the firmware is progamed to support 1600 x 1200 at 85 Hz or it is not. No "May" about it.
The solution is as simple a providing a list of resolutions and refresh rates supported by the adaptor in some sort of "Technical Specifications" not simply the description provided by the overview in the apple store which makes no mention of any limitation other that the requirement of a display port.

My Samsung Syncmaster LD220 USB monitor will no longer work. Please help.

I just upgraded to Lion with my MacBook Pro and now my Samsung SyncMaster LD 200g monitor will no longer work. If you can help please do.

I'm getting the same with a macbook Core 2 Duo (aluminum body). I am using USB connection only, but plan to try with VGA cable...

Can't connect Powermac G5 to samsung syncmaster S22A300B

Hi there,
I bought a Powermac G5 (april,2005) and a Samsung syncmaster S22A300B screen. When i connect the mac to the screen with a VGA cable all i get is a black screen, but somehow it recognizes that it is connected. When I connect the mac to the TV everything works just fine. Any idea what i can do?
Thanks in advane

Thanks.
It indeed pretty much looks like the Samsung screen is somewhat broken. Guess I have to bring it back to the store and ask for a new one.
Fabian

MacMini mid-2011/ Yosemite w Samsung Syncmaster monitor

Hello all.
I have been happily working with my MacMini mid-2011 (2.3Ghz Intel Core i5, 8GB RAM) with a Samsung Syncmaster B2440 HDMI-connected to it for a long time.
Since the upgrade to Mavericks and later to Yosemite, the following problem occurs: when switching the monitor off, and later switching it back on, no video signal is sent to the monitor, which remains blank and tries to switch through all its different inputs. Unplugging the hdmi cable and plugging it back in also gives no joy. It looks like the whole video output services are switch off at OS level or something.
The only thing I can do to get the monitor on, oddly enough, is to connect to the mac mini through a remote desktop from another device, and switching the display to my AppleTV. This action does switch also the Samsung monitor back on.
So I then thought, great, I will create myself an apple script and a workflow associated to this AirPlay monitor switch and associate it to a keyboard shortcut, but this does not appear to work either (no, the shortcut is not in conflict with any other global shortcut).
Any help will be much appreciated.
Thanks
Joe

Hi lllass.
When I tried that it appeared to work, but after some days it started doing it again. I am really puzzled by this.
Thanks
Joe

Samsung Syncmaster 2033

Trying to get my Samsung syncmaster 2033 2nd screen to see the iMac screens correctly. Does anyone know what resolution I have to have on the Samsung so the Imac screen which is open in the imac pc - upon being dragged to Samsung screen - automatically configures the dimensions of any screen to samsung screen resolutions? I need the 2nd screen to be accurate as I will be utilizing both at the same time.....used to be able to do this on a windows based laptop to samsung.....thx for help.

none of my other programs work w/this apple.
Well, Windows programs won't work directly on a Mac, because Macs run Mac OS X. But you can run a Windows virtual machine with a Mac OS X "virtualization" application like VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop. Then, Windows is running (separately) under Mac OS X, through the virtualization application.
For the interface, you can run Windows inside its own window. That one window (on the Mac desktop) is essentially the Windows PC screen. You can make that window go "full screen," so that the entire screen looks like a Windows PC screen. And you can also have the virtualization application make it seem like the Windows application is running "alongside" Mac OS X applications. But those Windows programs are still running separately, in the Windows virtual machine. Mac OS X is not running them directly.
Because Windows is running under Mac OS X, the iMac's graphics hardware is not being accessed directly by Windows. For Windows apps that need direct access to the graphics hardware, such as action games, that can be a problem.
If you need full Windows performance on the iMac, you need to (re)boot directly into Windows. You can do that using the built-in BootCamp feature. You basically set up a separate partition and install Windows there. Then, you boot directly into Windows, like the iMac was a Windows PC. When you do this, Mac OS X is not running at all, so you need to (re)boot back into Mac OS X to run Mac apps. That sort of defeats the purpose of buying a Mac, so if you can do it with virtualization, it would be more convenient. Over time, you should be able to transition to using Mac apps for all or most of the things you need to do.

Samsung SyncMaster 931BW 19" has a weird resolution?

Hello everyone!
I am using my MacBook for some years now. I never had ay problems with it, it has always worked properly. Recently, my mother gave me an old screen she did not need anymore, the Samsung SyncMaster 931BW 19''. I have some problems with it. The resolution is very very weird. When I connect the screen I get a popup that sais:
Not Optimum Mode
Recommended Mode :
1440x900 60Hz
I know this is a 16:9 configuration. The only configurations I can get are 1600x1200, 1400x1050, 1344x1008, 1280x960, 1024x768 and 800x600. As far as I know this are all 4:3 configurations. That is not what I want. The screen kind of scales it to the screens resolution but it looks so weird.
When I make a screenshot of it I get, again scaled, a 4:3 ugly pixelized PNG file. I do not like this.
Besides the resolution problem I also get a weird color. I cannot set it to the right white point and also not the right GAMMA mode. Which makes it almost impossible to see anything on the screen. I tried in the screens options menu to reset the color and the image but that did not change anything. I tried to calibrate it in System Preferences but that only made it worse.
Please help me with this. It really bugs me.
Specs:
MacBook Pro 13'' Early 2011
Samsung SyncMaster 931BW

Also, when I click on the Apple logo in the top-right of the screen, I go to "About this Mac", then go to the tab Displays, it shows me two displays:
Built-in Display
13,3-inch (1280 x 800)
Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB
Display
13,9-inch (800 x 600)
Inte; HD Graphics 3000 384 MB
The first is the display of the mac and the second is the Samsung monitor which actually is 19'' with a resolution of 1440x900! I think my MacBook doesn't quite understand me.

Samsung Syncmaster XL 2370HD

I have recently purchased a Samsung Monitor and hooked it up to my Mac Book Pro and the picture looks horrible. I have changed the display settings to 1920 x 1080 and I am using a DVI cable. What else can I do? The picture looks nowhere near as good as this display looked on a dell at Sam's Club when I bought it. Got to be something wrong as my Macs have always looked better than any PC computer garbage!! HELP!!

I have recently purchased a Samsung Monitor and hooked it up to my Mac Book Pro and the picture looks horrible. I have changed the display settings to 1920 x 1080 and I am using a DVI cable. What else can I do? The picture looks nowhere near as good as this display looked on a dell at Sam's Club when I bought it. Got to be something wrong as my Macs have always looked better than any PC computer garbage!! HELP!!

Problem (ugly display) with Samsung syncmaster 2243

Hello
I just plug my Samsung Syncmaster 2243BW on the mac mini (DVI). The resolution set is the good one : 1680x1050 @ 60hz, but the display isn' t clear, accurate, especially with the fonts.
any ideas
thanks in advance

Without knowing exactly what it is you see and object to, I will say that a 22" monitor with 1680 x 1050 resolution is at the low end of the scale among most monitors on the market in terms of density of pixels on the screen. If you consider one square centimeter of area on your 22" monitor, it will have approximately 1250 pixels within that area. Then consider that a 17" MacBook Pro will have 2750 pixels within that same area of one square centimeter.
Obviously text will look a lot more clear when there is a pixel density of more than double on one display compared to another. Again, I am not sure if this is the underlying reason for your complaint about your new monitor, but it's something to consider.
Samsung also make a 2343 monitor, and even though it is only one inch larger in size, it is quite a bit higher in resolution. You might be happier with that.

Just bought the best mac mini, but Netflix looks horrible.. Why?

I bought a mac mini 2.6 ghz, late 2012. I'm using it on a Samsung 40 in smart tv with an HDMI cable. When I get on netflix the videos look horrible, and I'm wondering if there's something I can do to fix the quality of video (other than downloading sliverlight and placing the quality to high on netflix). Thanks for the help

Sorry for the confusion, I meant that I had already done those things and am wondering if there's anything else I can do. I think I solved the problem, though. The quality is just taking a little longer than my last mac to buffer into HD video.
I'm also wondering if I should just use the HDMI adapter that came with the mac mini, things like brightness control and volume control can no longer be controled straight from the keyboard because it assumes I'm not lazy and will grab the controller! Also, web pages and just the overall all look is a bit distoreted because it's trying to push it to 40in..I guess.
Thanks for the comment!

DVD looks horrible on LED flatscreen

Thanks for any help on this. Have been making DVD's w/ DVDSP for years... always looking great on computer and various players. Just tested on a Samsung LED 40" and it looks horrible, unwatchable, pixelated, blurry. Unfortunately, this is where the DVD will be screened. Have tried various TV settings and can't figure out the problem. Have a deadline for viewing and I'm in a bit of a panic...any advice appreciated. Thank you!

Hi Russ.
Thanks so much for your response. I'm shooting 1920x1080 30p on a Canon DSLR. I've been shooting this format and encoding the same way for a long time. This particular project is fairly basic. It's a three camera workout DVD, with outdoor natural light plus HMI and very smooth jib moves.
This is just the first time I've looked at the DVD on this new flatscreen. Previously I had only seen it on my computer, a stand-alone, portable DVD player, or an older television connected to a DVD player. Obviously, the quality was never amazing, as it was downsized to SD, but there was no pixelation or stair-stepping.
So I'm shocked to see how this looks on this TV. I've gone through all the TV settings to see if it's something I can adjust on that end. The DVD player that's connected to it is older, so I thought I could maybe adjust some settings there, but haven't figured it out. When I play commercially made DVD's they look fine, so I figured the devices can't be the problem.
Here's the recipe I've been using, that's worked for me. But maybe it needs some tweaking. I am so appreciative of your help and would welcome any advice.
Thanks again.
Description: Fits up to 90 minutes of video with Dolby Digital audio at 192 Kbps or 60 minutes with AIFF audio on a DVD-5
File Extension: m2v
Estimated size: 1.23 GB
Type: MPEG-2 video elementary stream
          Usage:SD DVD
Video Encoder
          Format: M2V
          Width and Height: Automatic
                    Selected: 720 x 480
          Pixel aspect ratio: NTSC CCIR 601/DV (16:9)
          Crop: None
          Padding: None
          Frame rate: (100% of source)
                    Selected: 29.97
          Frame Controls Automatically selected:
                    Retiming: (Fast) Nearest Frame
                    Resize Filter: Linear Filter
                    Deinterlace Filter: Fast (Line Averaging)
                    Adaptive Details: On
                    Antialias: 0
                    Detail Level: 0
                    Field Output: Same as Source
          Start timecode from source
          Aspect ratio: Automatic
                    Selected 16:9
          Field dominance: Automatic:
                     Selected Top first
          Average bit rate: 5.5 (Mbps)
          2 Pass VBR enabled
                    Maximum bit rate: 7.2 (Mbps)
          High quality
          Better motion estimation
          Closed GOP Size: 12, Structure: IBBP
          DVD Studio Pro meta-data enabled

Cannot get my Samsung SyncMaster S27B370 to connect to my Mid 2011 iMac 27

Cannot get my Samsung SyncMaster S27B370 to connect to my Mid 2011 iMac 27 inch with HDMI to thunderbolt port adapter but works like a charm in Windows 7 when I bootcamp over to it. Any ideas? The cable is working properly as shown by the fact that Windows 7 uses both monitors perfectly. I am using Mac OS X Mountain Lion and have already done the option + cmd + p + r boot reset to no avail. It does not find the second monitor at all as in it doesn't even show up in the display preference pane.

birdmanjay wrote:
... Apple tells me it is the printer mfr issue and printer companies tell me it is apple issue.
Arguably, they're both right.
Changing your router changes everything, so your best course of action is to research the respective printer's documentation and determine how to reset them to factory default condition. Then, add them again using System Preferences > Print & Scan.
For that, I recommend you first "reset the printing system" according to these instructions: Mac OS X: How to reset the printing system. Its instructions for Lion are identical to those for Mountain Lion.
As the article states, it will remove all your existing printers, leaving the Mac's printing system in a similar "factory default" condition ready for you to create a new print queue for each printer, which you should probably do.
Apple's printing support documents contain a great deal of redundancy, but this one may be a good place to start: OS X Mountain Lion: Set up a printer to print wirelessly

Samsung SyncMaster 245BW Looks Horrible in Lion

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for