Ass-Hat Fecal Mongers at NewEgg and Samsung, et al

[squirell nutkin]

I bought a new monitor from NewEgg and I set it up. First off, when I put in the disk that came with it, nothing happened after I selected my language prefs (Engrish, not Korean) except for it launching Firefox with an empty browser.

Trying it w/ IE resulted in the helpful message that I needed to insert my original XP system disk so it could install the Korean language pack. I had almost forgotten that I had moved to Korea last month!

Whatever, I soldiered on. When it was all hooked up everything was great in an anamorphic kind of way. When I went to set my screen resolution to this new 16:9 screen I saw my graphics card's driver wasn't down with that shit, so I had to download the latest driver. Fair enough.

Installed the driver update and set the resolution, things were looking better but the fonts were kind of disappearing and had a ghostly aura around them. Then they just turned into nice easy to see squares. Sort of like a screen full of, well full of little squares where letters should be.

Imagine doing a system restore when all you can see is:
00000000
0000000000000
000000
0000000000000000
000000000
000000000
but square. Let's see, I think "Next>" is around here somewhere...

After a number of very unhelpful contradicting phone calls to Samsung TEch Support (whose ultimate piece of troubleshooting advice was for me to take my monitor to a friend's house and see if it worked there) I emailed Nvidia and discovered their story is "WE just make the chips, we don't make the graphics cards, you'll need to take it up with whoever made your graphics cards" So the Nvidia GeForce 7300LE graphics card has nothing to do with you, I mean besides having your name all over it and links on your site to purchase it. I see.

Samsung then told me I needed to install an new driver for my monitor, Then they told me it was a plug and play and it didn't need a new driver, then they told me to follow a link to their new driver, I did, downloaded it, launched the exe file and ... Et Voila! the driver launched my Epson scanner. I told the customer support person that and there was silence. I suggested maybe it was a software problem at their end. He admitted "Yeah maybe." but wasn't willing to follow that idea anywhere.

So he claimed the problem was with my Graphics card or driver and that the manufacturer of a monitor is under no obligation to test or warrant the suitability of their product for use with specific graphics cards and his suggestion was for me "to keep buying graphics cards until I found one that worked."

OOOOOOOkaaaaaaaaay

NewEgg wanted to charge me a 50% restocking fee since there was nothing wrong with the monitor (other than the fact it didn't work with my graphics card and they are not responsible for warning me that the prodcut I buy from them may be incompatible with a very common graphics card.) In their defense, I suppose if the manufacturer of the monitor didn't know it why should NewEgg?

So I was told by Samsung that I should find a graphics card that explicitly states it is compatible with Samsung's 2343BWX monitor.

Assholes and douche nozzles all of them, they can eat my little brown squirrel pellets.

Anybody have any good graphics cards suggestions. I'm not a gamer, I do watch movies on my computer and I would like to go with a dual monitor set-up.

[Flint]

Sad story, but possibly best thread title ever.

[squirell nutkin]

Look on the bright side of life!

[dar512]

I'd be willing to bet it is not your graphics card, but that the installer has hammered your system settings. In Windows XP, open the control panel. Open Regional and Language Options. Click on the Languages tab. Click on Details. Make sure it says English.

[dar512]

BTW you should never need to install anything for a new monitor. They're all plug and pray these days. You do need to make sure your graphics card will support the monitor's resolution, though.

[squirell nutkin]

Thanks Dar,
I just checked to control panel and English is selected. I reconnected my old monitor with the graphics card driver updated and everything is fine. The updated driver supports the native resolution of the monitor. It's just when that monitor is connected everything goes nuts.

[Pie]

I do my damndest to never use the software that comes with perifs.

And sorry to disagree with you, but I must put in my good word for Newegg -- I've spent thousands of dollars there over the years, and have had nothing but eggcellent service from them.

[squirell nutkin]

I've had great service from them up till now (meaning I've never had a problem before). But in all your dealings with them was their "Great service" that nothing was not to your liking, or was their "great service" comprised of their customer oriented desire to do everything reasonably possible to help you with your problem rather than saying "tough shit?"

[squirell nutkin]

I just found this out: nVidia GeForce 7300LE PCI-e: Driver fails with 3d application (forceware v163.69.xxx)
I know they mean 3-D as in the goggles, but this is what happened. I had just opened a third application when everything f'ed up. rebooting did not help, only rolling back. Now let me see if I launch three apps with this monitor if the same thing happens.

Also I have no idea what they mean by (forceware v163.69.xxx)

[Elspode]

I'd do a system rollback to before you tried to install the software, then just hook up the monitor and adjust your settings through your vid card or Windoze. It is likely that whatever software they gave you with the monitor is useless crap anyway.

[dar512]

Originally Posted by squirell nutkin

Thanks Dar,
I just checked to control panel and English is selected. I reconnected my old monitor with the graphics card driver updated and everything is fine. The updated driver supports the native resolution of the monitor. It's just when that monitor is connected everything goes nuts.

Trust me when I tell you - that's really bizarre. The only thing I can think of is that the plug and play for the monitor is messing with your system settings.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Plug 'n plays don't, unless the system already contains the drivers, I think?

[Flint]

Listen to the theme here:

Originally Posted by dar512

BTW you should never need to install anything for a new monitor.

Originally Posted by Pie

I do my damndest to never use the software that comes with perifs.

Originally Posted by Elspode

It is likely that whatever software they gave you with the monitor is useless crap anyway.

And for more on the subject in general, this great link:

Originally Posted by dar512

There's nothing wrong with the software that comes bundled with a digital camera. Or is there?

[squirell nutkin]

The worst part of it is that after a lot of really random fucking around with the damn thing, most of which showed no visible change at all in looks or performance, things seems to be working today. So far.

Maybe it was the deer I hit and killed last night. It was like a deer from a Murakami novel. One minute I was ripping down the road pissing and moaning about computers, software, and lack of accountability on the part of every-BAM!

Dead deer, smashed headlight and fender.

And all my computer problems seemed to vanish, but not in a "It was all put in perspective" kind of way. No, it was more like in a creepy Murakami novel kind of way. I woke up this morning having a very intense, detailed, and highly realistic dream where I was shooting a .45 Automatic at an outdoor range and I had these neat rounds that were sort of like dum-dums, but when they hit a paper target they made a smiley face. I changed clips and thought "I have to show these to ZippyT." then I woke up.

So, who the fuck knows? and after reading Flints link, I doubt that my hitting a deer is any less efficacious a solution to computer software problems.