lenovo y580, weird lines when connected to external 4k TV

Badmotorf1nger · 31 Dec 2016

Hi All,

Just got a Sony 65x850D 4k TV, using as an external monitor for my Lenovo y580 laptop, hooked up via HDMI cable which uses the on-board Intel 4000 graphics.

You can see in the below pic these light colored single pixel width lines that extend from the corners of the windows and go across the desktop. Its most noticeable on solid color backgrounds. The lines will extend from all corners of the windows, and sometimes I notice them going vertically too. The lines move with the windows if I move them around the screen. This is bugging the hell out of me, its definitely something with the OS because if I do a print screen you can see the lines.

The problem was there in windows 7, so I installed windows 10 today just to see if it would help, but the lines are still there. Anyone experience this problem before? Any ideas how to fix it?

Im guessing it might have to do with displaying windows in 1080p resolution stretched out on a 4k screen? Maybe the lines were always there but invisible to the naked eye?

The lines are not visible on the 1080p laptop screen, and they were not visible on my old 70" 1080p TV.

Im going to be building a new rig soon with a GTX1070 so it will be able to display at 3840x2160 res. Hopefully that helps if I cant find a solution.

essenbe · 31 Dec 2016

Have you tried setting your monitor to it's native resolution? Your card is supposed to be capable of 3840 X 2160 If using a Digital connection. If using VGA it is limited to 2048 X 1536. GeForce GTX 660M | Specifications | GeForce

Badmotorf1nger · 31 Dec 2016

essenbe said:

Have you tried setting your monitor to it's native resolution? Your card is supposed to be capable of 3840 X 2160 If using a Digital connection. If using VGA it is limited to 2048 X 1536. GeForce GTX 660M | Specifications | GeForce

as far as i know its not possible with this laptop, the gtx660 card only outputs to the laptop screen & the VGA port for ext monitor.. the TV only has HDMI ports so im stuck using that, the HDMI is only connected to the intel 4000 chip, i dont think there is anyway to have the gtx660 display through the HDMI, pretty stupid design flaw on lenovos part IMO

I did try using a custom resolution in the display properties, but it rejects anything over 1920x1080

essenbe · 31 Dec 2016

Unless someone else has another solution,based on your description it sounds like you're stuck. I believe the Intel 4000 is max resolution of 1920 X 1200.

Badmotorf1nger · 31 Dec 2016

essenbe said:

Unless someone else has another solution,based on your description it sounds like you're stuck. I believe the Intel 4000 is max resolution of 1920 X 1200.

yeah im definitely stuck with this resolution on this laptop, im just wondering if thats whats causing these lines?

Anyone else have the same problem displaying a 1080 res on a 4k TV?

Helmut · 31 Dec 2016

Does not look like a white line in your images, more dark grey. JPG processing in your images does not help.

At a guess I would say it's a processing artefact, scaling is a process, not always perfect.
You may be able to make it less noticeable by varying the black level on the TV, depends what options they give you with a PC Input.

RoasterMen · 01 Jan 2017

Helmut said:

JPG processing in your images does not help.

Actually it does. It won't display that line in a screenshot.

Helmut · 01 Jan 2017

The better your image quality the easier it is to make suggestions, we cannot see the live screen.

What are the advanced picture settings on your TV with a PC input ? Does the effect change with Picture Mode ?

Badmotorf1nger · 01 Jan 2017

this is the best pic I could get , hard to keep the camera in focus on the screen

the lines are visible in all picture modes, photo, vivid, cinema, graphics etc
The only setting that help a little are black level & contrast, but i have to set them too high that it degrades the picture quality

I think I just figured out that its a TV problem & not windows though, because if I pull up a TV menu it does the same thing to the screen if the menu appears over the windows desktop

Helmut · 01 Jan 2017

Ummm, well it would seem to be a TV problem.
On my Sony TVs(~3 yrs old), out of the box the default settings were set very high for various processing features, enough to make a picture look cartoon like, all were set to Low or Off in some cases. Made quite an improvement.

I would look for, in Picture Advanced settings - Sharpness*, Noise Reduction, MPEG Noise Reduction, Dot Noise Reduction, Detail Enhancer*, Edge Enhancer*, i/p Conversion Preference.

The ones with * perhaps the significant ones, most of these should be Off for a PC input.

Some options, at least on mine, are greyed out or only appear in certain picture modes and inputs.