SPCR

Well, it seems that I have a new noise problem that I was never aware of before. My pc is certainly quiet enough after all the mods but now I can hear my 19" monitor (Samsung) buzzing away. I've had it for almost 2 years and love it but this constant buzzing is getting to me and it looks like it'll have to go. I guess when you get the quiet bug, you're hooked for life. So, I need some quiet monitor recommendations. Has to be 19" (no LCD's, can't afford it) with a price range up to $350. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Pete wrote:I guess when you get the quiet bug, you're hooked for life.

Thanks for the warning... I might reconcider making my computer more quiet, if it means I'll end up getting annoyed by my monitor!

It's too late to reconsider - you have the bug too, you just don't realize it yet! SPCR is calling you, beckoning you to submit your will to this forum. Do not reconsider. Do not get annoyed. Do not resist. Do not run away. Stay, learn and obey. We have you now...and we won't let go!

hmmm... that sounds like Borg in Star Trek:
"Resistance is futile... you will be assimilated..."

Since I've spent two weeks researching (not only on SPCR) on the issue of making a more quiet computer, I guess you're right... I'm doomed!

To keep this ON topic: I have no experience with differences in the noise level of monitors, but I will keep an eye on this thread to learn more.

I have a Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 930SB in front of me here, and it does have a very soft electrical hum to it, but certainly not too bad. Even the sound of my keyboard masks it away. It also has the benefit of being a very fine monitor.

I tried a Viewsonic P90f before this, and hated it for a number of reasons, not least of which was its whine. I actually tried and returned three of the things before I was recommended the Mitsu.

Nearly all CRT monitors will eventually buzz and/or hum over time.

You say you have $350, so LCD monitors are in your price range. Also, a 17" LCD monitor has a viewable space comparable to many 19" CRT monitors. They run cooler, silent, and your eyes will thank you too.

I recommend that you look into Planar LCD's, they have the best quality and bang-for-your-buck IMO. They look really nice on a desk too...

al bundy wrote:Nearly all CRT monitors will eventually buzz and/or hum over time.

You say you have $350, so LCD monitors are in your price range. Also, a 17" LCD monitor has a viewable space comparable to many 19" CRT monitors. They run cooler, silent, and your eyes will thank you too.

I recommend that you look into Planar LCD's, they have the best quality and bang-for-your-buck IMO. They look really nice on a desk too...

I second al bundy's opinion. I have a 19" Planar and it is wonderful (and silent). If you can wait for a little while, hold off until Dell has a sale on LCD monitors (in fact, some people recently reported being able to get the Dell 19" LCD for somewhat less than $300...of course, this was a strictly YMMV situation...nonetheless, if you have enough patience, a good deal will turn up. Take care.

Dell FP1800 can be had for about $400 at times (look for sales). It is a wonderful LCD, totally suitable for games, 18", 1280x1024. I have 2 Totally silent.

Once you try LCD you will never go back to CRT.

ColdFlame wrote: Once you try LCD you will never go back to CRT.

I second that!

Now with many LCD panels offering <=16ms response times, I see no reason for using CRTs. Extremely smooth for video and games...

LCDs are razor sharp... Just decrease the font to size ~5-6pt and see if you can read the text on a CRT. I doubt it, what you get is a blur.

I'll throw in a good word for CRT. LCD's just don't produce overall text as sharp as CRT. The lighter shade black on LCD's is not equal to the quality on CRT. Gaming on CRT is definitely better than LCD's with 25ms or more. The 16 ms LCD's are improved in gaming but suffer in viewing angle.

I still find color reproduction better on CRT than LCD.

The biggest advantage with LCD is requiring less space and getting bigger picture. Okay, I'll add in less heat as well.

But overall picture quality for me is still better with CRT - and this comes from someone using an LCD.

Good point about the viewing angle.
I didn't really get the thing about text shaprness. I believe that text is sharper in LCD just as ez2remember mentioned.

LCD's does get somewhat strange if you use them in any resolution other than "native" resolution.

Noone mentioned that LCD screens are completely flicker free. That is the main reason I really want one. Unfortunately I will stay with CRT for a while and wait for a little bit of price-drop on LCD.

So far every single CRT I have checked does have some buzzing. This can get slightly worse when screen ages. I have only heard dead-silent LCD screens. That alone is worth some when considering a new screen.

Oddly enough, my 17" TFT (Acer AL718) does make some noise. It's only audible late at night when everything else is turned off, and you turn the monitor on and off to spot the difference. I'd say it's at about 15kHz or so, and is extremely faint (just above the threshold for hearing @ 50cm).
This is still far fainter than my old CRT, but it is there.

Sorry to those of you with TFTs who now notice a whine, but I couldn't help myself

my p95f+b is silent. also my moms 19" dell monitor is silent.

pdf27 wrote:Oddly enough, my 17" TFT (Acer AL718) does make some noise. It's only audible late at night when everything else is turned off, and you turn the monitor on and off to spot the difference. I'd say it's at about 15kHz or so, and is extremely faint (just above the threshold for hearing @ 50cm).
This is still far fainter than my old CRT, but it is there.

Sorry to those of you with TFTs who now notice a whine, but I couldn't help myself

I read about someone else who noticed a high-pitched sound coming from the LCD when all is quiet. The high-pitched sound might be because the power supply is internal and does not occur when the power brick is outside the unit?

I never noticed any sound from my CRT, but was using it like just two years.

The power supply is definately internal to the screen - no idea what causes the whine though.

silvervarg wrote:Good point about the viewing angle.
I didn't really get the thing about text shaprness. I believe that text is sharper in LCD just as ez2remember mentioned.

The lighter shade of black to me is just not as dark as seen on a CRT. I use the LCD with DVI and there are some issues with games regarding font clarity.

I have a CRT with great anti-glare properties and my experience is the CRT produces better overall picture. When I was using the CRT, I turned down the brightness quite a bit - same as I do with LCD - and never really had a problem with eye fatigue. The thing I find about text is the lighter shade of black (text) on a LCD is lighter than on a CRT and that lighter black (text) is more sharper on a CRT. Okay, I already said that.

pdf27 wrote:The power supply is definately internal to the screen - no idea what causes the whine though.

That could be the problem. The posts I've read about people noticing a high frequency sound have been from those who had an LCD with internal power supply. Some LCD models come with a power brick and the power supply is not inside the LCD.

There seems to be at least two different kinds of monitor noise--the high-pitched squeal from the power supply that some TVs make, and a screen-related buzzing noise that sounds more like a buzzing insect.

My 17" Hewlett-Packard LCD (with external brick PSU) as well as my aperture grille CRTs suffered from the latter. On all these monitors the intensity of the noise was dependent on what was on the screen--I could switch from viewing one web page to a another, and the noise would suddenly get louder or disappear. Generally, but certainly not always, black text on a white background result in the most intense buzzing--in such a case if I switched to a grey background the buzzing may subside.

My 12" iBook's display is the first I've had in years that doesn't seem to suffer from this problem.

JVM wrote:I'll throw in a good word for CRT. LCD's just don't produce overall text as sharp as CRT.

The text on my Dell Laptop with an SVGA+ screen absolutly blows the doors of my 19" Viewsonic CRT. Perhaps you have some really, really great CRT that I don't know about, but I can honestly say that I've never seen text sharper than that of a good LCD.

The lighter shade black on LCD's is not equal to the quality on CRT.

Agreed. The colors, in general, are unsuitable for any sort of graphic design work due to the poor saturation qualities and difficulty rendering blacks....

Gaming on CRT is definitely better than LCD's with 25ms or more. The 16 ms LCD's are improved in gaming but suffer in viewing angle.

I still find color reproduction better on CRT than LCD.

The biggest advantage with LCD is requiring less space and getting bigger picture. Okay, I'll add in less heat as well.

But overall picture quality for me is still better with CRT - and this comes from someone using an LCD.

Gaming: why would you care about viewing angle? It's not like you're moving around a lot.

Color reproduction: agreed.

Energy Consumption: No contest, and LCD beats a CRT silly in terms of efficiency and energy consumption. This also means the heat produced is less. The extra space is nice, too....one of the reasons I really love my work laptop is because it's just so "small" that I have a lot more room on my desk to get things done.

Lastly, I think the quality depends--for coding or office tasks, I'd much rather have an LCD. Text looks sharper, it's easier on my eyes, the screen geometry is perfect, and overall it's just a much more pleasurable experience.

However, I also do a considerable amount of web work (primarly flash-based sites, as well as some php/mysql stuff) and I have to admit: for anything pertaining to graphic design where color saturation or dark tones are required, LCD's still falter a bit. I have my 19" CRT off to the side so I can view pages I create on both screens, and the colors on the CRT are just "better." I've also got similar results with my brother's Sony CRT and my dad's IBM CRT....just better saturation and ability to represent dark tones.

CRT monitor is currently the noisiest component in my PC. It emits high pitch buzz that annoys me to no end. The funny thing is, I owned this monitor for 5 years and always thought it was silent. This past weekend I installed Silent Mike's modded Seasonic PSU. BOOM... now I hear CRT buzz that annoys me more than the loud PSU did before.

I guess I should take solace in the fact that my PC is approaching SPCR standards of quietness. I see LCD monitor in my near future.

IMO, CRT has a better image quality over LCD. First of all the response time in CRT is in the single digits (3-6ms??), compared to 16ms for a good LCD. CRT's also seem to have higher refresh rates, which ultimately lead to less eye strain (I recommend 85hz minimum). Not many ppl will argue better colors, especially for aperature grill technology. I've heard text is better on shadowmask CRT's, but either way I don't see the text on my sony F series as inferior to my KDS RAD5 and the sony is just so gorgeous...I find it hard to imagine there can exist an LCD to match it. The laptops in japan looked pretty darn good to me though...

As far as buzzing from the Sony, it is there but far less noticable if ear level is at or below the top of the monitor, and the tone is not too irritating. I fear the day that even this buzzing disturbs me because I really love my sony so much. I use a Sony GDM F400.

LCD's hands down for less space, less heat, less power.

-Ken

Gxcad:

CRT's also seem to have higher refresh rates, which ultimately lead to less eye strain (I recommend 85hz minimum).

BUT, an LCD only updates the pixels that are actually changing, there's no refresh on the rest. I defineately disagree than CRT is easier on the eyes than LCD.

Mond:
BUT, an LCD only updates the pixels that are actually changing, there's no refresh on the rest. I defineately disagree than CRT is easier on the eyes than LCD.

Eye strain when working (e.g. not gaming) comes from mostly from reading a static image on the screen. Since that image does not need to update at all on an LCD it is like if you had an infinate refresh rate on a CRT.
However with CRT and refreshrates of 85Hz (preferably 100Hz) and above this becomes a minor issue.

Elliot wrote:CRT monitor is currently the noisiest component in my PC. It emits high pitch buzz that annoys me to no end. The funny thing is, I owned this monitor for 5 years and always thought it was silent. This past weekend I installed Silent Mike's modded Seasonic PSU. BOOM... now I hear CRT buzz that annoys me more than the loud PSU did before.

I guess I should take solace in the fact that my PC is approaching SPCR standards of quietness. I see LCD monitor in my near future.

Beware, Elliot, LCD's can make a high frequency noise worse than your CRT. I have read numerous posts of people with LCD's that hear annoying high frequency noise.

Not always louder - my TFT does whine, but it is a lot quieter and less annoying than my CRT ever was. Best advice is to try one out (turn it on/off and see if you can hear a difference) before buying if silence is the most important feature.

JVM wrote:Beware, Elliot, LCD's can make a high frequency noise worse than your CRT. I have read numerous posts of people with LCD's that hear annoying high frequency noise.

The LCD I have in mind is Samsung 173T. It does have built-in power supply which, according to the posts upthread, could be the source of the noise. On the other hand Mike wrote in his review that 173T was absolutely silent.

Question: can LCD noise vary from unit to unit within the same model line?

Elliot wrote:

JVM wrote:Beware, Elliot, LCD's can make a high frequency noise worse than your CRT. I have read numerous posts of people with LCD's that hear annoying high frequency noise.

The LCD I have in mind is Samsung 173T. It does have built-in power supply which, according to the posts upthread, could be the source of the noise. On the other hand Mike wrote in his review that 173T was absolutely silent.

Question: can LCD noise vary from unit to unit within the same model line?

I don't know about LCD noise varying from unit to unit, but it could vary from user to user.

Some of us have better hearing in the high frequency range, especially younger people as opposed to older adults, and there is also the factor of associated equipment and environment.

The only thing I can think of that would make a sound in an LCD is a transformer from an internal power supply or perhaps a power transformer resonating. I would toss out a monitor on the scrap heap if it made the slightest squeak. I really can't imagine an LCD making a whine similar to the CRT scanning noise, because, well, it doesn't scan. Maybe it's the conversion of the VGA signal? Internal power supply? A chip?

Mine is a brick powered unit. You may have given me another reason to stay away from internal powered LCDs.

The high frequency whine you hear from a CRT comes from vibrations a transformer makes while controlling the scanning beam. It's about 15kHz and I have always been able to hear it loudly and it is very annoying, enough to wake me up when younger.

The flyback whine will vary with what is on the screen. I could tell when commercials were on without looking at screen, very handy for telling when my show was back on. (The only good thing about hearing this).

Maybe the buzzing is a wonky power supply transformer and not the flyback whine. I never heard anything like that from a CRT except for when my big Sony was going bad.

The LCD has made it possible for me to get my work done at the computer because after several hours on the CRT (75Hz refresh) I would feel like a drunken sailor. The LCD has reduced eyestrain 90%. I only get a feeling as if I had been reading for a long time.

You do want to enable Clear Type and visit Microsoft's website to adjust for the monitor. My text quality improved 90% (again, that 90%!) from the blocky looking text without Clear Type. I doubt my reduction in eyestrain would have been as great without it. Type appears a little larger and much clearer, more like it was printed.

The LCD does not have a refresh rate as pointed out here. It has a response time, but pixels stay on all the time, they don't refresh. I always have the impression that looking at my LCD is looking at a painting and the monitor looked like it was unsteady no matter how rock solid the image was.

I am very cautious about the 16ms response LCDs. The ones available use a dithering process that might cause flicker to be perceived. Do a google groups search for an explanation.

I would hesitate to do professional graphic work on a LCD. The lightness of colors changes with viewing angle. Even from my sitting position I can notice a fair amount of change when I move my head up and down. And this monitor had a wider angle than the other LCDs I looked at in the store. I would switch my CRT on with the dual head Radeon for critical work.

The games I play, FS2002, slow paced 3D video game, the 25-35ms response is okay. Some graphics look a little rough on the LCD because the inherent fuzziness of CRTs helps smooth edges on graphics.

canthearyou wrote: You do want to enable Clear Type and visit Microsoft's website to adjust for the monitor. My text quality improved 90% (again, that 90%!) from the blocky looking text without Clear Type. I doubt my reduction in eyestrain would have been as great without it. Type appears a little larger and much clearer, more like it was printed.

I read about someone mentioning an online tuner to adjust Clear Type - is that what you are referring to above?

Can you direct me to this adjustment on Microsoft's website?