Recently bought an IBM ThinkPad T41 (14" laptop). Nice little PC.
Currently setting up a multi-boot system so there are a number of issues
to address including the screen refresh rate. Both XP and 98SE seem to
only allow 60hz refresh ... which is hard on my eyes. I'd like to force
72hz because that's MUCH easier on the ol' eyes!

Will forcing 72hz refresh on this laptop 'hurt' anything (as the warning
suggests)?

Thanks

Refresh rate is not important on LCDs as they don't refresh. The display is
not rescanned as with a CRT as there are no phosphors to reactivate. If it
is hard on your eyes, the problem is elsewhere.
Terry

"none" <nospam@bogusaddress.com> wrote in message
news:JwiKh.4903$B25.4145@news01.roc.ny...

Refresh rate does not have the same meaning with an LCD display as it
did with a CRT display. In a CRT display, at any given instant, only
one point on the screen (a dot, literally) is lit. While the dot scans
across the entire screen (and the refresh rate controls how fast it
scans), your eye and the "decay" characteristics of the CRT phosphor
"fool" your brain into thinking that the entire screen is present at
once, which it's not. But this works better for some people than for
others; many people do perceive the flicker, especially at lower refresh
rates (say at 60Hz vs. 72Hz).

However, an LCD latches each pixel, and the entire screen IS continually
lit all at once. There is NO flicker perceived, because the screen
truly is not flickering.

The only time that refresh rate matters on an LCD ... maybe (and even
this is arguable) is when viewing material with lots of extremely fast
action, action that can change the screen significantly in 1/60th of a
second or less. But while setting a faster refresh rate in such cases
may help, unfortunately the "liquid crystals" in an LCD display actually
can't change as fast as the screen phosphor in a CRT could do so.

Setting a 72Hz refresh shouldn't hurt anything (although it may not
work), but don't expect it to help anything, either.


none wrote:

none wrote:
*** The "refresh" issue has been answered, but I wonder if your problem
is a native resolution one. If you don't set to the LCD screen's native
resolution, the screen will look disjointed. Is that what you see now?

Richard Bonner
http://www.chebucto.ca/~ak621/DOS/

Hello Richard

Yes the answers here have been informative and probably you are right. I
like to use 800x600 resolution but the letters and images do not have
that CRISP outline. Because I am looking at the screen for hours on end
I think these 52+ year old eyes are begging for relief because they are
straining to see the screen clearly. I may go to the native resolution
and just increase font and icon sizes.

Thanks for the input to all
___
"Richard Bonner" <ak621@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote in message
news:etjfas$b6k$13@Kil-nws-1.UCIS.Dal.Ca...

"none" <nospam@bogusaddress.com> a écrit dans le message de
news:FDcLh.5184$ya1.4225@news02.roc.ny...
Make sure that Cleartype fonts smoothing is selected, and use the MS
Cleartype tuning applet.

LCD displays should only be operated at the native resolution. If this
produces characters that are too small, you can change the DPI settings
in display properties to have Windows make EVERYTHING larger, while
still running at the native resolution.


none wrote:

I -- and lots of other people -- would give just the opposite advice,
and tell him to turn all font smoothing (including "Cleartype") off. In
my opinion, Cleartype makes things worse, not better. An I have never
had ANYONE to whom I showed a display with Cleartype on and off find
that they preferred Cleartype. Cleartype adds "gray" pixels around the
edges of characters where there would otherwise be a sharp black to
white (or white to black) transition. How anyone finds this helpful is
beyond me.

milsabords wrote:

You will probably have some problems at any resolution. Unfortunately,
your 52 year old eyes are suffering from aging effects and don't focus
as well as they did when you were younger.

The simplest (and inexpensive) solution is to measure your normal
working distance from your eyes to the screen and get a pair of
supplemental reading glasses that will give you sharp vision at that
distance. You can do this yourself at one of the drugstore reading
glasses displays. Look for a pair that sharpens your vision AT YOUR
NORMAL WORKING DISTANCE TO THE SCREEN.

If you already wear glasses, your options become more expensive. The
simplest is to have a supplemental "intermediate" distance set of lenses
made up and placed in a clip-on sunglasses frame. The "intermediate"
distance should be optimized for your eye-screen distance. An
alternative is to get an additionalpair of glasses made up that are
optimized for your normal working distance to the screen.

Trifocal lenses are another option but, for computer use, you want a
very wide intermediate section - something that was dropped from the
lens lines a few years ago. You also can't get the lens designed
properly to fit in any frame because lenses come in "fixed"
configurations from the lens manufacturers. The economies of scale that
this allows make the lenses affordable but don't allow for specialized
configurations.

Three years ago, I decided to give my nearly 60 year old eyes a break
and switched to hard contacts. (Soft lenses won't correct my vision
problems.) The contacts give me better correction for distance vision
than I've had for over 15 years. I also wear glasses to give me
appropriate correction for intermediate and reading distance work.

Phil Sherman

none wrote:

none wrote:

*** Try that. LCDs need to be at native or a multiple of it.

Richard Bonner
http://www.chebucto.ca/~ak621/DOS/

PS: Please don't top post.

R.