Half of the screen is darker? Help!

Hi guys,

I've recently reformatted my hard drive and installed Zorin OS on my desktop. What I've noticed is that half of my screen is slightly darker than the normal color. I am slightly color blind but I noticed this... I've also asked my friends if they see it and they do. I never had this problem before when I was using Windows 7 so I believe it's not a hardware problem. Also, I've created a screenshot of my display and sent it to another computer which uses Windows 7 and Fedora, the color problem isn't there. So I'm really guessing it's the OS.

It's noticeable especially when I watch movies, or when I visit websites that have strong colors (like this website). Has anybody experienced this?

Hi,

what graphics card do you have?, have you fully updated the system?.

Try running this terminal command and see if it helps:

Code:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -f

If you have an Nvidia card, look at this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2490

Start by using the 304 driver PPA first if you have an older PC.

RESTART AND UPDATE AFTER INSTALLING THE NVIDIA DRIVERS, IT IS VERY IMPORTANT!.

Regards Wolfman

I tried the command you posted but from the logs, it seems that I wasn't able to install/update anything.

Also noticed that during start-up, before the Desktop shows (that boot thing with memtest etc), half of the screen is already darker than usual. It has a different gradient than the other side. :/ Hardware problem?

Hi,

what graphics card do you have and have you tried installing any drivers?.

Synaptic > Settings > Repositories > Additonal Drivers.

(Install the recommended version only!)

Let us know please.

Regards Wolfman

Wolfman wrote:Hi,

what graphics card do you have and have you tried installing any drivers?.

Synaptic > Settings > Repositories > Additonal Drivers.

(Install the recommended version only!)

Let us know please.

Regards Wolfman

Hey there, I tried going to the Additional Drivers section of the Synaptic Package Manager but nothing was available. My video card is an ATI Radeon HD 4870. Pretty old. Any more things I should do?

Hi,

the AMD drivers only support card from 5xxx upwards in Zorin 7, stick with the opensource drivers as I have a 4xxx card on my notebook and they work fine!. The other alternaive is to drop down to Zorin 6 where the driver tool works!.

Did you run that command I posted?. Do you have your system sources set to "Main"?, see the update guide for further info:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2247

You can install the "FGLRX" drivers manually with the following terminal commnd, be aware that it may make matters worse!:

Code:

sudo apt-get install fglrx

Restart and update after the restart, then restart again!.

Should you want to remove the fglrx drivers, use this teminal command:

Code:

sudo apt-get remove fglrx

Then restart!.

Let us know if this helps.

Regards Wolfman

Wolfman wrote:Hi,

the AMD drivers only support card from 5xxx upwards in Zorin 7, stick with the opensource drivers as I have a 4xxx card on my notebook and they work fine!. The other alternaive is to drop down to Zorin 6 where the driver tool works!.

Did you run that command I posted?. Do you have your system sources set to "Main"?, see the update guide for further info:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2247

You can install the "FGLRX" drivers manually with the following terminal commnd, be aware that it may make matters worse!:

Code:

sudo apt-get install fglrx

Restart and update after the restart, then restart again!.

Should you want to remove the fglrx drivers, use this teminal command:

Code:

sudo apt-get remove fglrx

Then restart!.

Let us know if this helps.

Regards Wolfman

Tried the following command:

Code:

sudo apt-get install fglrx

and it just made it worse lol. It couldn't detect my display settings correctly so I removed it and I'm back to square one.

My repos are set to main. I also checked out the link you gave me and checked for broken packages but there weren't any. Sigh, this is sad. LOL. Maybe downgrading to 6 would do the trick?

Hi,

I strongly advise a downgrade to Zorin 6!.

I have no other suggestions for you sorry!.

Regards Wolfman

Just to add I had similar experience with my on-board ATI 3000 chipset - fglrx just made it worse. I would follow Wolfman's suggestion - unless you can upgrade to an nVidia card!