I've long been a fan of the Dell Ultrasharp 2405fpw. I love the picture and all the features. However mine is slowly dying bit by bit. The first thing to go was the DVI input. It worked great, up until one day it just stopped working, and no combination of cables or video cards or computers would show up. (Note that each of these components was confirmed working with my DVI enabled TV). I searched on the net for ideas. The majority blamed anything but the monitor (bad cable, bad video card, etc).
Many proposed a factory reset of the monitor. Turn on the monitor by simultaneously holding the third and fifth button (<-') and (+) respectively, and then press power. Then navigate the OSD menu as normal to perform factory reset. This didn't solve my problem though.
I noticed a pattern of people describing the problem as a DVI connection that used to work, now just goes into sleep or power save mode instead of displaying anything. This is exactly what I have observed. Most of those people either got no answer or unhelpful advice. But to a precious few there was mention of a DVI Recovery utility from Dell. Dell unfortunately has ceased supporting this utility and monitor, and all links are dead. Save one. There's one nice guy who hosts the utility on his blog, and says he's still getting 100+ hits a day for this thing. If he ever goes offline, the utility is lost. So I'm attaching it to this post in case it helps someone else.
Here are the instructions (as cached by Google since Dell has removed the information):
Quoted Text
The ZIP file will contain DVI_Recover_FLOPPY.exe and DVI_Recover_CDIMAGE.iso:
If you have a floppy drive, place a blank floppy disk in the floppy drive and run the file DVI_Recover_FLOPPY.exe. This will create a bootable floppy disk. Continue with the steps below.
If you do NOT have a floppy drive, you will need to burn the ISO image DVI_Recover_CDIMAGE.iso onto a CD-R or CD-RW disc. The procedure for this varies from software to software. In most cases, your software will have an option for "Burn Image" or "Write Disc from Image," which you will choose. Ensure the software is looking for .iso files, browse to the location that you extracted the files from the DVI_Recover.zip to, select the file DVI_Recover_CDIMAGE.iso, and complete the image burning process. If your installed software does not have image burning capabilities, the Demo version of Nero 6 may contain that functionality.
IMPORTANT: If you only have a CDROM drive, configure your system to boot from the primary optical drive. See this Dell Knowledge Base for further information.
After you have the bootable floppy disk or CD-R/RW ready, perform the following steps to resolve the problem:
Using the VGA cable provided with your flat panel, connect the monitor to the VGA port on your video card. Ensure that the connection is successful and that you can change the monitor's input to VGA and receive an image.
Download and install the latest nVidia ForceWare drivers here. This will prevent occurrence of the problem once you have used the rest of this procedure to correct it.
If you do NOT have a floppy drive, and are going to be performing the fix using a recordable CD created with the DVI_Recover_CDIMAGE.iso, insert your recorded CD into the primary optical drive now.
Shut down the computer. Disconnect the power cables from both the monitor and the computer.
Disconnect the VGA cable, and reconnect the monitor to the computer via the DVI cable.
Press the power button for both the monitor and computer while unplugged to drain any remaining power.
Re-attach the power cables to both the monitor and the computer.
If you have a floppy drive, insert your bootable floppy into the floppy drive and power on the system. Otherwise, simply power on the system.
The system will boot to the floppy or recordable CD. Wait for approximately one (1) minute. You will not notice any major indicators that the fix is progressing; it is important that you allow the program to attempt to fix the flat panel undisturbed.
Remove the floppy disk or recordable CD, and power down the system.
Power up the system, and test your DVI connection.
If your monitor is still stuck in DVI Power Save mode, boot to the floppy disk or recordable CD again as described above. It may take up to three tries total in order to enact the fix.
If the monitor is still stuck in DVI Power Save mode, the monitor will need to be replaced. Contact Dell Technical Support via email to request a replacement.
With the updated video drivers installed on your system, the fixed (or replacement) flat panel monitor should not experience the problem again.
Retail and/or third-party video card owners should contact the manufacturer of the product (s) in question and request any information on problems seen with LCD flat panel monitors via DVI connections.
Unfortunately for me, this didn't resolve the issue. Nor would it have helped with the dead USB hub and dead memory card slots.
At least (for now) I still have VGA and Component connections working.
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