I’ve figured out what was causing the “dead zone” on my new Dell 3007WFP-HC display (click here for a description of the problem including a video that demonstrates it) and it turns out it wasn’t a driver problem at all. That’s very good news in my book and makes a lot more sense.

Instead, the monitor seems to have a Windows based application act as its OSD utility whenever you change some of the display’s settings (i.e., brightness). It’s called osdlcd.exe and gets installed when you set up the monitor using the CD Dell provides with the display. At first boot, the bug does not reproduce but it seems (my latest theory) that once the monitor has been put to sleep (powersave mode) it kicks in and the dead zone is in full effect.

I’ve searched to see if anyone else has run into this but had no success. I did however find an updated driver that I believe was released after the one that came with the display but I just found it and haven’t tried it out yet. I’ll give that a shot and hope it all goes away. If it doesn’t, I’ll report the issue to Dell and see if I can come up with a hack that prevents the app from running (which I really don’t need anyway) in a way that doesn’t cause more pain. Wish me luck…

Update (a few minutes later): no dice on the update. Will report to Dell instead and see if I hear back…