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220-1201 Practice Question: A user's 4K monitor is set to 3840x2160…
A user's 4K monitor is set to 3840x2160 resolution but text and icons appear very small and blurry. The display cable is a standard HDMI cable. What is the most likely cause of the blurriness?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The HDMI cable does not support enough bandwidth for 4K resolution
Standard HDMI cables (especially older versions) may not have sufficient bandwidth for 4K at proper refresh rates, leading to chroma subsampling and blurry text. The correct answer identifies bandwidth limitation as the cause, and the solution would be to use a high-speed HDMI or DisplayPort cable.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The monitor's refresh rate is set too high
Why it's wrong here
If a monitor's refresh rate is set too high for the cable or graphics card to handle, the typical symptoms are a blank screen, flickering, dropped frames, or a 'no signal' message, rather than consistent blurriness. Blurriness at 4K resolution, especially with text, strongly suggests an issue with the signal's integrity or data transmission capability, which is more often related to insufficient cable bandwidth.
- ✗
The graphics driver is corrupted
Why it's wrong here
A corrupted graphics driver typically manifests as severe visual artifacts such as distorted images, incorrect colors, screen flickering, or system instability leading to crashes or blue screens. It is less likely to cause consistently blurry text specifically at a native resolution, as blurriness usually indicates a signal quality or display mode issue rather than a fundamental driver malfunction.
- ✓
The HDMI cable does not support enough bandwidth for 4K resolution
Why this is correct
Older or lower-specification HDMI cables (e.g., HDMI 1.4 or 'High Speed' without specific 4K@60Hz support) lack the necessary bandwidth to transmit a full 4K (3840x2160) signal at standard refresh rates with full RGB (4:4:4) color. When bandwidth is insufficient, the display source or monitor may resort to chroma subsampling (e.g., 4:2:0 or 4:2:2) or reduced color depth to fit the signal, which significantly compromises text clarity and image sharpness, making it appear blurry.
- ✗
The monitor's scaling settings are incorrect
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect monitor scaling settings primarily affect the size of on-screen elements, making them appear too large or too small, but they do not inherently cause blurriness when the display is operating at its native resolution. If the monitor is set to its native 3840x2160 resolution, scaling issues would relate to how the operating system renders elements, not the fundamental clarity of the pixel output, which points away from a signal quality problem.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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