24" Widescreen CRT (FW900) From Ebay arrived,Comments.

[Nightman96]

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I recently got my hands on a Dell P1130 and can't for the life of me get WinDAS to properly detect it. I've tested multiple USB to TTL adapters (making sure RXD and TXD were crossed) and have attempted running the program on numerous configs (my main Windows 11 PC, an XP VM, as well as both 98 SE and XP SP3 installs on my Thinkpad T41). No matter what I do, I always get an error message saying "Can't connect the monitor! Check Bus line and condition.".

Any suggestions?

 

[XoR_]

I've seen some questionable geometry on high-end sets and almost perfect geometry on low-end sets. So yeah, no argument here.

My first high-end Trinitron CRT had this strange unprecedented screen geometry quirk: flat screen.
Completely ruined my expectations for how computer screen should look like and since then I only used convex VGA CRT after I got one for retro PCs about two years ago.
Its really strange experience using convex CRT. At first its quite jarring but you quickly get used to it and after a while it starts feeling normal.

All CRTs I used in the nineties and most I saw since 00's used identical phosphors. *trons use different phosphors as some newer cheaper flat screens but if its convex CRT there is good change it uses the same phosphors as very first VGA monitors. Not the best but along with convex screen surface are perfect to experience old games the same way they were meant to be experienced. And never games too - which then feel more like games did in the past, screen having big influence in how games feel like when playing them.

 

[spacediver]

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I recently got my hands on a Dell P1130 and can't for the life of me get WinDAS to properly detect it. I've tested multiple USB to TTL adapters (making sure RXD and TXD were crossed) and have attempted running the program on numerous configs (my main Windows 11 PC, an XP VM, as well as both 98 SE and XP SP3 installs on my Thinkpad T41). No matter what I do, I always get an error message saying "Can't connect the monitor! Check Bus line and condition.".

Any suggestions?

Is your cable being picked up in device manager? (some of them need drivers).

Have you mapped it to a COM port that WinDAS can access?

 

[Easa]

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I recently got my hands on a Dell P1130 and can't for the life of me get WinDAS to properly detect it. I've tested multiple USB to TTL adapters (making sure RXD and TXD were crossed) and have attempted running the program on numerous configs (my main Windows 11 PC, an XP VM, as well as both 98 SE and XP SP3 installs on my Thinkpad T41). No matter what I do, I always get an error message saying "Can't connect the monitor! Check Bus line and condition.".

Any suggestions?

Check COM port number in configuration, AFAIK WinDas supports only 5 - mine was mapped to #7 and I had to switch them in Device Manager.


Aaaaaaaaaaanyways....

So this guy who sold me three CRT´s (E530, GDM-5410 and P1110) is trying to continue small talk as i am loading my car with those screens. Me, already in my own dimension, catched his statement that "my cousin has this widescreen CRT that was very expensive back in the day" .... I am like what did you just say?

Fast forward some time and here I am. FW900 from documented first owner, purchased in 2003, paired with Mac workstation. He was working as a graphic designer for a magazine. After he switched jobs he had no use it, but kept it on his desk on a light controlled room, protected from sun. He said that it was used quite often, but for a short amounts of time. He treated it like a baby - "away from the wall because the in-wall cables can cause interference". Even apologized that the original packaging is not available as he could not fit it through apartment door Gave me all three original cables including BNC-VGA. Paid him €400, I didnt even try to negotiate.

Casing looks like a new monitor. Not a single scratch on it, anywhere. Untouched AR. Even the rear cover is still vibrant purple. Hooked to my ZBook the warm-up took a little longer (30-60 min) as it was stored in 10°C / 50°F for a few hours. After that I have used Color Return. Blacks are abyssal deep, colors are very uniform, convergence looks to be spot on. I already have a Startech converter for it and a USB TTL adapter, currently awaiting DTP-94 that i managed to get BNIB for $60. I will need to learn WinDas first so I know what I am doing, but that learning will be done on an old P260.

This is DOOM: Eternal on medium settings as my Quadro M2200 wont allow more.

 

[cesarioFL71]

Check COM port number in configuration, AFAIK WinDas supports only 5 - mine was mapped to #7 and I had to switch them in Device Manager.


Aaaaaaaaaaanyways....

So this guy who sold me three CRT´s (E530, GDM-5410 and P1110) is trying to continue small talk as i am loading my car with those screens. Me, already in my own dimension, catched his statement that "my cousin has this widescreen CRT that was very expensive back in the day" .... I am like what did you just say?

Fast forward some time and here I am. FW900 from documented first owner, purchased in 2003, paired with Mac workstation. He was working as a graphic designer for a magazine. After he switched jobs he had no use it, but kept it on his desk on a light controlled room, protected from sun. He said that it was used quite often, but for a short amounts of time. He treated it like a baby - "away from the wall because the in-wall cables can cause interference". Even apologized that the original packaging is not available as he could not fit it through apartment door Gave me all three original cables including BNC-VGA. Paid him €400, I didnt even try to negotiate.

View attachment 559314

Casing looks like a new monitor. Not a single scratch on it, anywhere. Untouched AR. Even the rear cover is still vibrant purple. Hooked to my ZBook the warm-up took a little longer (30-60 min) as it was stored in 10°C / 50°F for a few hours. After that I have used Color Return. Blacks are abyssal deep, colors are very uniform, convergence looks to be spot on. I already have a Startech converter for it and a USB TTL adapter, currently awaiting DTP-94 that i managed to get BNIB for $60. I will need to learn WinDas first so I know what I am doing, but that learning will be done on an old P260.

View attachment 559317


This is DOOM: Eternal on medium settings as my Quadro M2200 wont allow more.

That my friend is a beautiful monitor. What a find!

 

[Nightman96]

Is your cable being picked up in device manager? (some of them need drivers).

Have you mapped it to a COM port that WinDAS can access?

Yep. The adapter shows up properly in device manager. I’ve also tried mapping it to a few different COM ports under 5 (and changed the setting in WinDAS accordingly). The error persists regardless.

I did try to switch to a different model in the settings just to see if anything different would happen. Interestingly, a new error saying something along the lines of “incorrect model selected” (I don’t remember the specific wording) popped up right before the usual “can’t connect the monitor” message. Once I changed the setting back to P1130, the former error went away, so it seems like WinDAS is able to detect the monitor to some extent. I’m quite stumped.

 

[spacediver]

Yep. The adapter shows up properly in device manager. I’ve also tried mapping it to a few different COM ports under 5 (and changed the setting in WinDAS accordingly). The error persists regardless.

I did try to switch to a different model in the settings just to see if anything different would happen. Interestingly, a new error saying something along the lines of “incorrect model selected” (I don’t remember the specific wording) popped up right before the usual “can’t connect the monitor” message. Once I changed the setting back to P1130, the former error went away, so it seems like WinDAS is able to detect the monitor to some extent. I’m quite stumped.

Not sure. Maybe try downloading windas from a different place.
One thing i notice when using WinDAS is that it always crashes the first time I load it up, but then works fine afterwards.

 

[3dfan]

Untouched AR

this makes that a brutal, invaluable finding, regardless of the asking pricing you see on the internet, not just the fw900 has became hard to find but also in the mentioned condition and with the original coating on it? such a tremendous treasure!!

 

[jbltecnicspro]

Check COM port number in configuration, AFAIK WinDas supports only 5 - mine was mapped to #7 and I had to switch them in Device Manager.


Aaaaaaaaaaanyways....

So this guy who sold me three CRT´s (E530, GDM-5410 and P1110) is trying to continue small talk as i am loading my car with those screens. Me, already in my own dimension, catched his statement that "my cousin has this widescreen CRT that was very expensive back in the day" .... I am like what did you just say?

Fast forward some time and here I am. FW900 from documented first owner, purchased in 2003, paired with Mac workstation. He was working as a graphic designer for a magazine. After he switched jobs he had no use it, but kept it on his desk on a light controlled room, protected from sun. He said that it was used quite often, but for a short amounts of time. He treated it like a baby - "away from the wall because the in-wall cables can cause interference". Even apologized that the original packaging is not available as he could not fit it through apartment door Gave me all three original cables including BNC-VGA. Paid him €400, I didnt even try to negotiate.

View attachment 559314

Casing looks like a new monitor. Not a single scratch on it, anywhere. Untouched AR. Even the rear cover is still vibrant purple. Hooked to my ZBook the warm-up took a little longer (30-60 min) as it was stored in 10°C / 50°F for a few hours. After that I have used Color Return. Blacks are abyssal deep, colors are very uniform, convergence looks to be spot on. I already have a Startech converter for it and a USB TTL adapter, currently awaiting DTP-94 that i managed to get BNIB for $60. I will need to learn WinDas first so I know what I am doing, but that learning will be done on an old P260.

View attachment 559317


This is DOOM: Eternal on medium settings as my Quadro M2200 wont allow more.

You keep that AR fucking intact. That's an order.

Yeah, I'm a little jealous. What a find. Congratulations. You probably have one of THE best PC gaming monitors in existence - period. Like, your example is probably THE one.

 

[Chief Blur Buster]

Quadro M2200

Hmm. I am curious -- how does the quality of the Quadro M2200 compare to using a high-quality converter on a more recent GPU like the 3000 or 4000 series NVIDIA GPUs? The extra GPU rendering detail compensates somewhat for the need to add a higher Mhz A/D. It's hard to find 400Mhz+ RAMDACs in an adaptor, easier to find ~330Mhz(ish).

Since I'm more about temporals (speed / blur / GtG / MPRT / phosphor / lag / framerate! etc), all my old GPUs are now removed and collecting dust.

I still have many VGA-to-BNC RGBHV breakout cables, paired with a HDMI-to-VGA converter (in conjunction with ToastyX CRU tweaks). There's some darn nigh practically lagless converters (line buffered) now; so that is not the prime concern anymore -- even the faster buffering capability of a many-generations-newer/faster GPU has 10x more lag reduction, more than overwhelming any sub-1ms lag of the adaptor. The golden yesteryear GPUs are now getting long in the tooth...

So I am curious about the analog-blur effect differences, and other visual side effects (e.g. colors, or tracking/phase style artifacts, etc).

 

[SH1]

Check COM port number in configuration, AFAIK WinDas supports only 5 - mine was mapped to #7 and I had to switch them in Device Manager.


Aaaaaaaaaaanyways....

So this guy who sold me three CRT´s (E530, GDM-5410 and P1110) is trying to continue small talk as i am loading my car with those screens. Me, already in my own dimension, catched his statement that "my cousin has this widescreen CRT that was very expensive back in the day" .... I am like what did you just say?

Fast forward some time and here I am. FW900 from documented first owner, purchased in 2003, paired with Mac workstation. He was working as a graphic designer for a magazine. After he switched jobs he had no use it, but kept it on his desk on a light controlled room, protected from sun. He said that it was used quite often, but for a short amounts of time. He treated it like a baby - "away from the wall because the in-wall cables can cause interference". Even apologized that the original packaging is not available as he could not fit it through apartment door Gave me all three original cables including BNC-VGA. Paid him €400, I didnt even try to negotiate.

View attachment 559314

Casing looks like a new monitor. Not a single scratch on it, anywhere. Untouched AR. Even the rear cover is still vibrant purple. Hooked to my ZBook the warm-up took a little longer (30-60 min) as it was stored in 10°C / 50°F for a few hours. After that I have used Color Return. Blacks are abyssal deep, colors are very uniform, convergence looks to be spot on. I already have a Startech converter for it and a USB TTL adapter, currently awaiting DTP-94 that i managed to get BNIB for $60. I will need to learn WinDas first so I know what I am doing, but that learning will be done on an old P260.

View attachment 559317


This is DOOM: Eternal on medium settings as my Quadro M2200 wont allow more.

Wow! Great find indeed!

 

[SH1]

You keep that AR fucking intact. That's an order.

Yeah, I'm a little jealous. What a find. Congratulations. You probably have one of THE best PC gaming monitors in existence - period. Like, your example is probably THE one.

Yeah. Intact original AR is best. The Kantek filter I'm using is great, but it means I can't put the cover back on.

(And you have to have something there. At least in my experience, it's so reflective without, that it just doesn't resolve black anymore.)

 

[Easa]

this makes that a brutal, invaluable finding, regardless of the asking pricing you see on the internet, not just the fw900 has became hard to find but also in the mentioned condition and with the original coating on it? such a tremendous treasure!!

You keep that AR fucking intact. That's an order.

Yeah, I'm a little jealous. What a find. Congratulations. You probably have one of THE best PC gaming monitors in existence - period. Like, your example is probably THE one.

Awww stop it Like, is this really considered such an unicorn find even in US? I have no idea what is the common condition of these nowadays, but it is true that most of the time I see them listed online, the AR is scratched or outright destroyed. I even thought about opening it up and doing cleaning / recap, but as it really works flawlessly, I am sticking to the old If it aint broke, dont touch it. To be 100% honest with you guys, my first plan was all about flipping the thing for profit (one collector gave me straight offer of 5k without even seeing it) but seeing it for the first time, it truly is a majestic piece of hardware and it sort of grows on me. AFAIK this was one of first three pieces that made it to my country, and there werent many afterwards. I am trying to find out fate of the other two.

Hmm. I am curious -- how does the quality of the Quadro M2200 compare to using a high-quality converter on a more recent GPU like the 3000 or 4000 series NVIDIA GPUs? The extra GPU rendering detail compensates somewhat for the need to add a higher Mhz A/D. It's hard to find 400Mhz+ RAMDACs in an adaptor, easier to find ~330Mhz(ish).

Since I'm more about temporals (speed / blur / GtG / MPRT / phosphor / lag / framerate! etc), all my old GPUs are now removed and collecting dust.

I still have many VGA-to-BNC RGBHV breakout cables, paired with a HDMI-to-VGA converter (in conjunction with ToastyX CRU tweaks). There's some darn nigh practically lagless converters (line buffered) now; so that is not the prime concern anymore -- even the faster buffering capability of a many-generations-newer/faster GPU has 10x more lag reduction, more than overwhelming any sub-1ms lag of the adaptor. The golden yesteryear GPUs are now getting long in the tooth...

So I am curious about the analog-blur effect differences, and other visual side effects (e.g. colors, or tracking/phase style artifacts, etc).

Eh, I use a first generation HP ZBook that originally came with K2100M, I swapped Quadro M2200 from ZBook G4 inside. Modified the vBIOS, after this upgrade the gaming performance is on par with GTX 1050 Mobile / P2000 Mobile. But if you are asking if I use it because of the native VGA, then no. Haswell based HP laptops have this weird issue where the VGA port is routed through iGPU (even through you can run games on dGPU through) and there is basically no way to use it above 1280x1024 resolution, I forgot why, but I know there is this limitation. Tried it with many drivers, many cables, many monitors. So i use the Startech DP - VGA converter, running the thing at 1920x1200@96Hz. Is there anything better than the Startech?

This fall I am about to update my laptop with ZBook Fury G10 equipped with A4000 Ada. That should handle games nicely after the work is done. Until then, I have moved the FW900 to stable temperature room, covered by blanket to protect it from sun.

 

[Nightman96]

Not sure. Maybe try downloading windas from a different place.
One thing i notice when using WinDAS is that it always crashes the first time I load it up, but then works fine afterwards.

Still no dice, sadly. WinDAS does occasionally crash on me, but the error pops up upon restarting the app and attempting to save a DAT/etc. regardless.

I'm wondering if the adapters I've been using may be counterfeit. For reference, I'm currently using the PL2303HXA, but I've also tested this one from DSD Tech, as well as this Moyina adapter and not one of them has made a difference.

 

[spacediver]

Still no dice, sadly. WinDAS does occasionally crash on me, but the error pops up upon restarting the app and attempting to save a DAT/etc. regardless.

I'm wondering if the adapters I've been using may be counterfeit. For reference, I'm currently using the PL2303HXA, but I've also tested this one from DSD Tech, as well as this Moyina adapter and not one of them has made a difference.

Are you by any chance using a USB extension cable to connect the adaptor? If so, try without it.

 

[Nightman96]

Are you by any chance using a USB extension cable to connect the adaptor? If so, try without it.

I ended up giving that a shot earlier today. The wires included with the adapter are pretty short, but I was just about able to plug it into my laptop without the extension cable. Unfortunately that didn’t seem to change anything.

I might look into other adapters if I can find any; but if that doesn’t work, then I’m probably going to just throw in the towel and make do with the P1130 as is for the time being. I’ve no clue what else the issue could be.

UPDATE: At the suggestion of a Redditor, I’m going to try an adapter with the CP2102 chipset. The previous three had either the PL2303 or the FT232RL

 

[3dfan]

ww stop it Like, is this really considered such an unicorn find even in US? I have no idea what is the common condition of these nowadays, but it is true that most of the time I see them listed online, the AR is scratched or outright destroyed. I even thought about opening it up and doing cleaning / recap, but as it really works flawlessly, I am sticking to the old If it aint broke, dont touch it. To be 100% honest with you guys, my first plan was all about flipping the thing for profit (one collector gave me straight offer of 5k without even seeing it) but seeing it for the first time, it truly is a majestic piece of hardware and it sort of grows on me. AFAIK this was one of first three pieces that made it to my country, and there werent many afterwards. I am trying to find out fate of the other two.

also many GDMs sony family CRT monitors including the fw900 and HP rebrands are starting to die, i have seen many of them on the internet getting a very greenish with notable retrace lines screen failure with no repair reported from what i remember on that issue so far unfortunately. even my fw900 does that when i turn it on after being off and cold for hours, fortunatelly so far it only does that for the first 2 -3 seconds i turn it on, i turn it off if i see that geenish screen lasting longer than that, turn it on again and everything gets back to normal, the greenish dissapear until i turn off the monitor for long.
so you dont even getting any type of issues, issues like that makes your fw900 even more valuable than it already is!

as for the 5k offer, sure that monitor will get even more value as the time goes and if you are able to keep it in such condition over the coming years.

makes me wonder how many fw900s in such good condition from owners like that, that are not aware of such treasure they got, stored and dont reasearch the internet about those remaind on earth unoticed!!

So i use the Startech DP - VGA converter, running the thing at 1920x1200@96Hz. Is there anything better than the Startech?

there are adapters that can do high pixel clocks like the sunix dpu3000 that can reach something like 539 mhz from what i have seen myself from my tests, this is the one i use with my fw900 and geforce gtx 1080 ti, for example with this i can reach something like 2560x1440 at 80hz (426 mhz pixel clock) 2560x1600 at 72hz (424 mhz pixel clock) that is not posible from a graphics card with native analog ports that from what i understand, are limited to 400 mhz pixel clock. also this adapter image quality is very good, personally i dont note any difference in image quality from using this adapter compared to a video card from their native analog ports, even using it at high resfresh rates and resolutions, no ghosting added that you can see when using cheap DP or HDMI to VGA adapters, also for input lag i dont note increased latency with this adapter compared to video cards native analog ports, also for the latency test i have personaly done myself: for example comparing frame by frame a 60fps game input (pressing buttons) recorded on camera at 60fps and playing back frame by frame, i see the same natural frame count delay i see from the same game, same test from a video card with native analog port.

however this adapter is a bit tricky to get some resolutions and refreshes to get it working normaly, if want more info search dpu3000 in this thread, also more expensive than other adapters and unfortunatelly seems discontinued, there seem to be another brand variants which seem to have same inside chip reported like the ICY BOX IB-SPL1031 and delock 87685, but dont know if those are also discontinued. more info on more adapters can be found by searching post here from user Derupter


but if you only want to use 1920x1200@96Hz maximum, there would no need to use higher pixel clock adapter since that resolution at that refresh rate reach the maximum horizontal scan limit of the fw900, so no matter what adapter you use regardless of its pixel clock, you wont be able to go higher than 1920x1200@96Hz on the fw900.

 

[jbltecnicspro]

Awww stop it Like, is this really considered such an unicorn find even in US? I have no idea what is the common condition of these nowadays, but it is true that most of the time I see them listed online, the AR is scratched or outright destroyed. I even thought about opening it up and doing cleaning / recap, but as it really works flawlessly, I am sticking to the old If it aint broke, dont touch it. To be 100% honest with you guys, my first plan was all about flipping the thing for profit (one collector gave me straight offer of 5k without even seeing it) but seeing it for the first time, it truly is a majestic piece of hardware and it sort of grows on me. AFAIK this was one of first three pieces that made it to my country, and there werent many afterwards. I am trying to find out fate of the other two.

Yes it is. Hence the $5k offer. Most units have scratched AR coatings and thus people remove them. It's fine if you have a darkened room but the AR just gives you more placement flexibility. You truly do have a gem of a piece, and like I said - you can do what it whatever you want. IF IT WERE ME!!! I would keep it and use it. I don't have any room for it right now but I would fucking make room for it. Until then, I'm satisfied with my alternative blur busters monitor. If Viewsonic updated the screen to have IPS black (which has a little better than 2000:1 contrast) then I would get that. Even with its shortcomings the Viewsonic XG2431 is an excellent alternative to CRT. That'll anger some people in here but it's true.

 

[spacediver]

I ended up giving that a shot earlier today. The wires included with the adapter are pretty short, but I was just about able to plug it into my laptop without the extension cable. Unfortunately that didn’t seem to change anything.

I might look into other adapters if I can find any; but if that doesn’t work, then I’m probably going to just throw in the towel and make do with the P1130 as is for the time being. I’ve no clue what else the issue could be.

UPDATE: At the suggestion of a Redditor, I’m going to try an adapter with the CP2102 chipset. The previous three had either the PL2303 or the FT232RL

Good luck, and let us know how it works out. You're not the first to encounter this problem.

 

[Nightman96]

Good luck, and let us know how it works out. You're not the first to encounter this problem.

Seems like the CP2102 adapter is doing the trick! I'm testing it right now and was just able to save a .dat without any issues. Can't wait to actually get this monitor calibrated!

 

[spacediver]

fantastic, and good on you for being persistent - this may help others down the road

 

[Alec_B]

so, after reading through the myriad of posts on the topic, is there a general consensus on a replacement AG coating that’s “close enough”? Something with no haze, around 60% vlt and anti reflective properties? I know people want to find an exact match but something close is fine with me.

 

[SH1]

I'd say the Kantek filter is at least as good. (Searching on that term you'll see some prior posts.)

Big caveat though, it's a plastic plate, not a film. And requires debezeling. Which probably rules out cats and kids around it for example...

 

[drizzler]

hello, i have a problem with my FW900 working fine before (was not used some time now) but now it is giving me a green colored screen (it is like fog) if i am using custom resolutions like 1920 1200 @ 95 or 96. Is it dying or is it a driver issue? Standard resolutions are working fine. I also can not use a inf file installed to get the monitor beeing shown as fw900 any more (despite windows 10 is telling me it installed the inf file succesfully).

 

[cesarioFL71]

hello, i have a problem with my FW900 working fine before (was not used some time now) but now it is giving me a green colored screen (it is like fog) if i am using custom resolutions like 1920 1200 @ 95 or 96. Is it dying or is it a driver issue? Standard resolutions are working fine. I also can not use a inf file installed to get the monitor beeing shown as fw900 any more (despite windows 10 is telling me it installed the inf file succesfully).

I hate to not add anything to the thread that would be considered helpful but this issue seems to be more and more commonplace as these units age. Is the issue similar to this ?

 

[Strat_84]

I hate to not add anything to the thread that would be considered helpful but this issue seems to be more and more commonplace as these units age. Is the issue similar to this
?

Best joke ever. Capacitors can't be tested reliably in circuit most of the time. I guess that's how he manages to find so many "bad" capacitors ...

 

[drizzler]

I hate to not add anything to the thread that would be considered helpful but this issue seems to be more and more commonplace as these units age. Is the issue similar to this ?

Thanks but no, it is (was) like the screen has some green transparent paint on it. The picture was fine. It is some kind of driver glitch or whatever. As soon as i connected my 2nd screen (4k displayport) i can do everything as i want with my FW900. I am at a Titan X Maxwell and all drivers 4xx to 5xx i tested so far do this at least for my setup.

 

[SamirD]

I read that they used to say CRTs were good for 3-5 years before being serviced or replaced.

I don't think this was the case because I think it was at least 10yrs or more before we moved the black and white IBM CRT on our Days Inn s/36 reservation system terminal to something else, and it still worked even though heavily burned in until we had to switch property management systems somewhere in early 2000s, so that was 2000-1988=12yrs right there. And I still have that monitor and the terminal and the s/36. In fact, all of our CRTs essentially kept working until put in storage. I have like 20 CRTs that I do need to test at some point. So glad there's still so many fans of these.

 

[SamirD]

Unfortunately CRT tech had too many flaws for manufacturers to bother continuing development and production and 22.5 inch 16:10 monitor is the largest we got for PC.

For CRT--yep, and my poor non-working Lacie Electron Blue is a perfect example of that. It would run 2560x1600 via analog vga. I loved it. Luckily, the 30" Dell 2560x1600 lcds finally came down to affordable prices after being near the $1k+ msrp for many years, and I've moved over to the Dell and HP versions of these. A CRT was always best for picture quality hands down, but for productivity 30" at this res is really nice.

 

[SamirD]

My FW900 has developed a discoloration on top towards the middle. For example, a little reddish spot on a pure blue image. Out of range of the landing controls. So far no help from the internal nor from a hand degausser. Only positioning a magnet above it seems to resolve. (The supposedly magnetically shielded speakers I was using are not. Wondering if that led to this...)

Ugh, yep speakers. I hated when this happened. Back when I was in 3rd grade I would have to fix this in rooms at our small motel when for whatever reason the color went 'wrong' like this. It was a few years before we got a degaussing coil and then my brother and I were fixing this problem quickly in the room vs swapping the tv with a spare and taking it to the tv repair place.

I think in your case, it sounds like the speakers somehow magnetized up the internal deguass like the warning in the manual since it now replicates the problem.

 

[nmur]

Hey guys, got a question about my F520. I've noticed that quite a bit of heat is being emitted from the frontmost top vents during use. After about 2 hours of on time the unit will occasionally go black for a couple of seconds, and I'm wondering if that's due to any sort of overheating. If so, I think I'd definitely want to sort that out. Has anyone noticed anything similar with their F520/FW900? How hot are they typically meant to get after a couple of hours?

I have taken the case off recently and cleaned it all reasonably well, but I could have been more thorough I think.

 

[Strat_84]

Hey guys, got a question about my F520. I've noticed that quite a bit of heat is being emitted from the frontmost top vents during use. After about 2 hours of on time the unit will occasionally go black for a couple of seconds, and I'm wondering if that's due to any sort of overheating. If so, I think I'd definitely want to sort that out. Has anyone noticed anything similar with their F520/FW900? How hot are they typically meant to get after a couple of hours?

I have taken the case off recently and cleaned it all reasonably well, but I could have been more thorough I think.

It has nothing to do with heat. The chassis of the F520/G520 series is pretty weak, and the connector between the D board and A board pretty cheap too. It's not unusual to have bad contacts in that connector, that can lead to intermittent black screens.

 

[3dfan]

hello, i have a problem with my FW900 working fine before (was not used some time now) but now it is giving me a green colored screen (it is like fog) if i am using custom resolutions like 1920 1200 @ 95 or 96. Is it dying or is it a driver issue? Standard resolutions are working fine. I also can not use a inf file installed to get the monitor beeing shown as fw900 any more (despite windows 10 is telling me it installed the inf file succesfully).

many issues starting to happen on such old CRTs as today seem to be related to cracked solder joints, i am not an expert in electronics and dont pretend to generalize meaning this is the fix for all reported issues, but in my case, resoldiering joints on the board of my compaq 7550 CRT fixed an issue it developed getting some kind of screen horizontaly norrowed as i reported here.

also some months ago, i started to get another issue with my fw900 not being properly detected by windows as it shoud be: GDM-FW900, since i use a sunix dpu3000 adapter, i thought it was due to this this wrong monitor detection, but it also was incorrectly detected by connecting the monitor to an analog vga port from a video card with native analog port, as well as with testing with another vga cable, also some random conection lost to the monitor (no input signal) started to happen while using it on resolutions and refreshes it used to work with no issues, so i decided to try to reapply solder to all the points inside the monitor vga port with soldering iron and it fixed that issue, since then, always the monitor is detected as GDM-FW900 and no more random lost input signal.

however i have doubts that greenish screen issue similar to that youtube video that also happens on my fw900 is reated to cracked soldier joints, since fortunately on my fw900 so far only happen when the monitor is cold, being turned off for hours, then turned on and only happens the first seconds th e monitor is turned on.

so at this point those CRT monitors seem to become like vehicles that develop issues if you dont use them for long time, the 7550 was not used in long time and stored when some day i tested it and that screen horizontaly norrowed appeared and so with the fw900 that was not used for about 3 months, and when was turned on after all that time being turned off, started to do that with the greenish screen that never happend before. and so far its being more than a year it does this everytime i turn it on after being turned off for hours.

so i guess it seems adequate for those users that have CRT monitors stored with no use, to turn them on and use them at least of for a day regulary

Best joke ever. Capacitors can't be tested reliably in circuit most of the time. I guess that's how he manages to find so many "bad" capacitors ...

yes, makes sence, that video was posted so time ago, and i saw it a while but wasnt aware of what you say, and was not aware the way that person test those capacitors, also that remind me hearing long time ago from a electronics teacher about the importance to dismount a component whatever it is from the circuit pcb to test and get propper readings from it, otherwise you are also testing and getting readings from other components that share traces with the main component being tested.

 

[Comixbooks]

Some cool looking CRT TVs in this video

 

[Xar]

I don't have it with me to test and verify. Is playing games on CRT and other Retro displays using Radeon gives out better IQ than GeForce because of having 8bpc Dithering and less Colour Compression still true?

 

[cesarioFL71]

Anyone in the Tampa Bay area looking for a NIB 22" in crt monitor? I have a brand new Viewsonic P220fb I'm letting go for free. What's the catch? It won't turn on. I pulled it from the box and it powered up fine. It worked normally for about 2 days after which I placed it back in the box where it sat in storage in my closet for almost six months. I decided to pull it back out and play some games one day and it would not display an image. The green led light is on and solid in the front. When powered on the degauss occurs like normal but I feel no static in front of the screen while powered on. If you think you can get the unit fixed it will be yours for ZERO dollars.

 

[Enhanced Interrogator]

Anyone in the Tampa Bay area looking for a NIB 22" in crt monitor?

Post it in the listings thread on r/crtgaming on Reddit. I guarantee you'll find somebody that wants it.

 

[cesarioFL71]

Thanks. Will do!

 

[XJJack]

Some cool looking CRT TVs in this video

What's cool in that video is near the end when there is someone working at a Kmart that actually has some kind of technical information. You would be lucky to get two words out of someone working in any brick and mortar these days.

 

[Enhanced Interrogator]

Thanks. Will do!

I saw you made a new post instead of just commenting in the dedicated listings/for sale thread. So just be on the lookout it might get removed by the mods.

Or they might leave it up since it's a pretty rare case (new in box). But it wouldn't hurt to list in the dedicated thread too