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

Originally Posted by mathesar

Well I got the data cable & Windas running, For those that have ran the program I was curious what your default G2 level was at , mine is currently at 162 which seems kinda high.(black levels are good but I have the brightness at 18) I was able to get the cable connected without removing the monitor casing , the key was removing the white plastic cover around the monitor connector on the cable itself (Thanks to Foe-Hammer for this tip!) I used a flathead screwdriver to push it onto the pins once it was lined up.

just curious what are you trying to do here with the cables ?

as far as i know it's used to further manipulate settings like gamma/contrast/brightness/etc. i've noticed that my brightness and contrast are already near 100, but if things degrade i may need to invest in that cable/software as well.

...that is... if that really is what it's used for.

Originally Posted by alien resident

just curious what are you trying to do here with the cables ?

The main reason I bought the cable was for my Sony G400 , the picture is very washed out even with the brightness at 0, Ill take before and after pics once I do it, The only thing ill be adjusting is the G2 level which supposedly fixes this well known problem. I have to remove the monitor's casing from the G400 because It doesn't have a removable service panel like the FW900 does.

Since it was fairly easy to connect my FW900 I wanted to test it out, I did end up lowering the G2 level on the FW900 but only very little ,I changed it from 162 to 157 , Now instead of running the monitor's Brightness setting at 18 I have it at 25 and the black levels are actually better than they were before lowering G2. Unfortunately the black levels on my FW900 ever so slightly degraded since I bought it 8 months ago,When I first bought it I ran the brightness at 24 and had perfect black levels but 8 months later I was running the brightness at 18 yet I still noticed a very slight grayish appearance when viewing a pitch black screen at night. After lowering the G2 its now back to showing pitch black properly I think the main reason I noticed the degrade in brightness is Im always watching HDTV rips of Lost which is a very dark show.

Easy way to display a pitch black screen: right click on the desktop , choose Properties ,then Screen Saver, choose "Blank" from the screensaver list and click the Preview button.

More info on these symptoms & using the cable here.

Originally Posted by mathesar

snip.

What's the layout order of the pins for the FW900? It doesn't match the P1110 and I'm completley lost

Originally Posted by Traxx

What's the layout order of the pins for the FW900? It doesn't match the P1110 and I'm completley lost

Nevermind, stuck a shiny butterknife in there and read off the layout from the board itself.

GND
+5
RX
TX

Originally Posted by mathesar

snip

My default G2 was at 139.

Originally Posted by Traxx

Nevermind, stuck a shiny butterknife in there and read off the layout from the board itself.

GND
+5
RX
TX

Cool , The cable I bought was prebuilt for the P1100's etc. and I didnt change anything on it. (Link ).

Hey guys, for some reason the fw900's colors look really really washed out when playing xbox/xbox 360 games on it. Anything I can do to fix this?

Originally Posted by SpeedZealot369

Hey guys, for some reason the fw900's colors look really really washed out when playing xbox/xbox 360 games on it. Anything I can do to fix this?

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?...or+calibration

Also with WinDAS don't use 'notepad' to edit your variables, use 'wordpad' or a hex editor. With 'notepad' it doesn't save your file right when you edit it, so when you flash your monitors eeprom your monitor will go black and not turn back on. This is what happened to me the first time i did it and i about shit my pants. If this does happen, all you have to do is hook your computer up to another monitor to see what is going on and get everything set up for another flash with a good .dat file. Just make sure you have your computer hooked back up to your monitor that your working on before you hit enter. Or, better yet use a laptop with your monitor your adjusting, so that you have two displays running at the same time (credit and thanks goes to deetox who helped me through the ordeal).

Originally Posted by Foe-hammer

Also with WinDAS don't use 'notepad' to edit your variables, use 'wordpad' or a hex editor. With 'notepad' it doesn't save your file right when you edit it, so when you flash your monitors eeprom your monitor will go black and not turn back on. This is what happened to me the first time i did it and i about shit my pants. If this does happen, all you have to do is hook your computer up to another monitor to see what is going on and get everything set up for another flash with a good .dat file. Just make sure you have your computer hooked back up to your monitor that your working on before you hit enter. Or, better yet use a laptop with your monitor your adjusting, so that you have two displays running at the same time (credit and thanks goes to deetox who helped me through the ordeal).

Ouch I figured it just wouldnt flash period if you used notepad to save, I just happen to read through this page before flashing mine so I got lucky.. I used Programmers Notepad 2 to make edits & save.

Originally Posted by Foe-hammer

Also with WinDAS don't use 'notepad' to edit your variables, use 'wordpad' or a hex editor. With 'notepad' it doesn't save your file right when you edit it, so when you flash your monitors eeprom your monitor will go black and not turn back on. This is what happened to me the first time i did it and i about shit my pants. If this does happen, all you have to do is hook your computer up to another monitor to see what is going on and get everything set up for another flash with a good .dat file. Just make sure you have your computer hooked back up to your monitor that your working on before you hit enter. Or, better yet use a laptop with your monitor your adjusting, so that you have two displays running at the same time (credit and thanks goes to deetox who helped me through the ordeal).

What's the value to edit to increase the max contrast? (ie what you mentioned in your xbox tweak thread)

I guess I'm late to this particular party - even though I've been using my FW900 since 2001!

At any rate, since about December I've been having a problem with my FW900: after it's been on for a number of hours, and typically when displaying a screen that contains a lot of white, it will suddenly turn off and flash the power LED: blink-blink pause, blink-blink pause, until I turn it off, and then back on again, where it'll work for a while longer. This problem may not happen for weeks at a time, or it may happen every 5 minutes for an hour.

I was all set to buy a new 23 or 24" LCD, but after reading about some of the issues with them (namely lag on the Samsung 244T I was going to purchase) I started looking at FW900 related material again, and came across this thread and mention of the "Image Restoration" feature that I had completly forgot about.

Well, after running restoration the screen at maximum contrast is a **lot** darker. I was reading on a newsgroup that as these monitors age they actually get brighter, and since my problem was triggered by "bright" screens I wonder if this issue was some sort of current/draw protection circuit. But, even if I haven't fixed anything, I guess I'm no worse off than before. :-)

However, I did have an actual question. As the screen is made brighter either by the brightness or contrast controls, it seems that focus (or something) goes off as things "bloom". This can be seen on a blank Excel spreadsheet - the thin light colored lines that make up the cells actually become double in the middle of the screen if you look close enough. If I turn the brightness **way** down they resolve back into a single line, but the level at which this is not an issue would make the monitor pretty much useless.

Here's a photo of the issue:


And a photo of what it looks like with brightness down:


Anyone know of a way to adjust this? This sort of drives me nuts when viewing small black text on a white background (especially compared to my notebook or the 19" LCDs I have on other family member's computers).

Originally Posted by Traxx

What's the value to edit to increase the max contrast? (ie what you mentioned in your xbox tweak thread)

That would be the DRIVE_MAX value, which defaults to 210. I believe Foe-hammer changed his to 295 if i recall correctly.

Originally Posted by Deetox

That would be the DRIVE_MAX value, which defaults to 210. I believe Foe-hammer changed his to 295 if i recall correctly.

Correct, and it made a world of difference.

* Thanks again, Deetox, for introducing me to and helping with WinDAS.

No prob.

Those screens you posted sure do look nice. Almost makes me wanna go buy an Xbox 360 for myself.

Originally Posted by hughJ

Terrible terrible thread, I wish I never looked at this thread. I dunno where the hell I'm gonna get one of these in Canada without getting raped for shipping.

Originally Posted by fxetc

If only there was another way...especially for us Canadians...I'd probably buy another one...

I know the feeling... ~200-400 for the monitor and then another ~200 for shipping.

I got miy fw900 the other day and wondering where to get windas or whateve that thing is called, and how best to use it to maximize the iq on my 360.

-thanks

Does anyone have an experience to relate buying from danodmttech? They've got a few monitors listed right now, and I'm considering buying in (despite the ~$150 US shipping + whatever customs slaps on top of it)

Hi guys, after weeks of researching (and especially this site, thanks!) I bid and won one on ebay. I got it for 308.00 including shipping.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...6054%26fvi%3D1

Has anyone ever dealt with this guy quinte_auction? I won this thing on May 14, paid him via paypal on the 16th. he emailed me on the 17th and tells me he's going to mail it out on the 18th and then send me the tracking # that same day. Didn't hear a word until the 21st (Sunday) saying that due to a delay he was going to ship it on the 23rd or 24th with tracking # to follow. it's now the 28th and I've heard nothing. Now I might be jumping the gun here. No one likes being ripped off. And I like it even less, I'm willing to do some f**ked up sh*t to make sure I get my monitor. I'm not above finding and him paying him a visit either because I have a feeling repeatedly calling him won't work. (I already got his contact information thru ebay). My question is how long should I wait before I let him know that I mean business and that I'll be damned if I get ripped off. I'm sorry if I seem short right now but I've been hit for 600 bucks on ebay. I admit that it got uglier than it should have but I won't go there right now.
Thanks guys!!