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

Brightness settings vary monitor to monitor based on a number of factors...so just go with what works

Outside of that, the brighter you make the picture, the shorter the life of the tube becomes. I can't quantify that...It's just a known thing.
 
tgg said:
I got my fw 900 coupel weeks ago on craiglist local pickup in my city for 60 bucks and its in good shape. I have the common issue that supposely it needs the flyback transformer replaced because it causes the whole screen to get all blurry then all of a sudden it makes the POP nosie and goes back into focus again.

My question is, it has this blurry issue only when the monitor is cold from first turning it on for the day, such as turning it on in the morning and then in couple minutes it goes into the blurry issue then if I just leave it alone it goes away by itself while it does that POPing noise or i can make it work permantely if I turn off the monitor then back on then it fine all day and night until nesxt time I turn it on again from being off and cold.

Anyone know why it works fine when the monitor is not cold?

Also whats the best way to clean this monitor that has the anti glare coating on the screen?

Thanks Thomas
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Mine has been doing that for over a year.. it's always come back to normal tho. and I usually leave it on 24/7. I *do* try to remember to turn it off at night tho, and I mean by pressing the button, not by letting it go into standby. I find the more I let it power off, the better it works the next day.
 
mathesar said:
Might be a stretch here but do you have the latest .NET framework installed? I ask because I recently installed WinXP fresh on a friends PC and his ATI control panel wouldn't work until we installed NET framework 3.5 (version 3.5 showed up as an optional windows update).
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I have the latest but need to reinstall just to be sure. It had worked for the last year through several driver revisions.

tgg said:
What brightness setting you guys use on the fw900? Mines at 31. How would I know if I need to adjsut it up or down? Thanks
Click to expand...

I use these calibration images mostly.
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v504/F12Bwth2/Calibration/

This one is great for convergence and such. Try to make it so you see square 8 and square 4 is almost matching the black background http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v...n=view&current=2048x1536CalibrationImage2.jpg

This one is more for just Brightness and contrast. You should barely make out the darkest bar on the left and right.
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v...on=view&current=BrightnessContrastPattern.jpg

**NOTE** Do not look at these with the standard windows picture viewer.. It will screw with the contrast and sharpness. Use a photo editing program or Faststone Maxview.


Side note.. what does everyone here use to calibrate their monitors? Software? Patterns and special glasses? Do you higher a Japanese man in a white lab coat to probe it?
 
FYI - I've got 2 of these for sale in the FS/FT forum. Located in the Chicago/North West Indiana area (pickup only). Sad to let these go, hope this helps someone on [H]ard looking for one of these beasts.
 
ZeosPantera said:
. . . . .

Oh this forum needs moar pictures of these puppies!

I named them Eastcoast and Westcoast from their origins.. I'm currently using Eastcoast. Ignore the mess.
Click to expand...

I agree, we need more new pictures of these. :)

IMG_0209.jpg
 
I think my FW900 is starting to go. I had to turn it off today for a bit, and when I turned it back on it began randomly flashing a blue screen and then going back to a normal looking display. I went into Windows and everything seems "off" (color-wise), and (less often) it's still randomly flashing blue then back to normal. Any idea what this means?
 
tonyptony said:
I think my FW900 is starting to go. I had to turn it off today for a bit, and when I turned it back on it began randomly flashing a blue screen and then going back to a normal looking display. I went into Windows and everything seems "off" (color-wise), and (less often) it's still randomly flashing blue then back to normal. Any idea what this means?
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Hrm.. You may want to just check your cable. I haven't seen mine flash blue. But one of my fw900's has a bad D-sub input and flashes yellow and purple if it isn't just right.
 
I'm going to be picking up a SGI-branded FW9011 soon! Its going to be difficult to get it in my car so I'm not quite sure what I'll do with it yet. That will partly depend on just how hard it is to handle.

I've transported a few CRT monitors with them sitting on their side or well protected, on their face. It never seemed to be a problem.

But, given how hard it will be to find another one of these I want to make sure that doing that isn't going to damage it. Does anyone know if this is a problem?

There's some great pics in this thread. Its always nice to see how something looks in a normal environment rather than only seeing advertising photos.
 
lastmile77 said:
given how hard it will be to find another one of these I want to make sure that doing that isn't going to damage it. Does anyone know if this is a problem?
Click to expand...

You can transport the monitor in almost any orientation as long as it is WELL packed or supported. Most times you want to keep the monitor on its stand, but if you need to, it can be placed on its face as long as it is on a car seat cushion or something VERY soft and protective. I managed to get this thing in the back seat of my cousins 2dr Acura legend. Had to recline one seat and put the other forward and destroy our backs getting it in. If your alone in the car right on the front seat facing the seat-back with the seat-belt on should work fine.

Oh Forgot to post this. Whenever the DVI -> D-sub splitter gets here (mftr said could be a month!) I may need to remove some of the pins from either my D-sub or RGBHV to help stop signal waste/feedback/interference/madeupwordfornastystuff. So that my monitor can tell my winXP its EDID and then output only to the RGBHV.. This adapter also removes the need for the crappy ATI DVI->D-Sub adapter that breaks when you look at it funny.

DVI-DSUB.jpg


These are the best images explaining pin configs I can find.

Which pins are responsible for sending the EDID data to the PC?


For you Die-Harders I decided to make a shirt dedicated to the awesome we behold. NOTE: you can change the text to anything you like.

 
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Anyone get problem before?

I hooked up my Samsung Syncmaster 955DF monitor to my Windows 7 rig and am trying to install the 955DF drivers but this message keeps popping up: "Cannot find monitor driver in INF files".
 
ZeosPantera said:
You can transport the monitor in almost any orientation as long as it is WELL packed or supported. Most times you want to keep the monitor on its stand, but if you need to, it can be placed on its face as long as it is on a car seat cushion or something VERY soft and protective. I managed to get this thing in the back seat of my cousins 2dr Acura legend. Had to recline one seat and put the other forward and destroy our backs getting it in. If your alone in the car right on the front seat facing the seat-back with the seat-belt on should work fine.
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Just got it! The case looks great except for a few minor scratches on top that aren't visible from the front. I looked it over quickly since the guy still had relatives in for the holidays but the screen looked OK. Not bad for $75 including the BNC cable! :) Most people may prefer the Sony but this matches the rest of my SGI stuff.

I've got a coupe too and I've gotten some smaller CRTs in the back before but if this one somehow got in there I don't see how I'd get it back out. I took another car to pick it up but I think it will fit on my front seat fine for the ride home.

This may be all perception, because I think the most extreme audio/video fans pursue tech specs beyond their capability to notice a difference, but I like CRTs on my SGIs because I seem to notice a improvement in color over my PCs and Macs. So we'll see how the Sony looks in 48-bit color. :)

UPDATE: Manufacture date is April 2003.

Pics to follow once its lugged into the office and set up.
 
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F*ck!!!!!

Just bought the 5870 today. For the life of me, I CANNOT get 1920x1200 or anything higher than 1920x1080 to work using my BNC cable. However using regular VGA to VGA/DVI adapter I have 1920x1200@85hz and resolutions above that.

I've tried using custom INF file while I'm on BNC but no matter what, the MAXIMUM I can get using BNC is 1920x1080@85hz (16:9) and not 1920x1200... Why is this? The regular VGA to VGA + DVI adapter looks pretty sharp but for sure BNC has even BETTER color and sharper quality.

Can anyone help?
 
If you can't create custom resolutions with your ATi cards software, you might want to try a 3rd party program like Powerstrip.
 
Powerstrip doesn't work with the 58xx series. It does not allow me to make any custom resolutions or changes.

On another note, the 5870 is damn sharp. Sharper than the gtx 285. I can only imagine how much better it is if resolutions for BNC was working properly.
 
Damn, that's a shame. Do they plan on getting it working, or is it something to do with ATi's drivers?

Has anyone running Windows 7 x64 gotten WinDAS to run?

I keep getting the "No mdl Files" error, and when i try

"regsvr32 %systemroot%\system32\msflxgrd.ocx"

I get an error that the module can't load, it's not found etc.. though I have verified that the file is indeed in the right place.
 
Bummrus[H]a;1035107967 said:
Damn, that's a shame. Do they plan on getting it working, or is it something to do with ATi's drivers?

Has anyone running Windows 7 x64 gotten WinDAS to run?

I keep getting the "No mdl Files" error, and when i try

"regsvr32 %systemroot%\system32\msflxgrd.ocx"

I get an error that the module can't load, it's not found etc.. though I have verified that the file is indeed in the right place.
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I'm more than certain it is just a driver issue, since the card is more than capable of doing any resolution and frequencies. FW900 works fine with Nvidia using BNC connection. CRTs are dinosaurs now, and on top of that, it's very rare to find people using BNC enabled CRTs. So I doubt ATi will bother to fix this issue.
 
christpunchers said:
Can anyone help?
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I'm on XP 4890 with my fw900 and with BNC I have the same issue of only being able to go up to 1600x1200 before I automatically go into panning mode. Currently I have to start my computer on D-sub and after I am in windows switch the cable and input.

I am hoping using an RGB15 splitter with both cables plugged in at the same time will allow my windows to recognize properly and still use my RGBHV cable.

whatmagame said:
return it and wait for acer 120hz 24" gaming monitor
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You don't have one do you?

I got this monitor because of its color reproduction. I have used almost all current LCD's and plasma's. Noting I have ever seen can compare to a FW900, calibrated and on the BNC cables. "It's like drinking a milky orgy of vivid colors" and you can quote me.

Gaming 1920x1200@85hz takes a close second.
 
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Got the monitor (SGI version, GDM-FW9011) home and hooked up without incident. Hooked it up to the G5 and set it at 1920x1200 and let it sit for about 45 minutes. Then I did image restore which didn't seem to do much. It was looking pretty good beforehand though. I tried it a few more times with brightness set at different levels. Right now its got to be down around 25 to look decent and contrast has to be maxed.

And the corners are flared out at the very top. I have a 22" Diamondtron with the same thing. Its not a gradual widening of the image but just about 1/4" down from the top it begins to flare out with the widest point being at the top of the image. I'll have to post a pic.

It does have a few very small places where the antiglare coating has come off. I might remove it since I generally don't mind the glass screen on my iMac.
 
lastmile77 said:
And the corners are flared out at the very top.
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I have a 1/8th inch tear to the right on my sony that can't be corrected. Its at the top 1/2 inch and hardly noticable. If yours is more severe post that pic and we will see.

lastmile77 said:
It does have a few very small places where the antiglare coating has come off. I might remove it since I generally don't mind the glass screen on my "harley davidson".
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Yeah, Keep this in mind. One of my fw900's is missing its Anti-Glare coating and that aspect of it is fine. Dark room with no lights behind me.

What isn't fine is that it is also an Anti-Static coating. So every-time I turn it on OR off every piece of dust - cat hair - food particles - socks - loose tissue paper - car bumpers - etc etc will Leap onto the screen. I will wipe that crap off and then it will only happen while your using it, every 45 minutes! I have to keep a mf-rag on my desk to wipe it down.

Just keep that in mind!

BONUS. I got bored with the calibration images google has provided me so I made my own.



This plane 1x1 pixel grid is the best thing to set your Max screen size and convergence.

 
ZeosPantera said:
I'm on XP 4890 with my fw900 and with BNC I have the same issue of only being able to go up to 1600x1200 before I automatically go into panning mode. Currently I have to start my computer on D-sub and after I am in windows switch the cable and input.

I am hoping using an RGB15 splitter with both cables plugged in at the same time will allow my windows to recognize properly and still use my RGBHV cable.



You don't have one do you?

I got this monitor because of its color reproduction. I have used almost all current LCD's and plasma's. Noting I have ever seen can compare to a FW900, calibrated and on the BNC cables. "It's like drinking a milky orgy of vivid colors" and you can quote me.

Gaming 1920x1200@85hz takes a close second.
Click to expand...

That would be a possible solution. Let me know if the RGB15 splitter works out for you.
 
ZeosPantera said:
BONUS. I got bored with the calibration images google has provided me so I made my own.



This plane 1x1 pixel grid is the best thing to set your Max screen size and convergence.

Click to expand...

Nice. I really like your CustomPattern.png.
Could I take advantage of your next boredom spell and request a 2048x1536 (4:3) and 1920x1080 (16:9) version as well?
 
Has anyone tried replacing the USB hub with one that's 2.0? I've only been able to read about half of this thread so far so it may have come up.

It would take some work even if you found one that lined up exactly with the current holes - if you were going to power it from the monitor. There's no real benefit over having a hub that sits next to the monitor other than it'd be cool. :)
 
Have set up a GDM-F520 with NVIDIA 3D Vision so I can view pictures from my FujiFilm 3D camera. Very good result.

(Max out at 1424 by 1066 at the required 120Hz...)
 
BTW: I've been away from CRT for a couple of years, basically since my original F520 broke, and I am really wowed by the image quality...

Guess this one will be my main monitor for a while...hope it lasts....
 
christpunchers said:
That would be a possible solution. Let me know if the RGB15 splitter works out for you.
Click to expand...

Well it arrived but was wrong. They sent one with a DVI passthrough. So I put my ATI adapter on it and no luck so far. I believe it may be Literally getting its signals crossed as it comes up panning still and I am slightly concerned because using the SVGA D-sub on the splitter gives me INSANELY BAD GHOSTING.. and through the ATI adapter on the other side it is perfect. So obviously I will be doing my attempts in this configuration. Hopefully getting an old D-sub cable and snipping off some of the pins will remove any RGB-Ground loss that isn't needed. The only issue I may have is if I need to snip any of the pins on my RGBHV, but what can even need snipping?

Can anyone really tell me the pin layout on a standard SVGA d-sub? I have found a couple images but they suck. What pin(s) send the edid info to and fro? EDIT.. I'm dumb.. It is right in the FW900's manual.

RGBInput.png


Now what Do I cut and what do I leave? Opinions?

Cyberbeing said:
Nice. I really like your CustomPattern.png.
Could I take advantage of your next boredom spell and request a 2048x1536 (4:3) and 1920x1080 (16:9) version as well?
Click to expand...

We will see how the boredom presents itself later this week.

lastmile77 said:
Has anyone tried replacing the USB hub with one that's 2.0? I've only been able to read about half of this thread so far so it may have come up.

It would take some work even if you found one that lined up exactly with the current holes - if you were going to power it from the monitor. There's no real benefit over having a hub that sits next to the monitor other than it'd be cool. :)
Click to expand...

I have considered that undertaking but I would need to pick up my monitor again.. and it's heavy.
 
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Hello
I'm using a GammX on a quite new Siemens CRT with my PS3 and it creates an incredible black level.
But I test the GammX on my W900 with my PC and it didn't worked at all, but it also didn't work with the HDfury.
So, has anyone made experience with the combination FW900 and GammaX?
 
Bought this monitor used, and have had it about 4 years now. Recently when turning it on, it flickers random colors, and turns off, after a few seconds i turn it back and all is great! However just recently my picture has a greenish blue tint all around and most of the colors are off, even after warmup and image restore. Any repair ideas you guys can throw at me please?
Thank you.
 
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Rattenjaeger said:
Hello
I'm using a GammX on a quite new Siemens CRT with my PS3 and it creates an incredible black level.
But I test the GammX on my W900 with my PC and it didn't worked at all, but it also didn't work with the HDfury.
So, has anyone made experience with the combination FW900 and GammaX?
Click to expand...

I don't know jack about the GammX. But I have used the HDFURY just fine with the FW900. The caveat to that being that I used the external powers supply option for the HDFURY. Since I didn't buy the power supply normally sold with the HDFURTY, I made one using on old Motorola phone charger and a adapter from the rat shack.
 
Check out searchtempest.com for searching multiple craigslist locations at once.

Here's a $99 FW900 in NJ:

http://newjersey.craigslist.org/sys/1527086562.html

As long as you can get a monitor of this quality for +/- $100 this thread isn't going anywhere!

Octane2.jpg


As promised here's a pic of the SGI Octane2 and GDM-FW9011. Bad pic but shows from left to right:

RAID - holds 4 ATA drives in JBOD, RAID 0,1, or 5 with Ultra160 SCSI interface
Octane2 - 400 MHz R120000 CPU, 2GB RAM, 36GB 15K SCSI Drive, V6 graphics, U160 SCS, Firewire, fibre channel, and SDI video
SGI SCSI CD-ROM
U160 SCSI drive
SGI FW9011 (SGI version of the Sony GDM-FW900) @ 1024x720x96 Hz (need a better graphics board)
SGI Keyboard and Kensington Mouse
Waccom 12"x12" ArtZII tablet

Anyone happen to know the weight limit for an IKEA Galant desk? The frame is strong but the height adjustment on the T-legs seems to be set by a rather small screw...
 
lastmile77 said:
Check out searchtempest.com for searching multiple craigslist locations at once.

Here's a $99 FW900 in NJ:

http://newjersey.craigslist.org/sys/1527086562.html

As long as you can get a monitor of this quality for +/- $100 this thread isn't going anywhere!

Octane2.jpg


As promised here's a pic of the SGI Octane2 and GDM-FW9011. Bad pic but shows from left to right:

RAID - holds 4 ATA drives in JBOD, RAID 0,1, or 5 with Ultra160 SCSI interface
Octane2 - 400 MHz R120000 CPU, 2GB RAM, 36GB 15K SCSI Drive, V6 graphics, U160 SCS, Firewire, fibre channel, and SDI video
SGI SCSI CD-ROM
U160 SCSI drive
SGI FW9011 (SGI version of the Sony GDM-FW900) @ 1024x720x96 Hz (need a better graphics board)
SGI Keyboard and Kensington Mouse
Waccom 12"x12" ArtZII tablet

Anyone happen to know the weight limit for an IKEA Galant desk? The frame is strong but the height adjustment on the T-legs seems to be set by a rather small screw...
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Not sure what the weight limit is but for a while I had two FW900s on it without any problems.

Currently I have my computer case, FW900, Gateway 21" LCD, Creative Labs digital receiver, Wacom tablet, gamer keyboard, G5 Mouse, Func mouse pad, Klipsch speakers, AMBX Lights, and a bunch of other small stuff and the desk holds the weight without any problems.
 
I have a new issue. For the last week or so I noticed after 2-3 hours of operation the monitor will make a... bang or pop sound as if the external casing is expanding and creaking from warming up. Everything is fine but after 6-8 hours of use it happens 2-3 times and around the 3rd time I notice slight flickering in bright areas in the center of my screen that is not present at startup or before 4 hours in.

I have a window behind my monitor so could the drafty window have anything to do with it?
 
Picked up an FW900 yesterday – 7 hours roundtrip, so you know I was pretty excited to set it up this morning! And I thought I’d share some pictures, because there aren’t enough and FW900’s are just really gorgeous… my mouth hung open the first time I saw one in up close. No, honestly! They’re HUGE!

p1000193q.jpg


I started taking it apart to adjust the pots since the text looked a bit blurry, but after it warmed up for awhile, text was decent so I decided to play some L4D to see what it looked like at 2304x1440@80Hz – it looked ridiculous! The resolution was so fine, reading text feels better than on my Dell 2408WFP Rev.02. That could be because the 2408WFP was stuck at 59Hz, who knows. I preferred my (pictured above) Acer AL1916 19” TN panel LCD (75Hz) anyway. I prefer the Acer over my Dell 2209WA too, which is an eIPS panel at 60Hz. However, I think I have a new favorite. :D

By the way, when adjusting the pots, should I re-glue the knobs or not? If yes, where can I get some of that glue? If not, I thought I’d ask for the benefit of this thread.

p1000205vp.jpg


I guess this is the date it was assembled, since the date on the outside of my FW900 says October 2003. Not sure what the “33” means. Could be the number of FW900’s the technician assembled that day. Anyone else see this etched in when they removed the shroud?

p1000215m.jpg


Here’s a BNC & WinDAS cable. Notice that the BNC cable goes R-B-G-HD-VD instead of R-G-B-HD-VD. Wonder why they did that? I’ll have to cross the wires. :( Also, the labeling (from top to bottom) of the WinDAS cable pins goes CTS, RTS, RX, TX, Vcc, GND. But there’s only a 4-pin end on the inside of the display? Which pins line up with the monitor? Anyone know?

Also, I don’t think the Nokia Monitor Test or WinDAS program can run on Windows 7 x64, so I’m going to have to whip up a spare drive with XP on it, right? Anyone have a working link to the WinDAS program? Geocities went down in October along with the WinDAS program link. Maybe Hurin knows of one?

p1000195k.jpg


Here’s the BNC cable connected with those (neat-o!) individual screw-ons. Notice the crossed green and blue wires. Pffft! Why’d they do that?

p1000217c.jpg


…and here’s the BNC cable not working. I’m running Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, so if someone could help me out with this, I’ve skimmed through a lot of this thread, but… there’s not a whole lot of organization, so I’d much appreciate any advice on how to get that working! If it helps, I’m using a GTX260 with the latest drivers (195.62).

p1000208r.jpg


So here it is with a replaced bezel after following the instructions linked to from this thread. Just like new!
 
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Windows Vista and Win 7 both have the drivers built in.. though you'll still have to tell it what it is. So you'll have to go into devices and printers.. Then right click on the monitor and select properties.EDIT: Under the General tab, hit the "Change settings" at the bottom. The select the driver tab. Then hit the update driver button. Then select browse my computer for drivers. Then select "let me select my own drivers from a list". Now, you'll have to uncheck "Show compatible hardware". Then fianlly, select Sony for the manufacturer on the left and then hunt for the model # for the monitor FW900.

:) Now try to remember all that! lol
 
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Thanks eclypse, I've got it set up now and running at 1920x1200@85Hz. I've tried setting up 2304x1440@80Hz manually in the nVidia control panel, but it keeps telling me that it's not supported by the display. :confused:

Also, I had the black and white cables reversed.

EDIT: Max supported is 2304x1440@80Hz and is what I was running yesterday via VGA cable.
 
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No idea what the max res thats supported.. what your trying sounds high but i'll give it a go later on today when i get a chance.
 
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