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

spacediver said:
20 min to 30 min sounds very reasonable. It takes time for the cathode to heat up so that enough electrons are available for "processing". Mine takes about 25 min before I can do an image restore (and image restore requires monitor to be warmed up, though I'm not sure how the monitor detects when it's warmed up).

Uncle Vito likes to warm his monitors up for 1.5-2 hours before working on them.
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According to the manual - the monitor lets you image restore after its been on for 30 mins. So Sony considers a proper warmup period time of about 30 mins. Since my image looks really good at that point I won't worry about it then.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
Neither do I. I meant to say really dark. I was pretty tired when I posted. Lol. :D
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According to Nokia Monitor Test (free download), this may be due to poor voltage regulation. Does the size of the image change depending on whether the display is dark or light? (use the high voltage regulation module in the nokia monitor test, and observe if anything happens)
 
spacediver said:
According to Nokia Monitor Test (free download), this may be due to poor voltage regulation. Does the size of the image change depending on whether the display is dark or light? (use the high voltage regulation module in the nokia monitor test, and observe if anything happens)
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I'll check it out tonight. Gotta fire up the XP box for that. Thanks for the info - will update.

Edit - or just use XP mode. Hehe
 
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Alright - just got Windas started and it can't connect to the monitor. I'm using a RLC-3 USB to TTL and the darn thing won't connect... What's the pin configuration on the Sony? Perhaps I got it wrong? Windas seems to be timing out before giving me the error. Some help here would be fantastic.
 
i remember in some earlier posts some ppl rewired their cables to fit it properly. I've never used windas but hope to very soon. I ordered a usb to ttl cable but not sure what type. Don't even fully get what ttl means or what rcl-3 means. are you having trouble physically connecting it?
 
spacediver said:
i remember in some earlier posts some ppl rewired their cables to fit it properly. I've never used windas but hope to very soon. I ordered a usb to ttl cable but not sure what type. Don't even fully get what ttl means or what rcl-3 means. are you having trouble physically connecting it?
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Thanks to myramond for verifying that I have my order correct. I am making a connection I think. The cable lights up when I connect the monitor. I wonder if windas is doable on XP? Is there something I need to do to make it work? I'll probably have to pop the case as the cable port is deeply recessed.
 
just FYI i bought this (I'll let you know if it works or not)
41ay0ShbJ4L.jpg
 
Alright, after getting some much-needed sleep last night and having the chance to check my cable order out, it looks like I had TX and RX backward... :D So I'm going to try it again today... And no - I don't need to pop the case to get the cable in, but man - the adapter is recessed pretty deep.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
Alright, after getting some much-needed sleep last night and having the chance to check my cable order out, it looks like I had TX and RX backward... :D So I'm going to try it again today... And no - I don't need to pop the case to get the cable in, but man - the adapter is recessed pretty deep.
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lol i remember one guy in this thread who was in despair over that connector and wanted to sell his fw900 because he couldn't get it in (i think he had some problems with his eye vision)
 
Finally completed the convergence adjustment. The screen looks amazing now. I lowered the G2 a bit too for those deeper blacks, raised the drive by 5 (can't remember the value - but it's lower than most) and the screen now looks phenomenal. :D Highly recommend getting a WinDAS cable to anyone and everyone - so long as your screen is good enough that you don't have to do any extensive work. lol
 
What's drive doing? And Glad it worked so well for you, hopefully it will for me too once my stuff arrives.
and do you experience any black crush?
 
Thanks for the explanation. And the answer to that question then, is no - I don't have black crush. All shades on that test screen are visible on my monitor. :)
 
If we're talking about setting black...I'd get the screen in the ambient light you expect to view it in. And then use the geometry control to move the whole picture down until you expose a band of non-illuminated screen along the top. And then adjust the brightness control down until the illuminated part of the screen matches the non-illuminated part. Or in other words, until you achieve, effectively, black...
 
Ashratt said:
:D

I'm also thinking about modifing the usb hub and get usb 2.0/3.0 in there but for taking a closer look i have to lift the crt......meh i still remember carrying up the stairs
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Wife and I carried ours in the package up two flights of stairs. Package was 120 lbs!
 
jbltecnicspro said:
Finally completed the convergence adjustment. The screen looks amazing now. I lowered the G2 a bit too for those deeper blacks, raised the drive by 5 (can't remember the value - but it's lower than most) and the screen now looks phenomenal. :D Highly recommend getting a WinDAS cable to anyone and everyone - so long as your screen is good enough that you don't have to do any extensive work. lol
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congrats - bold step - i hope to take it soon when I have a day to spare :)
 
mathesar said:
This is also a good example of black crush (Top):

Notice the loss of detail on the garbage cans (and many other areas).

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb132/GamerGuyX_GGX/blackcrush.jpg[/IYMG][/QUOTE]

This is a great example. Personally, I make a distinction between black crush and calibration issues. To me, black crush is a display hardware limitation, not something that can be tweaked away by increasing gamma/brightness while still retaining balance throughout the rest of the range. But, either way, the example stands right and true.
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Guys I have an HP FW900 in the garage that doesnt work. I've tried selling it on ebay with $50 shipping and starting at $50 a while ago, but no one bit. I can get that great discount in shipping because I know someone that works at Fedex.

The monitor used to take a long time to see the image, but it finally never showed the image. Of COURSE I had to replace it with a Sony FW900 :D But I keep thinking, should I even bother with ebay again or should I finally just toss this marvel of another decade? I still have the massive box I saved that came with the Sony. As you can imagine, the HP FW and the box are taking a huge amount of space. I will not even bother with craigslist as I have never even seen an FW out there.

If you guys think it is not even worth it for someone to try to salvage it, then I am tossing it today.
 
If the box contains packaging you could probably get $50 for that alone. List it with a free non working monitor on eBay :)
 
lol Its just an old heavy duty CRT TV box. The guy that shipped me the Sony was nice enough to put a generous amount of foam plates inside the box to make sure nothing happened to the Sony.
 
So the other day when my in-laws were over, we were watching internet videos on the FW900. Looks good. But then, when I changed resolutions running the Valley benchmark, the monitor became blurry (I went to a lower resolution) and then when I brought 1920x1200 back it still didn't look right.

Turns out that my Nvidia graphics card was setting the native resolution to 2304x1440 and was scaling to that resolution by default (oops). But the monitor looks still a little blurry to me. It's got me adjusting the focus pots, which does nothing other than to bring the monitor back into the state that it was in before.

Two things that I think are going on here:
1) I may have the screen too close to the wall and close to the cable line. I think the power quality running to the components isn't the best (I used to have a set of AudioEngine speakers that would crackle everytime you did something like running the paper shredder).

or
2) I'm a paranoid perfectionist that just needs to calm the f*** down and enjoy his monitor. My FW900 seems to be sharper in text than my other CRT's. Am I just expecting too much from my monitor?
 
jbltecnicspro said:
2) I'm a paranoid perfectionist that just needs to calm the f*** down and enjoy his monitor. My FW900 seems to be sharper in text than my other CRT's. Am I just expecting too much from my monitor?
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If you prefer perfect text crispness with the zero motion blur CRT fluidity, you'll have to use a LightBoost monitor which has less motion blur than the FW900 CRT (testimonials from former FW900 users say it's the first LCD they've seen with less motion blur than the FW900 CRT). However, you'll be giving up the CRT colors and good blacks (which CRT's excel at). That said, one should look carefully at the more expensive 27" LightBoost monitors rather than the budget-priced VG248QE because one can get double the LightBoost contrast ratio with an ASUS VG278H, over the VG248QE because that model has worse LightBoost color. Also, LightBoost strobe flickers only at 100-120Hz, so it's like having a CRT locked to 100Hz-120Hz, so you can't get the zero motion blur effect at other common CRT refreshes such as 75Hz.

That said, the better models (e.g. VG278H with calibrated LightBoost) can now get better colors than a worn-out CRT (e.g. one that's unable to do perfect blacks anymore).
But if you have a mint-condition FW900, then you're still in nirvana, and you should stay where you are!
 
Black levels seem to be good with my monitor. It passes that test you put up a few posts back with flying colors (pardon the pun) even with the black levels down to "inky" levels. I can still see all squares on the screen. But I'm correct to assume that I shouldn't expect too much text crispness from my screen?
 
Flybye said:
Guys I have an HP FW900 in the garage that doesnt work. I've tried selling it on ebay with $50 shipping and starting at $50 a while ago, but no one bit. I can get that great discount in shipping because I know someone that works at Fedex.

The monitor used to take a long time to see the image, but it finally never showed the image. Of COURSE I had to replace it with a Sony FW900 :D But I keep thinking, should I even bother with ebay again or should I finally just toss this marvel of another decade? I still have the massive box I saved that came with the Sony. As you can imagine, the HP FW and the box are taking a huge amount of space. I will not even bother with craigslist as I have never even seen an FW out there.

If you guys think it is not even worth it for someone to try to salvage it, then I am tossing it today.
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keep it for spare parts? I'm half way through Randy Fromm's youtube series on CRT repair. I'm hoping he addresses the issue you're talking about - it may be fixable though - I've heard that the flyback transformer is the cause of the problem you're discussing, but this is an ignorant "opinion".
 
I guess I'll hold on to it lol. I've had it sitting for some time, and spare parts does make sense.
 
qiuck question - u say it doesn't show the image anymore. If you leave the monitor on for an hour or two, does it get warm to the touch? I'm wondering if the cathode heater isn't functioning correctly.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
But I'm correct to assume that I shouldn't expect too much text crispness from my screen?
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Among the high-end displays it would be fair to call the FW900 sharpness average. It's a downside one has to accept for the widescreen goodness.

Using a lower refresh rate/resolution will of course give better text. Depending on age you will want to keep the khz figure below a certain value. The first FW900 I had was perfect at any khz, but gradually got worse over 3 years/16 hours a day. Before it died anything above 100khz was fuzzy. I'm referring to the horizontal (khz) not vertical (hz).
 
sadbuttrue said:
Among the high-end displays it would be fair to call the FW900 sharpness average. It's a downside one has to accept for the widescreen goodness.

Using a lower refresh rate/resolution will of course give better text. Depending on age you will want to keep the khz figure below a certain value. The first FW900 I had was perfect at any khz, but gradually got worse over 3 years/16 hours a day. Before it died anything above 100khz was fuzzy. I'm referring to the horizontal (khz) not vertical (hz).
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How can I lower the kHz? Mine is at 114.5 at 1920x1200 and while its not fuzzy, it's no LCD either. I guess this is to be expected though. In games, nothing I've had touches it.
 
In simple terms it's a final value of resolution * refresh rate. Lower one to lower the khz. You don't need high clarity in games tho.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
How can I lower the kHz? Mine is at 114.5 at 1920x1200 and while its not fuzzy, it's no LCD either. I guess this is to be expected though. In games, nothing I've had touches it.
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what refresh rate are you using? if it's the default 85 than that's somehow way too high, mine shows 71.4kHz
 
jbltecnicspro said:
I'm using the default 85... What do I need to change?
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kHz is dependant on the resolution and the refresh rate used. I think you misunderstand what the point is.

To get better sharpness in tekst on desktop (internet and windows) you could install a resolution of lets say 1280x800 at 85 hz or more. The computer will just switch to higher resolutions ingame with the known black screen and "pop".

If you get black borders settin it in windows, check yer CCC or nvidiea panel and disable scaling.



... I use 1920x1200@85 hz on windows 7, perfect sharpness.

big tip: run windows monitor calibration program. You can set color, gamma, but MOST important, you can set CLEARTEXT options there. IMHO cleartext (which is designed for LCD) ruins tekst sharpness more then the CRT.. Take into mind that windows 7 is designed for LCD, as not even microsoft expect people still use CRT with windows 7 ;)
 
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