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

I wanted to post to say that my text is very sharp now.

The things I have changed before I noticed this are:

- I bought and installed a tripp-lite line conditioner for my electric.

- I reformatted my computer which wiped all my custom themes and tweaks which had I had messed with before I got the monitor.

- I installed the new nvidia video card drivers.


My electric is still bad even with the line conditioner. I get interference on any of my crt monitors due to EMI from devices on the lines in my house. Interference from things like my central AC, fans, and aquariums. This gets so bad that a wierd glaze-like overlay and streaking appears on my crts, or a slight wobble, or a strobe effect in a corner. When the central AC kicks on the lights flick/dim for a half second too. My electric in this house is old, and I think they screwed up when they installed a new furnace and central air a year or so before I bought it without updating the service. Once I get my electric svc updated to 150 or 200amp and have some dedicated circuits run the monitor should be great. :p
I recommend anyone with blurry text make sure your electric is clean. If EMI (electromagnetic interference) made even a tiny wobble in the display or a slight 'glaze', it might be hard to notice as such overall but would make the text edges blurry.
 
Apparently when I reformated my pc and moved hardware around, I had uncoiled the heavy-duty vga cable that had come with my FW900. After I wrote the last post I wiggled it around alittle and the screen went dim, blue, etc.. yuck. I just replaced it with a not so heavily sheilded vga cable I had laying around (at least it doesnt have a short in it). It cleaned up the display alot. I still have a flickering in one of the corners like any crt plugged in to my house electric gets , and a slight frame-like shading or brightness around the edges of the display. Its still a ton better than it was - it had wierd squiggles or circuit-board looking glaze overlay when using the other cable. The last few days I had the monitor shut off because I was worried about damaging it. Now its crisp if alittle fluttery, which I can make due with until I get the electrician to overhaul my elec svc.
 
*sigh* Looks like I may have missed the bandwagon on this one, azatek doesn't have them listed anymore, and there seem to be a grand total of 2 listed on ebay.ca, one from a private seller, and one that's good only for parts.

:(
 
elvn said:
Apparently when I reformated my pc and moved hardware around, I had uncoiled the heavy-duty vga cable that had come with my FW900. After I wrote the last post I wiggled it around alittle and the screen went dim, blue, etc.. yuck. I just replaced it with a not so heavily sheilded vga cable I had laying around (at least it doesnt have a short in it). It cleaned up the display alot. I still have a flickering in one of the corners like any crt plugged in to my house electric gets , and a slight frame-like shading or brightness around the edges of the display. Its still a ton better than it was - it had wierd squiggles or circuit-board looking glaze overlay when using the other cable. The last few days I had the monitor shut off because I was worried about damaging it. Now its crisp if alittle fluttery, which I can make due with until I get the electrician to overhaul my elec svc.


Hook it up to a UPS. That ought to help for the time being.
 
Atragon said:
*sigh* Looks like I may have missed the bandwagon on this one, azatek doesn't have them listed anymore, and there seem to be a grand total of 2 listed on ebay.ca, one from a private seller, and one that's good only for parts.

:(

Might still be worth asking a seller if they would be willing to ship to Canada. (Even though the listings say US.)
 
I most likely will be picking one up locally tomorrow or friday for ~300$. I hope i get a good one. Whats the checklist for when you first get one?

Image restore
Is the WINDAS thing necessary?
BNC cables?

Anyway wish me luck
 
Hey guys, if anyone is interested I'd like to sell my windas cable. If anyone is interested at 20+shipping let me know.

-SZ
 
I got mine today. July 02. I ordered from SCS on ebay. I emailed them asking if there was any cosmetic damage or anything before bidding and they replied that there was no damage whatsoever and that it was a Grade A refurb. There are a few nicks on the case, but I don't care about those (still, they should have mentioned them). But what I do care about is the nick on the screen. It looks like a smudge, but it just wont wipe off. It could be a blemish in the AR coating. I don't feel any change in surface texture when I run my finger over it. It's easy to ignore. Only noticable when displaying white.

I'll email them and see if they'll send me another one and let me keep the best of the two. I really don't want to pack it up and ship it out and wait for another one to arrive and find out it has something more annoyingly wrong with it.

Other than that, it looks pretty damn good. I don't think I need to mess with that windas cable. My blacks are black. Overall this monitor is a tad bit darker than the 19' Trinitron I was use to. Is that mainly what you use the windas cable for, is to lower the brightness with the G2 setting? Or are there color tweaks?

I used this image http://www.tigerdave.com/images/testpatterns/1280x720_overscan.gif to set up my screen size for XB360 to maintain 16:9 and I've got larger black bars on the top and bottom than I was expecting. They're about an inch and a half. I was expecting 1/2 inch.

edit1:

I was sent a 10A 250V power cord with this monitor. Could I use a 10A 125V cord? I've got a brand new one I'd rather use instead of this burly looking one that came with it.

edit2:

My ASC button is not working. It's suppose to fill the screen according to the manual. If I select a 16:10 resolution and press that button, it squishes it to a 4:3.
 
RumblePen said:
My ASC button is not working. It's suppose to fill the screen according to the manual. If I select a 16:10 resolution and press that button, it squishes it to a 4:3.

Do you have the windows driver installed? If your PC thinks it's a 4:3 device you'll get this problem for some reason. I had the same problem until I installed the monitor driver to tell my moron PC that the monitor was a widescreen device.
 
In my experience, the ASC button never works. You'll need to settle on a preferred resolution and refresh rate (1600 by 1024 by 100Hz works well). And then manually adjust it.

(The ASC button must work, I guess, for some built in resolutions or something. But I've never had any luck with it over the last 5 years for the settings I've favored...)
 
is VGA to BNC cable that much better in quality? iv always used standard VGA.

and if i am to buy a BNC cable, would i go for VGA to BNC, or DVI to BNC?

very few DVI to BNC on ebay, alot of VGA to BNC though.
 
I had trouble finding a DVI to BNC as well, even monoprice (IMO the best retailer for cables and connectors ever) only carries the VGA-to-BNC.

I didn't think it was worth spending $15+ on myself. I'm using VGA and will probably just get the VGA-to-BNC for hooking up another PC or maybe a Dreamcast/Xbox.
 
DVI to BNC for 15$

or i can get a new VGA to BNC on ebay for 5$+s&h.

i doubt there is any difference in quality between the two, or even regular VGA too.

only reason im getting BNC cable is so i hook x360 up through VGA, while still being connected to my comp.
 
Ryle said:
DVI to BNC for 15$

or i can get a new VGA to BNC on ebay for 5$+s&h.

i doubt there is any difference in quality between the two, or even regular VGA too.

only reason im getting BNC cable is so i hook x360 up through VGA, while still being connected to my comp.

This is the same reason I switched over to BNC cables,I didn't notice any difference in image quality between using VGA vs. BNC, if anything BNC is slightly more of a hassle to get setup (but no big deal) and there's a weird side effect which causes the screen to 'flip' vertically whenever I right click on a .avi or .wmv file , kind of like when you adjust the vertical hold on a TV, This didnt happen when I was using VGA.
 
Isn't it kind of odd that that ap grill wires aren't evenly spaced? Bottom one is 2/3rds up from the bottom, top one is 1/3rd from the top.

Hey, does anyone have a link to some test patterns I can use to adjust my picture when connected to Xbox 360? For 720p.
 
Does anyone know what causes the green tinge? Is it the phosphors aging at a different rate? I picked one of these up unfortunately its a year 2000 model. Even after image restore it had a green tinge, however tweaking the color values (basically red and blue at 100 and green at 45) the colors look a lot better and basically match my LCD now. However even at brightness of 25 its BRIGHT!, much brighter than my lcd at 50. I ordered one of the windas cables and was gonna tweak using that as well. I'm just hoping i at least get a few good years outta this thing. Any insight into this would be appreciated.

Im a little concerned about its age, but other than the green tinge the image looks good. I might try and pick up another one of these as a spare for if this one goes. Who knows when a good crt replacement will come?
 
Well, update from my monitor, very happy with it, seems to be working fine for the 2 weeks or so since I got a "Grade A" from accuriteitserivces on ebay...although I can't say the same thing about my Ballistix RAM :mad:

Anyways, I also noticed the similiar problem with the ASC button not working I had to do this to finally get my pc to recognize my monitor as a 16:10 widescreen (I am using a VGA -> BNC Cable):

1. Boot in safe mode
2. Uninstall nVidia Drivers
3. Run Driver Cleaner Pro
4. Install nVidia Drivers
5. Install Monitor Drivers

Then I booted back up regularly and when I started to play around with the video options the monitor resolution just "popped" into place. :D
 
kemist1117 said:
Does anyone know what causes the green tinge? Is it the phosphors aging at a different rate? I picked one of these up unfortunately its a year 2000 model. Even after image restore it had a green tinge, however tweaking the color values (basically red and blue at 100 and green at 45) the colors look a lot better and basically match my LCD now. However even at brightness of 25 its BRIGHT!, much brighter than my lcd at 50. I ordered one of the windas cables and was gonna tweak using that as well. I'm just hoping i at least get a few good years outta this thing. Any insight into this would be appreciated.

Im a little concerned about its age, but other than the green tinge the image looks good. I might try and pick up another one of these as a spare for if this one goes. Who knows when a good crt replacement will come?

The green tinge is pretty normal for this CRT when it is turned on after being off for more then a few hours. it takes anywhere between 20-60 mins for the colors to be displayed properly. i would siggest going to this site http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/3651075192/m/3061046744/p/1
following the directions there you can get some pretty amazing colors and contrast going with this monitor. I sold mine to a forum member and got a samsung 204B as a replacement. I am hating life knowing that i sold this beast of a monitor, but, space was limited on my desk and i had to do it.
 
I have this monitor at work. It's great, except that the person that had it before never turned it off at night so it permanently has the login screen burned into the middle. I'm running it at 16x9 only because I wanted the higher refresh rate. I'd buy one, but it's just too big. Definitely want a 24" widescreen LCD in the future though.
 
Anyone have an answer for me on the powercord? The manual doesn't say. Could I use a 10A 125V powercord, or am I suppose to stick to the 10A 250V SCS shipped with it? I don't know too much about such things, but I figured you only draw 115V from an outlet, so anything over that should be okay, right?

Also, any recommendations on DVD software to tune my picture? I want to get the screen right for the resolution Xbox360 uses (which I can't select on my pc, 60hz on my pc isn't the same as 60hz on xbox). Is Video Essentials pretty good, or are there better tools out there for a better value?
 
your probably good with the power cord this is only supposed to pull 170watts at max draw

i got mine hooked up with dvi->bnc cable and that helped with fuzzyness a bit. I think i still may open it up and adjust the focus if windas cant fix things. This monitor is pretty badass though.
 
kemist1117 said:
Does anyone know what causes the green tinge? Is it the phosphors aging at a different rate? I picked one of these up unfortunately its a year 2000 model. Even after image restore it had a green tinge, however tweaking the color values (basically red and blue at 100 and green at 45) the colors look a lot better and basically match my LCD now. However even at brightness of 25 its BRIGHT!, much brighter than my lcd at 50. I ordered one of the windas cables and was gonna tweak using that as well. I'm just hoping i at least get a few good years outta this thing. Any insight into this would be appreciated.

Im a little concerned about its age, but other than the green tinge the image looks good. I might try and pick up another one of these as a spare for if this one goes. Who knows when a good crt replacement will come?

Sorry i didn't reply to this earlier.

My FW900 also had a green tint and was too bright when i first got it. Like you i adjusted the color values to get rid of the green but even after lowering the G2 voltage i still couldn't get a good black level. That perplexed me for awhile but to my suprise after switching from VGA to a high quality BNC cable both problems dissapeared. I can now pick any default color temp with no green tint and the black level is superb.

Don't know why it made such a difference, i am guessing the VGA input must be faulty. Not sure if using a BNC cable would fix yours too but it might be worth a try. This is definetly a common occurance with these monitors cause the seller i bought mine from was selling dozens with the same issue.
 
Deetox said:
Sorry i didn't reply to this earlier.

My FW900 also had a green tint and was too bright when i first got it. Like you i adjusted the color values to get rid of the green but even after lowering the G2 voltage i still couldn't get a good black level. That perplexed me for awhile but to my suprise after switching from VGA to a high quality BNC cable both problems dissapeared. I can now pick any default color temp with no green tint and the black level is superb.

Don't know why it made such a difference, i am guessing the VGA input must be faulty. Not sure if using a BNC cable would fix yours too but it might be worth a try. This is definetly a common occurance with these monitors cause the seller i bought mine from was selling dozens with the same issue.

Note: Ive already tried image restoration and i've switched to dvi->Bnc cable from dvi adapter->vga->vga and that sharpened the picture up a bit. I can get rid of the green tinge but at the cost of losing contrast with blacks and greys. That is i can get black blacks, but the darker greys also appear black. Im under the impression that the G2 should help this? Is this a gamma issue that i can just correct using drivers? Any advice from others would be appreciated.

Also: i do know about the green at startup, mine takes about 15 mins before blacks are black, which is acceptable, i just want to get the contrast and darker greys set up correctly so that darker parts of games are actually visible.
 
Has anyone here had this monitor die on them? There seem to be stories of people recieving bad ones, but have any here had theirs just stop working after a while? Mine seems ok, but I'm starting to worry that i'll lose it one day :(
 
Orange.exe said:
Has anyone here had this monitor die on them? There seem to be stories of people recieving bad ones, but have any here had theirs just stop working after a while? Mine seems ok, but I'm starting to worry that i'll lose it one day :(

You will lose it but not until 2-4 years if its good now.
 
I want one of these things. Bad. If one were to die on me, is it remotely economical to repair it? I don't even know who I'd call or where I'd send (carry? drag?) it.
 
Nugget said:
I want one of these things. Bad. If one were to die on me, is it remotely economical to repair it? I don't even know who I'd call or where I'd send (carry? drag?) it.

Once its gone its gone.
 
Orange.exe said:
Has anyone here had this monitor die on them? There seem to be stories of people recieving bad ones, but have any here had theirs just stop working after a while? Mine seems ok, but I'm starting to worry that i'll lose it one day :(

It's really hard to say when a monitor will stop working ..to many factors involved, Ive had my FW900 for 11 months now and its still behaving the same way it did the day I bought it (no problems) , mine is used (not refurbished) with a manufacture date of May 2002. Ive also got a Sony 20" TV with a manufacture date of 1989 which still works and has never been repaired lol (although it hasnt got much usage lately).

A CRT will last longer if you dont run it with the Contrast setting maxed out , of course you should run it the way you think it looks best but Ive always ran mine with the Contrast at 75-79 when browsing the web & chatting and 90 when watching movies or gaming.
 
bartsimsonii said:
Once its gone its gone.

Really? I thought I remembered there being TV repairmen (or maybe I was just watching Dobie Gillis...) and figured there'd be the same for monitors. I know these things aren't technically worth much, but I'd pay good money over a period of years to keep one in good shape -- until LCDs can switch resolutions on the fly and look decent doing it, I'm sticking with a CRT. There's just no comparison in image quality.

Anyway, there's one local. The seller says "the screen is “A” Grade condition with absolutely no scratch on the screen, burn marks & discoloration." I asked for a picture and he provided this:

1376319706370097906_rs.jpg


Is it just me or is that a good-sized blemish, bottom center-right of the screen?
 
Closer shot:

1825550008620510343_rs.jpg


Crappy resolution camera. I can't tell if that's a reflection or something worse.
 
Nugget said:
Really? I thought I remembered there being TV repairmen (or maybe I was just watching Dobie Gillis...) and figured there'd be the same for monitors. I know these things aren't technically worth much, but I'd pay good money over a period of years to keep one in good shape -- until LCDs can switch resolutions on the fly and look decent doing it, I'm sticking with a CRT. There's just no comparison in image quality.

Anyway, there's one local. The seller says "the screen is “A” Grade condition with absolutely no scratch on the screen, burn marks & discoloration." I asked for a picture and he provided this:

1376319706370097906_rs.jpg


Is it just me or is that a good-sized blemish, bottom center-right of the screen?

You could technically repair it but it would be more cost effective to just get another one.
 
That does look like a chip on the anti-glare coating, mine has one that looks very similar on almost the exact same part of the screen. I don't notice it too often so it doesn't really bother me.

I wish these monitor sellers wouldn't exaggerate about the condition though, seems a lot of them say the screen is perfect when its actually not. But it worked out pretty good in my case since i was able to get a 50% refund. :D
 
I'm planning on hooking my fw900 up to an xbox360 and a mac mini. I plan to use the vga cable for the 360, and a dvi to bnc cable for the mini. Would there be any problems with that? Does anyone know if I'd be able to use the intel mini at 1920x1200@85hz? This is the cable I plan to buy
 
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bartsimsonii said:
Once its gone its gone.

There is a guy near me that repairs crt's and I know he's probably not the only one out there that does this.

I agree - it looks like there is a bad spot on that monitor. You ought to email him back and ask him about it. With shipping on these running around $100 on Ebay you can't afford to get a bad one. I'd love to have one of these but the shipped price kills it for me. I settled with a Westy 22" lcd for $360 + tax but I still would have loved to have the Sony FW900.
 
I bought a FW900 on ebay with "Buy it now" @ 375$ with shipping included from Southwest Computer Solutions on July 21st. Monitor arrived July 30th, but Fedex put a gash into the box that went through 6" of foam and hit the monitor making 4 dings in the coating of screen :( still worked though. So i contacted SCS, and with their 30day return warranty they sent me another one (free of charge of course) after fedex picked the other one up. I just got it today and boy im the happiest man alive right now. This monitor is PERFECT! Perfect blacks and color, no imperfections on the screen or case. The other one with the dings had some blurring in the corners, maybe from it getting hit so hard... but this one is perfect! Running at 1600x1000 @ 100hz with my SLI 7800GTXs. I would take pictures but a family member has the camera atm, i know people love pictures as do i so ill post some in a couple of days. Upgraded from a 19" Viewsonic CRT, this is a huge difference. My setup is complete till i upgrade with vista.
 
Update: I had some trouble getting the convergence correct at my preferred 1920x1200 @ 85hz. The corners seemed to be always off, especially the red in the lower right hand corner.

I found some monitor tuning software with test screens and used that to get the convergence right, tuned the brightness/contrast, etc. Convergence is still just a tiny bit off (I had to kind of pick a compromise setting, tiny bit red in one corner and tiny bit blue in the other) but no longer very noticeable. Geometry is a tiny bit off as well on the top of the screen, I found it hard to get the top perfectly straight.

Anyway, it's still a great monitor. We just got my wife one of those $110 AR Hanns-G 19" LCDs from PC connection. Sure it's brighter but my monitor looks way better. More accurate colors, and not so blindingly bright with the lights out.
 
Ryle said:
I bought a FW900 on ebay with "Buy it now" @ 375$ with shipping included from Southwest Computer Solutions on July 21st. Monitor arrived July 30th, but Fedex put a gash into the box that went through 6" of foam and hit the monitor making 4 dings in the coating of screen :( still worked though. So i contacted SCS, and with their 30day return warranty they sent me another one (free of charge of course) after fedex picked the other one up. I just got it today and boy im the happiest man alive right now. This monitor is PERFECT! Perfect blacks and color, no imperfections on the screen or case. The other one with the dings had some blurring in the corners, maybe from it getting hit so hard... but this one is perfect! Running at 1600x1000 @ 100hz with my SLI 7800GTXs. I would take pictures but a family member has the camera atm, i know people love pictures as do i so ill post some in a couple of days. Upgraded from a 19" Viewsonic CRT, this is a huge difference. My setup is complete till i upgrade with vista.

What 30 day return policy? SCS guy I bought from was telling me I had 7 days.
 
I'm having problems with my monitor now :(. I shut it off last night like I always do and went to turn it back on this morning. The monitor clicked like it normally does, but I didnt hear the screen come on. The power led was green, but then turned to a flashing orange one. It flashes two times and repeats flashing orange like this. When I turn my computer off and try and turn the monitor on, it sits on the green led for a few seconds (but the monitor still does not turn on), then goes to an orange led that sits there (no flashing).

Does anyone have an idea what I can do? Is it possible for me to open it up and fix it, could a local tv repairman fix it, will I have to ship it out to get fixed, or have to just buy a new one?
 
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