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

Oh, it's ultra weird then. Did you successfully go through the geometry procedure after the replacement ?
Yeah, it was a one off that the mode got garbled up and the horizontal frequency went out of range during the procedure I think. It works and looks fine having replaced the one mosfet that burnt out.

Oh, by the way, I think you might be on to something about the popping issue. After heating up the room where I have my monitor, there isn't any popping during the initial warm up. So it might very well be a cap issue only and not flyback or tube shorts, if there is any logic to that. Would heat tighten up a cracked flyback or keep the elements in the tube from shorting out? I haven't bothered to pop the case and check, in keeping with the philosophy of not fixing what isn't broken.
 
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Oh, by the way, I think you might be on to something about the popping issue. After heating up the room where I have my monitor, there isn't any popping during the initial warm up. So it might very well be a cap issue only and not flyback or tube shorts, if there is any logic to that. Would heat tighten up a cracked flyback or keep the elements in the tube from shorting out? I haven't bothered to pop the case and check, in keeping with the philosophy of not fixing what isn't broken.
The problem is that given the schematics there are capacitors internal to the flyback as well, and the type isn't specified (no way to know if it's likely to age or fail). That issue is a needle in a haystack. I read about insulation issues inside flybacks, temperature differences cause expansion/contraction cycles that may cause intermittent shorts (with the arc possibly melting some insulation material and fixing the problem for some time).

What I can tell is that my assumption about the grey foil capacitors was probably wrong (unless the popping issue you describe is different from mine). I finally put back my ill FW900 in use after doing the 2nd part of the restoration job I had planned since it was open. It had a random habbit of sparking SG901 sometimes with a brief expansion of the display area and out of focus, fixing itself a second later. It still has it now despite having replaced all of those grey capacitors with top notch polypropylene ones. I could measure voltages with less noise with the new capacitors though (not surprising given the performance level of the originals), but it's not sure the change is noticeable visually.

What I figured out is that the ground tracks in the power supply are extremely noisy. I suppose electromagnetic interferences are emitted by the switch mode part up to transformer T630 and picked up by any metallic part around. The only way I found to mitigate that is to add extra chassis connections on ground tracks all over the G board *edit* and add an extra 680nF/25V ceramic cap between pin 2 and 3 of IC651 to help stabilizing heater voltage. Maybe that's nitpicking but cleaner power supply cannot be bad for an analog device. :)
5 connection points with 2.5mm² cables fasten on clips which are connected to the 2 appropriate strips present on the G board chassis. Vs one single, maybe 1mm² cable originally. On the top of that there was a ferrite cylinder around it which prevented high frequency noise from being grounded, I don't see any smart reason for that.

DSC05322.JPG

DSC05323.JPG

DSC05327.JPG



Oh, and BTW let me introduce a pet I adopted some time ago for electronic investigation. Of course with cathodic display. :)

DSC03296_light.jpg
 
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Hi there guys,

I´m new here, but an "old" CRT-collecting nerd. I have found 3 of these over the years and just snapped one with very low hours today. It is from 5/2003 and in perfect new-like condition externally and functionally. What I am using now is from 2000 and it is also in fantastic condition geometrically. Both are from Japanese production. The others (one of them SGI-rebadged) have seemingly severe problems in image, and with my knowledge in electronics and components I cannot say whether they are repairable.

In addition of FW900´s I have one brand new hp p1230 (rebadged Mitsubishi 2070SB), GDM-F520, 3 x GDM-W900, 2 x Iiyama Vision master pro 454 and Iiyama Vision Master Pro 514.

best,
mod
 
The problem is that given the schematics there are capacitors internal to the flyback as well, and the type isn't specified (no way to know if it's likely to age or fail). That issue is a needle in a haystack. I read about insulation issues inside flybacks, temperature differences cause expansion/contraction cycles that may cause intermittent shorts (with the arc possibly melting some insulation material and fixing the problem for some time).

What I can tell is that my assumption about the grey foil capacitors was probably wrong (unless the popping issue you describe is different from mine). I finally put back my ill FW900 in use after doing the 2nd part of the restoration job I had planned since it was open. It had a random habbit of sparking SG901 sometimes with a brief expansion of the display area and out of focus, fixing itself a second later. It still has it now despite having replaced all of those grey capacitors with top notch polypropylene ones. I could measure voltages with less noise with the new capacitors though (not surprising given the performance level of the originals), but it's not sure the change is noticeable visually.

What I figured out is that the ground tracks in the power supply are extremely noisy. I suppose electromagnetic interferences are emitted by the switch mode part up to transformer T630 and picked up by any metallic part around. The only way I found to mitigate that is to add extra chassis connections on ground tracks all over the G board *edit* and add an extra 680nF/25V ceramic cap between pin 2 and 3 of IC651 to help stabilizing heater voltage. Maybe that's nitpicking but cleaner power supply cannot be bad for an analog device. :)
5 connection points with 2.5mm² cables fasten on clips which are connected to the 2 appropriate strips present on the G board chassis. Vs one single, maybe 1mm² cable originally. On the top of that there was a ferrite cylinder around it which prevented high frequency noise from being grounded, I don't see any smart reason for that.

View attachment 137003

View attachment 137004

View attachment 137008



Oh, and BTW let me introduce a pet I adopted some time ago for electronic investigation. Of course with cathodic display. :)

View attachment 137017
Very interesting findings, thank you for writing this up. Presumably my issue and that of many others is the same as yours, wherein the loss of focus/restoration of focus is associated with the popping sound that you have localized to that spark gap. The issue seems to be progressive yet intermittent so all of these factors, thermal degradation among them, may contribute to the eventual failure of the monitor. If we were to do an autopsy of one that has actually failed due to this phenomenon, we might learn more about it, I think.

Edit: Looking at the schematics again SG901 and ABL seem to be connected through the FBT:

QaripzQ.png


According to this part in Notes on the Troubleshooting and Repair of Television Sets by Samuel M. Goldwasser hosted at repairfaq.org,

"Arcing at a sparkgap or a glowing or flashing discharge tube may be accompanied by total loss of picture or bad focus, brightness or focus fluctuations, or any of a number of similar symptoms. A common cause is a breakdown inside the focus divider (usually part of the flyback or tripler) but could also be due to excessive uncontrolled high voltage due to a failure of the B+ regulator or HOT snubber capacitor, or (ironically) even a short inside the CRT."

All of which lines up with comments by Unkle Vito (LAGRUNAUER) on the purported causes of this behavior being components within the FBT or CRT itself.

Because of the unusual G2 drift effect we have with these monitors being caused by a circuit that compensates for the low emissivity of the CRT during warmup, maybe the overbrightness and excessive compensation on the "cutoff amp" is related to the focus loss somehow through the FBT?

As described in the second link in the paragraph above, maybe disabling this circuit on the FW900 may impact the state of affairs? I'm only looking at it from the word association point of view here since my electronics knowledge is limited, and I'm really only tracing the lines on these schematics here.

Edit2: Here is the circuit from the P1110 (G1 chassis)
IkNZZ9F.png


and from the FW900 (G1W)
Iefxbqv.png


Edit3: Attached CR1 chassis (F520) service manual as reference. The design in that area seems more advanced at a first glance, but the 520 series also introduced a "picture effect" feature akin to the picture mode settings on modern TVs with professional, standard, and dynamic modes altering contrast and color via presets, I suppose.
 

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Because of the unusual G2 drift effect we have with these monitors being caused by a circuit that compensates for the low emissivity of the CRT during warmup, maybe the overbrightness and excessive compensation on the "cutoff amp" is related to the focus loss somehow through the FBT?

As described in the second link in the paragraph above, maybe disabling this circuit on the FW900 may impact the state of affairs? I'm only looking at it from the word association point of view here since my electronics knowledge is limited, and I'm really only tracing the lines on these schematics here.
This is a nice try but you got everything wrong. ;)

If the issue were related to the G2 it would need a massive spike to cause such focus problems, and the activated sparkgap would be SG402, on the neck of the tube.

Also, even if the warmup compensation circuit impacts brightness like G2 does, these are two circuit parts completely unrelated. The trick used for compensation is pretty simple, it just keeps a low voltage using a transistor opening itself on the ground pin when that pin should remain grounded. And as the resistors/transistor lot heat up their characteristics change a bit, the balance state varies, that low voltage changes a bit, and what was a "bright" screen when starting the monitor becomes darker some time later.

The real G2 drift is probably related to the aging of components involved in the G2 regulation. A likely candidate is C919. It might have increased leakage current, lowering the G2 voltage at the A board input, or decreased capacitance leading to a less stable G2 voltage at the A board input which may then disturb the G2 regulation circuitry there. Or it could be any other component of that regulation circuitry aging.

Regarding the out of focus issue, it's apparently somewhere on the D board since replacing it entirely fixes the problem as far as I remember people reporting. I might find the culprit one day or another anyway, because my guinea pig 21" originally also had that zooming and out of focus brief issue from time to time. But after experimenting a lot on it and literally replacing half of the D board I do not remember to have seen it doing that again. So the answer might be in a change I did there but I didn't do on the FW900. Or maybe it was just a calm period before the issue comes back again, who knows ? :D
 
Edit3: Attached CR1 chassis (F520) service manual as reference. The design in that area seems more advanced at a first glance, but the 520 series also introduced a "picture effect" feature akin to the picture mode settings on modern TVs with professional, standard, and dynamic modes altering contrast and color via presets, I suppose.

CR1 user here (I still have my GDM-C520K Artisan). Picture modes do the following:

Using Professional as a baseline for contrast and brightness level, Standard boosts Contrast (white level), Dynamic boosts both white and black level. Dynamic's white and black level are brighter than Standard, and look washed out. I leave my monitor on Professional. Ditto with the F520 when I used to have one.
 
This is a nice try but you got everything wrong. ;)

If the issue were related to the G2 it would need a massive spike to cause such focus problems, and the activated sparkgap would be SG402, on the neck of the tube.

Also, even if the warmup compensation circuit impacts brightness like G2 does, these are two circuit parts completely unrelated. The trick used for compensation is pretty simple, it just keeps a low voltage using a transistor opening itself on the ground pin when that pin should remain grounded. And as the resistors/transistor lot heat up their characteristics change a bit, the balance state varies, that low voltage changes a bit, and what was a "bright" screen when starting the monitor becomes darker some time later.

The real G2 drift is probably related to the aging of components involved in the G2 regulation. A likely candidate is C919. It might have increased leakage current, lowering the G2 voltage at the A board input, or decreased capacitance leading to a less stable G2 voltage at the A board input which may then disturb the G2 regulation circuitry there. Or it could be any other component of that regulation circuitry aging.

Regarding the out of focus issue, it's apparently somewhere on the D board since replacing it entirely fixes the problem as far as I remember people reporting. I might find the culprit one day or another anyway, because my guinea pig 21" originally also had that zooming and out of focus brief issue from time to time. But after experimenting a lot on it and literally replacing half of the D board I do not remember to have seen it doing that again. So the answer might be in a change I did there but I didn't do on the FW900. Or maybe it was just a calm period before the issue comes back again, who knows ? :D
I don't mean to be flippant, but to me there are two issues here that may be conflated by the terminology regarding G2 etc., etc. after having read further in the badcaps thread. There is the gradual change in calibrated brightness over time going out of whack that is probably a result of the progression of these components as you said, and then there is the overshoot at cold temperatures caused by this "drift correct" circuit on G_ chassis designs. The "drift" referred to here I guess is different from the long-term G2 drift problem we are familiar with, and refers only to the low output on startup of the tube. By that hypothesis, I'm still thinking that the temperature dependence and sporadicity of the snap, crackle, and pop we are getting has some relation to the characteristics of whatever that transistor 2SC2412K (spec sheet attached) has in that circuit. It would be possible to test this by grounding pin 17 on that IC and then varying the environment at startup to see if the problem could be induced by changes in air temperature with the circuit active or not, as I seem to think. This purported phenomenon of course interacts with the aging of the components overall so we can expect the issue not to have occurred when the monitors were relatively new.

It may be better to disable this circuit to prevent the brightness overshoot on startup in general. I'd prefer a dim screen warming up to temperature on a slow curve to the harsh greenish looking image that you get when it oscillates above target considering it isn't mission critical whether the image is ready to go in 30 minutes or an hour for most of us.

Bear with me, I'm a rank amateur with no experience at all to be sure, and what seems like an intuition to me could be simply ignorance. :wtf: So hopefully it's not annoying to hear me rehash the subject again and again based on my uncertain understanding of the issue. Let me know what you think. (y) I certainly don't intend to pop the case any time soon while my monitor still works well enough so corroboration may be left to future users. A few pops here and there won't damage things, right? Any chance of the spark gap going bad, and would that eventually lead to catastrophic failure in this case?
CR1 user here (I still have my GDM-C520K Artisan). Picture modes do the following:

Using Professional as a baseline for contrast and brightness level, Standard boosts Contrast (white level), Dynamic boosts both white and black level. Dynamic's white and black level are brighter than Standard, and look washed out. I leave my monitor on Professional. Ditto with the F520 when I used to have one.
Excellent. I'm glad to see you kept the Artisan, I thought you'd gotten rid of it or were trying to at least. Considering the above, have you ever had any issues with pops and the screen going out of focus that could be attributed to the flyback with the CR1s?


As another resource here is someone who painted their flyback with some dielectric sealant to fix some issues:
Same issue with an older model and arcing on SG901: https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=26576
Leaky cap is of course the suspect, and inside the FBT.
 

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I don't mean to be flippant, but to me there are two issues here that may be conflated by the terminology regarding G2 etc., etc. after having read further in the badcaps thread. There is the gradual change in calibrated brightness over time going out of whack that is probably a result of the progression of these components as you said, and then there is the overshoot at cold temperatures caused by this "drift correct" circuit on G_ chassis designs. The "drift" referred to here I guess is different from the long-term G2 drift problem we are familiar with, and refers only to the low output on startup of the tube. By that hypothesis, I'm still thinking that the temperature dependence and sporadicity of the snap, crackle, and pop we are getting has some relation to the characteristics of whatever that transistor 2SC2412K (spec sheet attached) has in that circuit. It would be possible to test this by grounding pin 17 on that IC and then varying the environment at startup to see if the problem could be induced by changes in air temperature with the circuit active or not, as I seem to think. This purported phenomenon of course interacts with the aging of the components overall so we can expect the issue not to have occurred when the monitors were relatively new.

It may be better to disable this circuit to prevent the brightness overshoot on startup in general. I'd prefer a dim screen warming up to temperature on a slow curve to the harsh greenish looking image that you get when it oscillates above target considering it isn't mission critical whether the image is ready to go in 30 minutes or an hour for most of us.

Bear with me, I'm a rank amateur with no experience at all to be sure, and what seems like an intuition to me could be simply ignorance. :wtf: So hopefully it's not annoying to hear me rehash the subject again and again based on my uncertain understanding of the issue. Let me know what you think. (y) I certainly don't intend to pop the case any time soon while my monitor still works well enough so corroboration may be left to future users. A few pops here and there won't damage things, right? Any chance of the spark gap going bad, and would that eventually lead to catastrophic failure in this case?

Don't worry, I was an amateur too a couple of years ago. ;)
And with that monitor restoration project I've learnt a lot, piece of information after piece of information (and mistakes too), I think I have a good understanding of many things now, but not everything.

Anyway, really, don't focus on that transistor, it's nothing important, and it can't cause voltage spikes anywhere. It just creates a little offset, instead of having 0V on the ground pin of the amplifier to be the reference voltage, it keeps something like 1 or 2V using the current leaking from that ground pin of the amplifier and that transistor/resistance lot. Even if the transistor had an issue, the current can still leak through the resistance path.
You can short the transistor and connect the ground pin directly to the ground if you like, it's not harmful. But you may have to perform a WPB procedure after that so that the cut off values are set properly.

Regarding the sparkgap I can't swear it, but it's a very simple safety device, I don't think it can fail. It just uses the resistance of the air (or void) so that an arc is created if the voltage between both electrodes is too high. The focus loss and other display variations is just the consequence of the sudden voltage variation when it happens.
 
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Don't worry, I was an amateur too a couple of years ago. ;)
And with that monitor restoration project I've learnt a lot, piece of information after piece of information (and mistakes too), I think I have a good understanding of many things now, but not everything.

Anyway, really, don't focus on that transistor, it's nothing important, and it can't cause voltage spikes anywhere. It just creates a little offset, instead of having 0V on the ground pin of the amplifier to be the reference voltage, it keeps something like 1 or 2V using the current leaking from that ground pin of the amplifier and that transistor/resistance lot. Even if the transistor had an issue, the current can still leak through the resistance path.
You can short the transistor and connect the ground pin directly to the ground if you like, it's not harmful. But you may have to perform a WPB procedure after that so that the cut off values are set properly.

Regarding the sparkgap I can't swear it, but it's a very simple safety device, I don't think it can fail. It just uses the resistance of the air (or void) so that an arc is created if the voltage between both electrodes is too high. The focus loss and other display variations is just the consequence of the sudden voltage variation when it happens.
I see. In that case it comes down to the capacitors in the flyback itself being a major limiting factor on the lifespan of these displays. I wonder if there was a bad batch or if the operating environment is too harsh for them to survive very long without degrading. The flyback issue is common enough that most of the ones that have died (out of the ones that made it this far) seem to have it as a proximal cause. It's too bad that they stopped making them. I wonder if there's a warehouse somewhere with a bunch of these rare parts lying around.
 
Hi there guys,

I´m new here, but an "old" CRT-collecting nerd. I have found 3 of these over the years and just snapped one with very low hours today. It is from 5/2003 and in perfect new-like condition externally and functionally. What I am using now is from 2000 and it is also in fantastic condition geometrically. Both are from Japanese production. The others (one of them SGI-rebadged) have seemingly severe problems in image, and with my knowledge in electronics and components I cannot say whether they are repairable.

In addition of FW900´s I have one brand new hp p1230 (rebadged Mitsubishi 2070SB), GDM-F520, 3 x GDM-W900, 2 x Iiyama Vision master pro 454 and Iiyama Vision Master Pro 514.

best,
mod

That's a very nice collection!
 
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I have 4 FW900s. Actually I had a 5th one — my first ever 12 years ago. A year 2000 unit. But it had arcing issues that Sony wasn’t able to repair and they threw it out. It was a very bright unit and if fixed (vito later told me he could have saved it) it would have been amazing. Wish I had met Vito sooner and got it repaired by him somehow.

Now my current collection consists of:
- one FW900 that’s a bit blurry and dim with a slight Nick in one corner but has AG. 2003 or 2004 unit I believe. Was told that the best units were actually from 2000 and the latter ones were worse.
- Another one from Vito a few years back but I never used it as my daily driver was still working. No AG. Year 2000 unit I believe. Assuming it is at least an A grade unit. Will have to get around calibrating it for drift.
- An older fw900 that has flyback issues and sometimes is blurry with red flashes when cold booting. Was my daily driver for 10 years. I ruined the AG last September, took off the AG, couldn’t get the same blacks as before with AG. Retired this baby as of this week. 2002 unit I think.
- And now a newer sub 3000 hours unit with some blemishes in the AG. Year 2002 unit. Seems very new as text is very sharp. Currently trying to get the perfect G2 level without crushing blacks too far. Will try to baby this thing for years to come.

I’m still hunting for more mint condition FW900s with flawless AG. Stockpiling for the next decade lol. If I can get two more flawless units I can rotate them 6 months at a time, calibrating them every couple months and try to keep them in perfect condition forever. Anyone wanting to sell me their mint blemish-free AG FW900 (I can make a juicy deal because I’m obsessed like that) and find a way to ship them, please let me know!

I wish there was a way to replace the AG (something as good or better than what Sony made). When properly calibrated (with AG), the FW900 is amazing: deep blacks and enough luminance to see all the details.

PS. I got two 21” Sony CRTs as well. One is a Dell the other is a HP. They’re decent but don’t really match the experience of a finely tuned FW900 in my opinion.
 
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Hi there guys,

I´m new here, but an "old" CRT-collecting nerd. I have found 3 of these over the years and just snapped one with very low hours today. It is from 5/2003 and in perfect new-like condition externally and functionally. What I am using now is from 2000 and it is also in fantastic condition geometrically. Both are from Japanese production. The others (one of them SGI-rebadged) have seemingly severe problems in image, and with my knowledge in electronics and components I cannot say whether they are repairable.

In addition of FW900´s I have one brand new hp p1230 (rebadged Mitsubishi 2070SB), GDM-F520, 3 x GDM-W900, 2 x Iiyama Vision master pro 454 and Iiyama Vision Master Pro 514.

best,
mod

Would you be willing to sell the mint condition FW900s?
 
Also, here’s a good tip for those using Sunix adapters (forgot what the other brand is called but they’re essentially the same thing):

if you experience image doing that whole buzzing thing or occasionally blanking to black (I only experience this in prime mode aka 1900x1200 @ 85hz), just run the monitor @ 84hz. Did this a couple months ago and I’ve never experienced any blanking or screen artifact ever since. 86hz should work as well. Seems like the adapters like even numbers.
 
Never would have removed the AG sheet if I hadn't accidentally damaged it.

That said, so far, can't say that I'm actually missing it that much.

Was definitely better in ambient light with it, but it was still bad though. For me...solution still kind of remains the same...remove ambient light as much as possible.
 
Also, here’s a good tip for those using Sunix adapters (forgot what the other brand is called but they’re essentially the same thing):

if you experience image doing that whole buzzing thing or occasionally blanking to black (I only experience this in prime mode aka 1900x1200 @ 85hz), just run the monitor @ 84hz. Did this a couple months ago and I’ve never experienced any blanking or screen artifact ever since. 86hz should work as well. Seems like the adapters like even numbers.

Interesting find. Probably why I'm completely stable at 90 Hz for the past year with my 2x Sunix adapters.

I was playing Battlefield 4 at 2048x1536@85hz on my Sunix and was working fine. FWIW

Dang, lucky you =p. It does seem like any of the *5 Hz resolutions mess up for me.
 
dont be so literally bro, by "perfect' I mean good enough where i cant tell the difference to the naked eye. im just trying to get the last bit there, its just slight uneven wobble on the sides, when my monitors warms up Ill retake some photos.
If you mean things like convergence then WinDAS will be able to help you, at least somewhat.

CRT's by their nature have imperfect geometry and soft pixels which do not look as sharp as what you get on matrix displays and once convergence and geometry is good enough then for me it is good enough and I do not care anymore. In games or videos this is hardly visible and my eyes did not deserve to be tortured by having to watch desktop on CRT XD
 
if you experience image doing that whole buzzing thing or occasionally blanking to black (I only experience this in prime mode aka 1900x1200 @ 85hz), just run the monitor @ 84hz. Did this a couple months ago and I’ve never experienced any blanking or screen artifact ever since. 86hz should work as well. Seems like the adapters like even numbers.
Have you tried 1920x1200@96Hz?
More specifically (96/1.001)Hz to get good multiple of cinema frame rate.
 
Some information about the durability of the neon spark gap bulb which turns out to be a low tech solution:

hrK1pAr.jpg


It's possible it could burn out and let high voltage destroy components further down the line if the FBT goes completely haywire.
HgFlG56.jpg


No longer available for sale, but searching 1-517-499-21 shows some other Sony CRTs and their rebrands use it as well. Could be worth salvaging from lesser monitors.

From page 130 of Protection of Electronic Circuits from Overvoltages (2012) by R. Standler:
YW51Fr4.png


Maybe Sony engineers knew what they were doing with regards to the characteristics of this device, but I'm still afraid it may not last eventually if it is the only thing keeping the D-board from frying when the HV is being dumped due to the the popping problem. Probably be good to keep an eye on it to see if it is looking burnt up.
 
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This topic is a sad descent into madness. I just wish they started making crt's again. Crt with freesync would be just balls
 
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This topic is a sad descent into madness. I just wish they started making crt's again. Crt with freesync would be just balls
Actually it seems Freesync is possible at least with some CRTs:
https://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic.php?t=3234

I don't know if it works well on the FW900, it seems to be "our" spacediver on that forum but I don't remember him telling it works so there may have been a failed attempt.
 
I never got the time to undertake that particular project!

I'm guessing it would be easier to do on a HD CRT TV like the Sony Hi-Scans and Super Fine Pitch tubes. I remeber that there would be zero transition when switching resolution/refresh rate on those, as long as the horizontal rate stayed at 33.75-ish kHz. So 1080i/540p @ 60hz, as well as stuff like 864i@72hz. I ditched my Hi-Scan tube long before I learned about the possibility to force Freesync on other monitors.
 
I would imagine brightness changes on CRT with forced VRR would make this less than ideal. Though also it could be successfully used with frame rate limiter to improve input lag and as long as frame rate doesn't drop too much (now why would it on something like Vega64 at 1920x1200 XD XD XD) the slight brightness changes would be still better artifact than stuttering.

Radeons if we do EDID hack to correct stored gamut and color space conversion and with their dithering for 8bpp interfaces are currently the best cards for CRT owners. NV for now as far as I know does not support forcing VRR on non-DisplayPort-Adaptive-Sync monitors and I tried. Also NV still does not do any form of dithering which kinda sucks because CRT gamma on CRT tubes is kinda high and would use correction which in this case introduce banding artifacts =(

The (possible) problems are as follow:
- does it even work on FW900 (or other "modern" Trinitron/Diamondtron monitors)
- is there HDMI interface with high enough pixel clock (high enough for me is something like 330MHz)...
- or can this be forced on DP interface also?

Someone with FW900 or similar monitor and Radeon card with HDMI converter should definitely do some testing !!!
 
And the story goes on... I found a practically NEW Iiyama Vision Master Pro 454 in Bremen today! An old engineer who bought a few of these back in the days, I paid him 30eur.
 
Like I said before, I am on the east coast, 1 hourish east of Raleigh durham, would be willing to drive and pay someone for there time to calibrate my monitor for me, I feel I am technically unable to do this.

Or if someone can help me find a CRT repair shop, that be awesome too.
 
anyone know what happened with the sunix DPU3000-D3? cannot find it anymore, or anyone know an adapter to use the fw900 with an RTX card, at 1920 x 1200 @90hz? i know there is the delock, but the last report about it as far as i remeber is that it is unstable.

also wote an email to sunix asking about an adapter able to output analog 1920 x 1200 90hz but they replied they just "dont know about it, they only test their adapters at 70hz" :(
 
I see D2 is on Amazon. The only difference between D2 and D3 is the wire you get. I'm surprised you didn't just also ask Sunix where you can buy the adapter =p. I believe it will hit your resolution just fine. As for Delock, there are two, one that is a pure DP to VGA converter that is unstable, and the other that is pretty much a copy of Sunix which would work like the Sunix. The Delock you want is the one that is a copy of the Sunix. Let me see if I can find the model number.

Edit: You want the Delock 87685, which is seemly a copy of the Sunix.
 
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thanks,

what surprised me was that they didnt mention any of the sunix DPU3000 D2 or D3 and only claimed to test at 70hz when i asked them. also they just referenced those 3 adapters which seem pretty ordinary:

http://www.sunixusa.com/product/h2v37c0/

http://www.sunixusa.com/product/d2v17c0/

http://www.sunixusa.com/product/d2v27c0/


is this the delock you mean? https://www.delock.com/produkte/G_87685/technische_details.html

i cannot find that Delock 87685 you say in amazon or pages in the US.


also do you know if that sunix D2 can be connected to a geforce RTX card as it is with just that wire it comes with?
 
thanks,

what surprised me was that they didnt mention any of the sunix DPU3000 D2 or D3 and only claimed to test at 70hz when i asked them. also they just referenced those 3 adapters which seem pretty ordinary:

http://www.sunixusa.com/product/h2v37c0/

http://www.sunixusa.com/product/d2v17c0/

http://www.sunixusa.com/product/d2v27c0/


is this the delock you mean? https://www.delock.com/produkte/G_87685/technische_details.html

i cannot find that Delock 87685 you say in amazon or pages in the US.


also do you know if that sunix D2 can be connected to a geforce RTX card as it is with just that wire it comes with?

Did you ask Sunix about DPU3000 directly? Tehcnically the DPU3000 is not meant for DP to VGA conversion. It's meant more of a multidisplay adapter. It just so happens the chip inside allows for high pixel clocks for VGA.

Yes, that is Delock adapter I meant and yes, it's more for the Europe market.

D2 comes with a miniDP to miniDP wire while D3 comes with a miniDP to DP wire. I don't know what the GeForce RTX card uses, but either way, worse case is to buy the correct wire (but yes that adds cost).
 
anyone know what happened with the sunix DPU3000-D3? cannot find it anymore, or anyone know an adapter to use the fw900 with an RTX card, at 1920 x 1200 @90hz?

If your RTX card has a USB-C output and you don't need more than 1920x1200 96 Hz you can buy on the USA market these adapters:

Plugable USBC-VGA https://www.amazon.com/Plugable-Compatible-Thunderbolt-resultions-1920x1200/dp/B015X0CV1C
tested by other users with a pixel clock of 330-335 MHz

Sunix C2VC7A0 https://www.amazon.com/Sunix-USB-Type-C-Adapter-C2VC7A0/dp/B015GE882Q
nobody tested it but Sunix says that it has ANX9847 chipset

So both are USB-C to VGA with Analogix ANX9847 chipset (unless they changed it recently)

If your card can't output to USB-C the only solutions on USA market are:
Sunix DPU3000
Benfei HDMI to VGA https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01KLKQN9U/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
This has been tested by CommandoSnake up to 1920x1200 95 Hz,for that price it's very interesting,the only problem is that it need to be set to YCbCr instead RGB,i don't know if that can cause problem with some configurations
 
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How hard would it be to remove horizontal and vertical refresh rate caps from a CRT?
 
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Get the Sunix one from this link, its a bit hard to find online but you can get it there and only for 75 USD. They ship internationally too. You should get both cables in the package anyway but in case you wont you can simply buy the cable locally (if you will need it). This Sunix adapter does the job really well. Maybe in the future there will be new adapters with even better DAC etc but I dont think it will be this year? My Sunix can handle at least 160Hz and 500MHz pixel clock so resolutions like 800x600@160Hz or 3056x1910@60Hz work just fine, no input lag either. On the other hand, the adapter doesnt work sometimes so be prepared to be robbed of upto a few minutes of your time every week. Its not an issue, just an occasional nuisance - when it works, its works great though.
 
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If your RTX card has a USB-C output and you don't need more than 1920x1200 96 Hz you can buy on the USA market these adapters:

Plugable USBC-VGA https://www.amazon.com/Plugable-Compatible-Thunderbolt-resultions-1920x1200/dp/B015X0CV1C
tested by other users with a pixel clock of 330-335 MHz
Looks interesting!
On the other hand new gen VR headsets will take this port and it doesn't look any better than Delock 62967 which also works and runs on standard DP port which is plentiful on modern GPU's
 
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i asked sunix what happened with the D3, the replied:

"Our DPU3000-D3 has sold out due to shortage of the bundled DisplayPort cable. You may look into this model, DPU3000-D2, which is exactly the same model just with a different set of bundled DisplayPort cable;"

thank you Derupter for that valuable info, i dont have an rtx card but thinking about getting one since my graphics card got burned and smoked out :cry:

it worries me that no adapter seems to work without issues from what i am reading from users... so, i m thinking about getting both the suninx suggested by
jka and that "plugable" branded as well. and cross fingers


 
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i asked sunix what happened with the D3, the replied:

"Our DPU3000-D3 has sold out due to shortage of the bundled DisplayPort cable. You may look into this model, DPU3000-D2, which is exactly the same model just with a different set of bundled DisplayPort cable;"

thank you Derupter for that valuable info, i dont have an rtx card but thinking about getting one since my graphics card got burned and smoked out :cry:

it worries me that no adapter seems to work without issues from what i am reading from users... so, i m thinking about getting both the suninx suggested by
jka and that "plugable" branded as well. and cross fingers

About Plugable USBC-VGA, it works without known problems up to 1920x1200 96 Hz, but has been tested with laptops and special USB-C cards like Sunix UPD2018.
Nvidia RTX cards are the first with the USB-C output, it should works without problems but it's a new thing so who knows.
Reference Nvidia RTX cards have all the USB-C output, but most if not all of the custom RTX 2060 do not have it.

About Sunix DPU3000 you can buy the D2 and replace the cable with a male DP to miniDP, after that most likely you will need to use the additional USB power.
The known problems are:
It doesn't like some refresh rate, other users have solved this changing it (using example 84Hz instead of 85Hz)
With some configurations sometimes it doesn't read correctly the monitor EDID, not a big problem with EDID override and custom resolutions.
 
thanks but damn, its getting very confusing, now the guys from Plugable replied they dont have a 90hz compatible adapter :s maybe they decided to discontinue it due to lack of demand.....

maybe getting the sunix only then, thinking about it....

lol.jpg
 
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