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

Hurin said:
Haven't taken part in this thread in a while. . . but feeling a bit paranoid because I was experimenting with "Image Restoration" today to see how it is affected by increased Contrast and Brightness at the time that it is activated (some have reported that using it with brightness set higher than usual can cure green tinge, etc.).

Then, after using "Image Restoration" for perhaps the sixth time, I suddenly had this vague recollection of someone warning us that "Image Restoration" can damage the monitor if used too often. . . or that it wears it out. . . or that the monitor only has a finite number of "Image Restoration" uses. . . something like that.

Searched this thread. But it's too long and I'm not sure if I missed the reference. I'm probably just being paranoid. But this monitor is pretty darn precious to me and I'd hate for it to die prematurely. Anyone have any recollection of anything like this?
Click to expand...

I remembered something along those lines too.

I'm sure you don't have to worry.
 
I am the guy that everyone talks about here in the Forum... The guy in LA that sells GDM-FW900, Grade A+ with FLAWLESS screens, fully calibrated and adjusted to Sony factory specs, and services Sony monitors.

Provided that your unit does not have a strong color cast (pronounced green, blue, red, yellow or magenta cast), your monitor needs white point balance calibration & adjustment. Once this procedure is done correctly, your unit will have the default D50, D65, D93 and sRGB color space adjusted to factory standard and you'll see true black & gray levels, along with good color purity. The G2 will be adjusted as a part of the process, and the overbrigthness will be corrected.

Unfortunately, when the EEPROM (which stores all the unit's image & display parameters) is corrupted, the image restore feature will not fix the problem no matter how many times you hit the button.

Hope this helps...

Sincerely,

Luis G.
Unkle Vito!
 
The short can be easily removed with a Sencore CR7000 Beamrite or a CR70. No need to replace the tube, unless the tube is dim.

Hope this helps...

Sincerely,

Luis G.
Unkle Vito!
 
raphash said:
So I have been corresponding with the gentleman selling the A+ conditioned FW-900 listed on EBay. He seems pretty honest and knowledgeable on the subject of these monitors. Anyhow, my last question to him was in regards to what type of environment these monitors came out of and such... this was his reply

"These units (we have four in stock) were backup units used in an
engineering firm that went out of business. I've tested and
calibrated all these units, then inspected the inside, and they
have very litle use. The luminance (how much emission or "juice"
is left in the tube) tested at 81 (zero being brand new to 255
being washed out) which is an indication that the tube has
probably less than 1,000 hours of use, if that. The best one
tested at 50.

Please note that all of our monitors are Grade A+ with FLAWLESS
screens, fully Sony factory calibrated and adjusted; and
absolutely free of functional issues. Also, we do not and will not
sell ever any refurbished and/or reconditioned monitors. Please
look at my feedback and purchase with confidence. "

My question is does this sound legit? Can the measure of luminance really let you know the usage of a CRT? Like I said, he has been very upfront and nice to me and I have seen him sell CRT's before on EBay with great satisfaction from his customers so I am 99% sure this guy is legit...

What do you guys think? I have personally been using a FW-900 since March of this year... I have tried multiple IPS LCD's with ZERO satisfaction compared to FW-900's! And now, with LCD's using this absurd Wide Gamut BS, they are just UGLY as all get out when it comes to colors in applications that don't support them... namely GAMES!

I just recently purchased the new DoubleSight 265W LCD. For Windows and surfing it is great... for gaming it is HORRENDOUS!!! The input lag is EXTREMELY noticeable compared to my FW-900 and the colors are so FUGLY I can't stand it!!!

Anyhow, I want an A+ FW-900 CRT!!! My current FW-900 has been extremely good to me especially considering I salvaged it from a recycle place... however, I really want to have a second one around in the event that mine ever dies on me...

FW-900 is still the best choice for gaming... no LCD can touch it!
Click to expand...

YES... I am legit!

Long Lives the GDM-FW900!!!

Sincerely,

Luis G.
Unkle Vito!
 
christpunchersg said:
A very dark day for me.

My beloved bright and lovely FW900 started not booting up a few months back. After some time I brought to the local Sony Service center here in Canada and today the verdict is that the actual tube itself has shorted. They told me to get it fixed it would need a tube replacement which runs at around $3000.00...

Looks like I have to find another FW900. There's one on ebay right now going for $100 from LA. The guy says it's Grade A+ and been fully recalibrated by Sony. I might have to pony up the big bucks as a quality LCD would run me around 600 to 700 anyhow. And I'm not fully ready to "settle" for TFTs just yet.

Long live these remaining FW900s. I would imagine the head of large studios would be able to get these units through their private sources very easily instead of having to hunt them down via Ebay and local channels.
Click to expand...

I am the guy in LA that sells GDM-FW900 Grade A+ fully calibrated and adjusted to Sony factory standards, and services Sony monitors.

About your unit and the problem you are experiencing: the short can be easily removed with a Sencore CR7000 Beamrite or a CR70. No need to replace the tube, unless the tube is dim, or has faulty guns (strong green, red, blue, yellow or magenta cast).

Hope this helps...

Sincerely,

Luis G.
Unkle Vito!
 
Hurin said:
Haven't taken part in this thread in a while. . . but feeling a bit paranoid because I was experimenting with "Image Restoration" today to see how it is affected by increased Contrast and Brightness at the time that it is activated (some have reported that using it with brightness set higher than usual can cure green tinge, etc.).

Then, after using "Image Restoration" for perhaps the sixth time, I suddenly had this vague recollection of someone warning us that "Image Restoration" can damage the monitor if used too often. . . or that it wears it out. . . or that the monitor only has a finite number of "Image Restoration" uses. . . something like that.

Searched this thread. But it's too long and I'm not sure if I missed the reference. I'm probably just being paranoid. But this monitor is pretty darn precious to me and I'd hate for it to die prematurely. Anyone have any recollection of anything like this?
Click to expand...

I am the guy that everyone talks about here in the Forum... The guy in LA that sells GDM-FW900, Grade A+ with FLAWLESS screens, fully calibrated and adjusted to Sony factory specs, and services Sony monitors.

Provided that your unit does not have a strong color cast (pronounced green, blue, red, yellow or magenta cast), your monitor needs white point balance calibration & adjustment. Once this procedure is done correctly, your unit will have the default D50, D65, D93 and sRGB color space adjusted to factory standard and you'll see true black & gray levels, along with good color purity. The G2 will be adjusted as a part of the process, and the overbrigthness will be corrected.

Unfortunately, when the EEPROM (which stores all the unit's image & display parameters) is corrupted, the image restore feature will not fix the problem no matter how many times you hit the button.

Hope this helps...

Sincerely,

Luis G.
Unkle Vito!
 
Not to piss in your thread but I've read that in most cases it takes 5 to 10 mins for the colours to kick in etc. Some also have complained about scratches and other odd issues. Also most bitching about resolutions for games and movies-- Not to mention this thing weighs in almost 100 pounds!!?? Did I fall of the turnip truck here or what? Why buy a friggen CRT when you can get a LCD?
 
maleficarus said:
Not to piss in your thread but I've read that in most cases it takes 5 to 10 mins for the colours to kick in etc. Some also have complained about scratches and other odd issues. Also most bitching about resolutions for games and movies-- Not to mention this thing weighs in almost 100 pounds!!?? Did I fall of the turnip truck here or what? Why buy a friggen CRT when you can get a LCD?
Click to expand...
It does take a while to warm up, but can be used just normally during warmup, so that never really bothered me. Scratches you're talking about are scratches in anti-glare filter, glass itself is impossible to harm or scratch, some also have removed anti-glare. Imagine what a scratch like that would to to a LCD? Pretty much destroy it permanently. Nothing wrong with resolutions, only that there are too many options.

You also must balance between refresh rate and resolution, since higher you go, less refresh rate you get. Many have CRTs just for high refresh rate for fps gaming. With LCD problem never exists, since there's only one native resolution and refresh rate (lower than any crt).

I paid 15€ for this and it's made in 2003. Still in very good condition. I could consider selling it for 400€, no less, and that's only because I'd still have one left. I could have bought dozen LCDs and not been happy with a single one of them, so I thought better not to bother.
 
For goodness sakes just upgrade to an LCD already! I think I've been on this forum since 2005 and I remember reading this thread back then (I THINK, lol :rolleyes:)
 
PvtChurch said:
Anyone using the HDFury with their FW900? I'm looking into purchasing one of these and using an HDFury to connect my 360 and PS3 but I've heard they exhibit issues like stretching the image. Something about sync information. If your using an HDFury I'm curious to know how well it's working for you and if there are any issues.

Edit: Just thought of another question: Can either of this monitor's inputs accept a component signal? I ask because I have one device I need to connect to it where my only option is component. So I wondered if I connected said device's component cable to a VGA adapter or 5BNC adapter if the monitor would recognize the signal. I'd really prefer not to dole out $60 for a Component to VGA transcoder since I'm already paying $60 for an HDFury so I can connect my HDMI devices.
Click to expand...

I've had my PS3 hooked up to 2 different FW900's via the HDFury and i had the same results with both. 720p was fine, but 1080p didn't work too well. The image was slightly distorted and it was so far off to the left, that when i moved it to the right via monitor controls to get it centered, i found that part of the image was cut off. It was almost like the edge on the left was folded under and when i would move it to the right far enough so that the folding went away, then it would fold under on the right side.

But again, 720p worked fine for me and someone on the HDFury forum said his FW900 worked fine with 1080p.

Sadly i can't test the Component question for you as both of my FW900's refuse to power up anymore. Sad days :(
 
I3eyond said:
For goodness sakes just upgrade to an LCD already! I think I've been on this forum since 2005 and I remember reading this thread back then (I THINK, lol :rolleyes:)
Click to expand...
show me an LCD that doesn't suck and I will gladly do so. oops, you can't, they all suck and they always will. the FW900 isn't going anywhere until FED or OLED are available and probably not until they are affordable.
 
shiznit said:
show me an LCD that doesn't suck and I will gladly do so. oops, you can't, they all suck and they always will. the FW900 isn't going anywhere until FED or OLED are available and probably not until they are affordable.
Click to expand...

qft. the people that say "You need an LCD!" have no clue...
ill be a sad sad man the day my FW900 dies. :(
 
It's really quite amazing to read this thread and see how passionate you guys are about this monitor. I'm not bashing you by any means, I almost see ya'll as my audiophile equivalent. Take my dual monitor setup: I sacrificed quality to have two 22" panels so I could be more productive. Do I care about the uniformity and how the outline of one of my monitors is literally all backlight? Nope. (LOL :p .. Granted, I'm in the process of choosing a 46" LCD and such things are IMPORTANT to me, but the price difference is a lot greater.) My only regret with the monitors I have are they aren't the sharpest, most colorful panels. But then again, that's aside the point. I'm an audiophile, and you guys are bothered by ghosting and whatever other reasons you find it necessary to put a 90-some pound behemoth on your desks, LOL :p

It's pretty cool though seeing people still being so anti-LCD. In fact, I had forgotten about the FW900 users. Obviously, thin is in; you can't even buy a CRT for the most part anymore. It'll be cool when I have kids knowing about a community like you FW900 lovers. Thanks! :D
 
I3eyond said:
It's really quite amazing to read this thread and see how passionate you guys are about this monitor. I'm not bashing you by any means, I almost see ya'll as my audiophile equivalent. Take my dual monitor setup: I sacrificed quality to have two 22" panels so I could be more productive. Do I care about the uniformity and how the outline of one of my monitors is literally all backlight? Nope. My only regret with the monitors I have are they aren't the sharpest, most colorful panels. But then again, that's aside the point. I'm an audiophile, and you guys are bothered by ghosting and whatever other reasons you find it necessary to put a 90-some pound behemoth on your desks, LOL :p

It's pretty cool though seeing people still being so anti-LCD. In fact, I had forgotten about the FW900 users. Obviously, thin is in; you can't even buy a CRT for the most part anymore. It'll be cool when I have kids knowing about a community like you FW900 lovers. Thanks! :D
Click to expand...


:D Have you had the chance to use an FW900?
 
Haste266 said:
:D Have you had the chance to use an FW900?
Click to expand...

No, I've never even seen one in person. Who knows, maybe the display would win me over if I saw it. I remember back when I was debating whether or not to go LCD, mainly because of gaming. In fact, if I dug through my old posts on here I could find myself trying to figure out what I really wanted to do.
 
Well I refuse to game on LCD, period. The blur kills my eyes (even the latest "2ms" stuff, what a load of crap LCD specs are...), 60hz refresh is a joke, native resolutions suck, 6 bit panel dithering is ugly, and the new wide gamut stuff is just plain retarded.

I do use my old Hyundai L90D+ 19'' LCD as a secondary for text based apps though, gotta love TN for text clarity.

edit: just to show you how hardcore this monitor is, I had to prop up my desk with a 2x4'' support beam or it would crash right through it. It takes 20 minutes to fully warm up and reach optimal color and brightness levels. My friends think I'm crazy but I couldn't care less, being able to play CS:S at 1280x800@140hz is pure pc gaming heaven.
 
shiznit said:
edit: just to show you how hardcore this monitor is, I had to prop up my desk with a 2x4'' support beam or it would crash right through it. It takes 20 minutes to fully warm up and reach optimal color and brightness levels. My friends think I'm crazy but I couldn't care less, being able to play CS:S at 1280x800@140hz is pure pc gaming heaven.
Click to expand...

I don't think the monitor is the hardcore one here...lol :p
 
I3eyond said:
I don't think the monitor is the hardcore one here...lol :p
Click to expand...
looks like I'm in the right place then. btw, why would would ever get a 46'' LCD when 42-50'' plasmas cost the same and are so much better? I got my Panny 42pz80 for $800 and I couldn't be happier, zero image retention (I'm not actively looking for it though), zero blur (it almost feels like a CRT), zero input lag (I hooked it up to the pc along the FW900 in clone mode and ran a stopwatch program), amazing colors, true black, no motion artifacts, at least 10x the contrast of LCD (unless you count that dynamic bullshit they are pushing now), the list goes on and they have a 46'' and a 50'' model. Nothing short of a 800u or a Pioneer Kuro will beat it but now we are talking $2000+.
 
shiznit said:
looks like I'm in the right place then. btw, why would would ever get a 46'' LCD when 42-50'' plasmas cost the same and are so much better? I got my Panny 42pz80 for $800 and I couldn't be happier, zero image retention (I'm not actively looking for it though), zero blur (it almost feels like a CRT), zero input lag (I hooked it up to the pc along the FW900 in clone mode and ran a stopwatch program), amazing colors, true black, no motion artifacts, at least 10x the contrast of LCD (unless you count that dynamic bullshit they are pushing now), the list goes on and they have a 46'' and a 50'' model. Nothing short of a 800u or a Pioneer Kuro will beat it but now we are talking $2000+.
Click to expand...

Very bright lighting where the TV is going?
 
LAGRUNAUER said:
The short can be easily removed with a Sencore CR7000 Beamrite or a CR70. No need to replace the tube, unless the tube is dim.

Hope this helps...

Sincerely,

Luis G.
Unkle Vito!
Click to expand...

back in april i bought one of these trinitron fw900, it worked great and was an awesome picture for a week, then something shorted out and it won't turn on at all, only an orange light on the power button.

when i tried to turn it on there was a "buzzing, electric arcing" sound, i investigated and saw that everytime i would unplug the power, then plug the power back in and try to turn on the monitor the "buzzing electric arcing" sound was indeed, from what i could see, arcing electricity inside the monitor's plastic chasis, on the upper part of the monitor's metal housing or whatever that is.

if you're not following me on my description, i could try to make a video of it.

is this something that is fixable? or is the monitor just a 100 pound paper weight now? thanks for help from anyone.
 
Just got back from a 60 day trip backpacking Europe to find my FW900 is having the same issue. To get it working, I had to change the input to input 2, turn it on, then change it back to input 1. I'm going to leave it on for a week and see if it fixes it. There's no way I'm replacing this FW900 with anything else besides a new FW900 if it comes down to it. Let me know if it works!
 
Apologies if this has been asked already, but I can't think what wording would return a search result.

The top of my screen, roughly half an inch, is being pulled slightly from left to right in a concave effect. It only appears to happen when running in anything above non-standard hz in any given resolution, using powerstrip. By conservative estimates, it has seen about 15,000 hours of usage. Is there anything that can be done, or should I expect it to get worse?
 
I honestly don't get this thread. This was a great monitor, but hell, things change. OLED tv and LED lcd are just as good if not better.

Not trying to thread crap, but jeez, give your back a rest!
 
Zellio2009 said:
I honestly don't get this thread. This was a great monitor, but hell, things change. OLED tv and LED lcd are just as good if not better.

Not trying to thread crap, but jeez, give your back a rest!
Click to expand...

Sony's 11" OLED for $2,500? A 40" or more LED backed LCD TV with local dimming? (Assume you mean LED backlighting with local dimming as nothing without would be competitive against a CRT inch for inch...) These two choices might not be for everyone. Especially as you'd want to have at least two, if not three or more, of the Sonys, to try to get enough computer real estate...
 
Are these things still completely repairable? Can you still get replacement tubes?
 
qz33 said:
Can you still get replacement tubes?
Click to expand...
It's been out of stock forever but I just checked and surprisingly it looks like the answer is yes. If you bought one today, Sony has a GDM-FW900 tube in stock for $1555. After labor and shipping you would probably be looking at least $1800+ though, which is around what it would cost if you bought the monitor new when it was first released.
 
So what resolutions are people using for normal desktop use?

im in 2304x1440@79hz after i just realized i can see two pages of a document side by side in microsoft word. less scrolling ftw!

with the windows sidebar open also... :D

screenie!
 
Cyberbeing said:
It's been out of stock forever but I just checked and surprisingly it looks like the answer is yes. If you bought one today, Sony has a GDM-FW900 tube in stock for $1555. After labor and shipping you would probably be looking at least $1800+ though, which is around what it would cost if you bought the monitor new when it was first released.
Click to expand...

I think the monitor was at first $2500 from Sony. (And that AccurateIT was selling new SGI labelled stock at about that price in 2005. http://www.accurateit.com/details.asp?iid=99 Unless one was lucky enough to stumble on their initial lower price, before they fully realized what they had...)
 
Haste266 said:
So what resolutions are people using for normal desktop use?

im in 2304x1440@79hz after i just realized i can see two pages of a document side by side in microsoft word. less scrolling ftw!

with the windows sidebar open also... :D

screenie!
Click to expand...

I always used 1600 by 1024 so as to get sharper text...

(At 100Hz.)
 
can someone explain to me how i am able to watch blu-ray movies on my fw900 without any sort of device(like hd fury) in between them?

i do have a 42" lcd hooked up to my video card and will be using that to view movies from my pc also.

i just got the drive yesterday and bought Arcsoft Totalmedia Theatre from their website...somehow its bypassing hdcp? i really have no clue because i fully expected not to be able to watch movies on this screen.

windows vista aero does not work while a movie is playing but the software seems to switch it back and forth fairly smoothly.
 
I've been trying to get my FW900 to work for quite a while now. On the Desktop I can get all resolutions I want and all refreshrates I want, but in games the maximum is 1600x1200. No 16:10 resolutions at all are available.
I has to be the driver because those resolutions were selectable with my previous monitor.

Now I read that some people here have modified their driver so it works for Vista (Vista 64 in my case). Could one of you be so kind and post that driver, or at least tell me how to edit it?
Right now I am using a generic driver.
Thank you.
 
I'm using 1280x800 at 140hz. I find the lower resolution much easier on the eyes.

The concave issue I mention above turned out to be something powerstrip was doing. After some googling I found a way to add custom resolutions/refresh rates to the ATI CCC (windows XP) with a relatively simple regedit.

1280_800_140.png
 
Delissa said:
I've been trying to get my FW900 to work for quite a while now. On the Desktop I can get all resolutions I want and all refreshrates I want, but in games the maximum is 1600x1200. No 16:10 resolutions at all are available.
I has to be the driver because those resolutions were selectable with my previous monitor.

Now I read that some people here have modified their driver so it works for Vista (Vista 64 in my case). Could one of you be so kind and post that driver, or at least tell me how to edit it?
Right now I am using a generic driver.
Thank you.
Click to expand...

The monitor .inf driver is located here: http://esupport.sony.com/perl/swu-download.pl?mdl=GDMFW900&upd_id=1219&os_id=7. Of course there is not a specific driver for Vista (since this monitor is so old) but it will work.

However you shouldn't need it. Vista 64 should natively recognize your monitor properly. You can verify this by going to Device Manager>Monitors and you should see "SONY GDM-FW900". Make sure you're running the latest video drivers for your platform. I'm running Vista 64 (w/ nVidia 8800 GTX driver 180.48) with my FW900, and I have no problems selecting widescreen resolutions in games. Also make sure your games are patched to their latest respective versions.

HB
 
HenryBravo said:
The monitor .inf driver is located here: http://esupport.sony.com/perl/swu-download.pl?mdl=GDMFW900&upd_id=1219&os_id=7. Of course there is not a specific driver for Vista (since this monitor is so old) but it will work.

However you shouldn't need it. Vista 64 should natively recognize your monitor properly. You can verify this by going to Device Manager>Monitors and you should see "SONY GDM-FW900". Make sure you're running the latest video drivers for your platform. I'm running Vista 64 (w/ nVidia 8800 GTX driver 180.48) with my FW900, and I have no problems selecting widescreen resolutions in games. Also make sure your games are patched to their latest respective versions.

HB
Click to expand...

Nope. I only have "Non-PnP-Monitor". I already tried reinstalling it, but it wont recognize it as the monitor it is.
The Sony driver wont work either. It will say that a working driver is already installed and wont install the Sony driver.
I have the newest non-beta driver and also the games are all patched.
 
PowerStrip? (I don't know about Vista, still using XP.)

Only other note is to use the actual dimensions of the viewable area when creating resolutions. (It's not really a 16:10 monitor...not quite that wide...)
 
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