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

Shpati said:
When I lurked this thread, I remember there was a list of similar models and brands of this 24 inch wide screen monitor, as well as standard 4:3 versions. Does anyone have this?

btw, to my understanding the CRTs like the SGI 21 inch has a 85 refresh rate at the highest resolution. But the wide screen FW900 actually has a 100 refresh rate?
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That's weird. As far as I know it's the same electronics, minus the difference between the video inputs. I believe there are three, maybe four versions of the FW900 (not including the Sony one itself):

1. HP A7217A
2. Sun Microsystems GDM-90W10
3. SGI GDM-FW9011
(4?) IBM?
 
hello i bought a fw-900 about 10 years ago and haven't used it recently. I plugged it back in and it kinda did a jump and now it's just showing green lines displaying on it. Does anyone have any ideas what i could do? If not i could put it up for sale if someone wants it and knows how to do a quick service on it.
 
oldmanbal said:
hello i bought a fw-900 about 10 years ago and haven't used it recently. I plugged it back in and it kinda did a jump and now it's just showing green lines displaying on it. Does anyone have any ideas what i could do? If not i could put it up for sale if someone wants it and knows how to do a quick service on it.
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could you take a picture? when was the last time you used it and was it okay then?
 
Shpati said:
Whoops. Meant to basically ask if a gdm-5411 sgi standard 4:3 has the same or different refresh rate than a widescreen GDM-FW9011
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No clue - search for the service manuals. I would be willing to be that they'r either the same or very similar to one another though. What particular resolution/refresh rate combo are you interested in?
 
jbltecnicspro said:
No clue - search for the service manuals. I would be willing to be that they'r either the same or very similar to one another though. What particular resolution/refresh rate combo are you interested in?
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they're completely diff monitors - why would you think they're the same?
 
jbltecnicspro said:
No clue - search for the service manuals. I would be willing to be that they'r either the same or very similar to one another though. What particular resolution/refresh rate combo are you interested in?
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Yea. I will keep looking, but I get something every time between 72-90 hz. I plan on using 1600x1200 on a 21 inch. 1920x1200 on a 24 inch wide screen.

I think I am going to go with a 21" CRT. They are easier to find. You can even find some brand new for 200-400.

The 24" Wide Screen looks marvelous. It's dream monitor. But to find one in decent shape or decently calibrated and refurbished is pretty hard. Especially if you need one shipped to you.
 
flod said:
could you take a picture? when was the last time you used it and was it okay then?
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Yeah, I'll take a pic and post it later today. The monitor had literally been in perfect working order, it was starting to lose some of the bightness/contrast of a new crt, but still looked amazing. I had kept it because after buying lcd/led monitors i was blow away by how shitty they looked / the lag / the refresh, and this was with everything from tn panels to top of the line ips going from 24" up to 30".

All i see on ebay are 2 of these right now for about 700$ and i don't want to drop that on another one of these if i can get this one working again.

(i'm gonna break my god damn back carrying this up from my basement. . .)
 
I remember when we put my LG 32 inch CRT HDTV upstairs. We ramped up the stairs and wheeled it up there. :)
 
make me weep when i just plugged this in and saw what state it was in. . .you all know the feeling. When you have spiderwebs of cracks all over your 800$ smartphone and no insurance and keep using it until the screen stops responding anymore. pics in a few
 
Alright here's the entire story.
Bought monitor back in 2004
Monitor worked perfectly for entire life not a single scratch or mark on the glass, the pics only show some smudge marks from carrying it up from my basement. I had used it without issue for years and recently i was simply browsing a website when some sort of flash happened on the screen and now it has green bar type lines and the screen is a greenish hue. When i plug it in, I can see my screen behind the lines/green for a few seconds then it powers back into standby mode. Below is a timeline of pics from before plugging in and then 3 pictures in a row before it powers itself back into standby mode. Any help and/or ideas would be much appreciated!

seconds before plugging in vga addapter:
http://postimg.org/image/6cj46f7cf/

Immediate power on of screen when plugged in (my camera didn't catch the background but you can see my entire background behind the lines and greenish hue of the screen. Also the entire screen has the lines across it and the greenish color on top of my desktop view but because of the refresh rate and high speed camera you can only see portions of it in each photo. These were taken 3 in a row in a matter of seconds before it went back to standby):
1
http://postimg.org/image/nc35bxzr7/
2
http://postimg.org/image/io5dv4vn7/
3
http://postimg.org/image/s2wrx2g4r/n

power off:
4
http://postimg.org/image/z490rhu1n/

Let me know what you think, can it rise from the grave?
 
oldmanbal said:
Yeah, I'll take a pic and post it later today. The monitor had literally been in perfect working order, it was starting to lose some of the bightness/contrast of a new crt, but still looked amazing. I had kept it because after buying lcd/led monitors i was blow away by how shitty they looked / the lag / the refresh, and this was with everything from tn panels to top of the line ips going from 24" up to 30".

All i see on ebay are 2 of these right now for about 700$ and i don't want to drop that on another one of these if i can get this one working again.

(i'm gonna break my god damn back carrying this up from my basement. . .)
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those 700 ones are really overpriced for their conditions. if you look around on craigslist, occasionally someone will post a fw900 for a price of $250-400

don't worry if im 140lb and i can carry it to my third floor apartment, so can you :p
 
when it goes standby after plugging in vga adapter post showing my desktop behind the issue, the yellow light blinks on and off in 1 second intervals fyi
 
Shpati said:
Yea. I will keep looking, but I get something every time between 72-90 hz. I plan on using 1600x1200 on a 21 inch. 1920x1200 on a 24 inch wide screen.

I think I am going to go with a 21" CRT. They are easier to find. You can even find some brand new for 200-400.

The 24" Wide Screen looks marvelous. It's dream monitor. But to find one in decent shape or decently calibrated and refurbished is pretty hard. Especially if you need one shipped to you.
Click to expand...


We have Grade A+ fully calibrated and adjusted units, studio ready...

PM me for more info...

Unkle Vito!
 
oldmanbal said:
Yeah, I'll take a pic and post it later today. The monitor had literally been in perfect working order, it was starting to lose some of the bightness/contrast of a new crt, but still looked amazing. I had kept it because after buying lcd/led monitors i was blow away by how shitty they looked / the lag / the refresh, and this was with everything from tn panels to top of the line ips going from 24" up to 30".

All i see on ebay are 2 of these right now for about 700$ and i don't want to drop that on another one of these if i can get this one working again.

We have Grade A+ fully calibrated and adjusted units, studio ready...

PM me for more info...

Unkle Vito!
Click to expand...
 
flod said:
those 700 ones are really overpriced for their conditions. if you look around on craigslist, occasionally someone will post a fw900 for a price of $250-400

don't worry if im 140lb and i can carry it to my third floor apartment, so can you :p
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I said before and I say it again... "You'll get what you pay for.. " There is no way around it...

Unkle Vito!
 
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flod said:
remember this anyone? basically my fw900 seemed to be going down the same path as these:
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/64-di...splays/1403043-bright-red-flashes-my-crt.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w_MHrvtaxQ

everyday when i booted it up it would flash red once or twice. a few weeks later there would be 5-6 red flashes, and at one point it got as bad as what was shown in that youtube video above but still managed to boot when i tried a second time. anyway i had given up hope and decided to grab a cpd-g520p from craigslist, which turned out to be very lightly used and in near flawless condition. so anyway i used the g520p exclusively for a month or two and didn't use the fw900 at all.

so tonight i got curious and wondered how bad the red flashes would be if i turned it on now. from previous experience, the longer i wait between using the monitor, the more red flashes there would be. so i was expecting it to completely shit out, and i grabbed my phone to record what was going to happen, in anticipation of recording something similar to that youtube video. but nooooooo the thing booted up and there was not a single red flash :eek: the initial black level wasn't even that bad either; it took only like 10min or so for it to go down to normal levels. i have no idea what the hell happened... maybe it fixed itself... maybe it's because the temperature is lower now... maybe it's because i'm running it from my laptop... or maybe it's still half dead and still gonna flash red.

now if only the focus near the sides were also fixed....
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fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

moved fw900 to desk today. two brief red flashes. maybe it just doesnt like my desk
 
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spacediver said:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/221587264535
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This piece of equipment is not easy to use and if used improperly it will render your monitor unusable and useless with irreversible damage.

For those of you considering getting a CR-70 or a CR-7000, please make absolutely sure that you know what you are doing before you attempt to use them in your units... Familiarize yourself with the processes and functions of the unit, and learn how to select the proper tube, the settings and parameters, and how to connect the unit to the tube.

UV!
 
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flod said:
fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

moved fw900 to desk today. two brief red flashes. maybe it just doesnt like my desk
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3 flashes tonight.
during one or two of them the image expanded.
 
yea so far it's functionally fine but i feel it's going down the same path as it was last time :p
 
If it turns out its a replaceable component that is damaged, I might be able to help you out. I have a FW900 that doesn't power up - I've kept it for spare parts. If it turns out the the component you need is functioning properly on my unit, then I can attempt to extract it and send it to you. Perhaps Vito could offer insight into what component it might be.
 
thanks :D or maybe i should send you my fw900's power supply if that would fix your problem

my fw900 has two other issues that i'm unhappy about: focus near sides and color uniformity (not landing related). it's still completely fine for watching videos/gaming but for desktop work and reading text it's less than ideal.
 
I think my focus is ok, but I do have uniformity issues. subtle patches of discoloration that are noticeable with a white screen. When I get around to it, got some experiments to try.
 
No.. would be hard to do unless I do measurements right before and after removing the AG, and I only have one unit with AG on and I don't want to remove that one :p - you got any other ideas on how to go about that?

I do intend, at some point, to measure how the AG affects the amount of halo due to internal light reflections, though.
 
spacediver said:
you got any other ideas on how to go about that?
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rig a flashlight to a dtp94 while being careful that no direct reflections hit the sensor.

for example if without the ag you measure 10nits and with it the rig measures 2.5nits, that means that the film transmits 50% of light, because light from the flashlight goes through the film twice

ill try on my two monitors later... but i'm not sure that the phosphor layer on the fw900 and g520p are identically reflective.
 
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flod said:
rig a flashlight to a dtp94 while being careful that no direct reflections hit the sensor.

for example if without the ag you measure 10nits and with it the rig measures 2.5nits, that means that the film transmits 50% of light, because light from the flashlight goes through the film twice

ill try on my two monitors later... but i'm not sure that the phosphor layer on the fw900 and g520p are identically reflective.
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nice idea, although it assumes that the film is "symmetric" in its transmittance (I think it probably is based on my own memory of what it looked like when I removed it, but I'm not certain - any ideas?).
 
all films are symmetric in the sense that the amount of light going through it is affected equally.

but the system isn't perfectly symmetric because the light from the flashlight isn't the same as the light reflected from the phosphor layer.

i.e. light from the flashlight goes through the film through an angle, because the flashlight and the sensor are displaced a bit. whereas the reflected light off the phosphors go through the film at nearly 90 degrees.

like

--------------------phosphor layer
..../|
.../.|
../..|
./...|
/....|
f s

where f=flashlight,s=sensor of dtp94 or something

also the spectrums are different, you can easily tell that the phosphor has a slight green tint to it.

so it's only a really rough method... maybe 10% accuracy
 
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I meant symmetric in the sense that transmittance is the same regardless of which way you flip the film. So a one way window, for example, wouldn't be symmetric in this sense.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-way_mirror

a one way window will work the same if you flip it. the reason it's "one-way" is that the system in which it is used is not symmetric. namely one side is illuminated and the other isn't. if you're looking from the illuminated side, you see mainly your own reflection because the other side is not illuminated. if you're looking from the dark side, you can see the little amount of light transmitted through the window because you don't see your own reflections

it's mathematically/physically impossible for a film to transmit more or less light if you flip it.
 
wow, I'd've never guessed that, thanks for learning me :)

I've got a lot on my plate over next couple weeks - am hoping to revisit all this light measurement hobby stuff over the xmas break. I know it won't take long to take the measurements, but I just can't muster up the will to set everything up right now (unless you have a pressing need to know, in which case I could be motivated).
 
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