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

Thank you for the feedback.

As I reply, I'm currenlty looking at a monitor that has been dead since 2006. I've got it up in running, thanks to a doner power supply. But, the convergance extremely out of whack. Here goes a round with dconv to see how far that will get me *bites fingernails*
 
W00t W00t. My pristine (once dead) FW900 is back with a vengance. I ran the Dynamic convergence function in windas. Against the guide's advice (the guide on this thread's first page), and went ahead and had windas reset the initial values (all sliders to 127). Bada-bing. excellent convergance. (will require minor tweaking) I'm friggin extatic.
 
Rock&Roll said:
I too subscribe to the idea that if you run one of these, you leave it run for a long time. It doesn't waste that much electricity.
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fw900 draws 170watts even just sitting with a mostly blank desktop background. Direct read from kill-a-watt. It's huge. If you leave for more than a few hours, shut it down.
 
OK someone told me to search the thread for advice on how to sand down the bezel and paint it but I can't find anything. I've used the search function and it just turned up the posts with my question and the guy telling me to search lol. I figure a medium grit paper then fine grit then maybe a primer but what would be a nice paint for this screen? My gf's dad said to use model airplane paint but I don't want it all shiny. Anybody paint theirs and could give me a couple pointers?
 
Does anyone think that using the 'Input' selector switch is a good way to turn off and on these monitors? (assuming you don't have anything connected through the second Dispaly input). At least that's how i turn mine on and off. And I don't think it uses the Degaussing coil because it doesn't make that loud buzzing noise when you turn on the monitor with the normal Power button.
 
DragonDude said:
Does anyone think that using the 'Input' selector switch is a good way to turn off and on these monitors? (assuming you don't have anything connected through the second Dispaly input). At least that's how i turn mine on and off. And I don't think it uses the Degaussing coil because it doesn't make that loud buzzing noise when you turn on the monitor with the normal Power button.
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The degaussing coil is completely safe. When you turn on the monitor it only degauss while there is no image on screen and thusly (this is what I was told my a technician) it doesn't wear down the monitor.

The loud buzzing noise is normal AFAIK. It's the same thing you hear when you turn on the tv, shouldn't wear down the unit.

I don't think switching the input actually turns it off, it just goes into standby mode (the orange led would still be there).
 
I typically only used the power switch on my GDM-F520s when I went away for vacation. The rest of the time I left it to VESA blanking after something like 1 hour.

How the hell does degaussing when there's nothing displayed wear the monitor less? Sounds like a load of crap to me.

Determining how to treat high end CRTs is a balance between component wear from on-time and component wear from cycling. You don't want to turn these things on and off too often, nor do you want to leave them on constantly if they aren't actually in use "making money" (remember these are pro monitors).

A CRT displaying a blank image may not wear the phosphors, but the high voltage and the guns are still running. Usually in this state carbon will begin to deposit in the gun area and performance will degrade. No matter what you do it is wearing out if it's on - blank or otherwise. It is arguably WORSE to leave it on with a blank screen than to run a screen blanker which displays something so that electrons are emitted by the guns. I usually used the windows logo mode - not much displayed, lots of black space, but not so black that there would be a carbon build up problem. (as an aside, those modes also don't require high clock 3D mode to operate so adjustable clock GPUs can stay low clocked while idle).

I think somewhere between 1-2h away from the keyboard is a reasonable sweet spot for VESA powering down high end CRTs. They waste power, make lots of heat, and wear out whenever they're on. Anything shorter than that and you're cycling the high voltage and other components too often from coming and going, IMO.
 
Im still on the fence if of weather or not turning on the monitor with the Power button, vs. using the Input switch is better. My monitor acts up when i used it, and when I tried experimenting with the Input selector it didnt act up as much. Idk, maybe its just some coincidence.
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If only Sony continued to make these. . . (and make them smaller, and cheaper . . .)



 
Yeah they were something like that. But you get what you pay for. ;)

I still wish they had made a smaller and cheaper one.
 
Blue Fox said:
That defeated the whole point of the Qualia line.
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Ah ok, i see im sending the wrong signals to everyone. My main point was that *if* the FW900 had a successor, it should have looked like the pictures I posted, seeing that Sony had designed it, and it was created around when the FW900 was discontinued.
 
I think my beloved FW900 is on its way out :(. A couple days ago, it randomly flashed bright green very briefly, and then had a pink tint to it that faded away eventually. A little while later it happened again, and it has since happened several more times. It's only done it in the middle of use once or twice today, but it still consistently happens every time I turn it on.

Guess I should start looking at 24" LCDs.
 
Indolentron said:
I think my beloved FW900 is on its way out :(. A couple days ago, it randomly flashed bright green very briefly, and then had a pink tint to it that faded away eventually. A little while later it happened again, and it has since happened several more times. It's only done it in the middle of use once or twice today, but it still consistently happens every time I turn it on.

Guess I should start looking at 24" LCDs.
Click to expand...

Look to spend about 1k to get quality that won't make you want to kick a puppy.
 
DragonDude said:
Im still on the fence if of weather or not turning on the monitor with the Power button, vs. using the Input switch is better. My monitor acts up when i used it, and when I tried experimenting with the Input selector it didnt act up as much. Idk, maybe its just some coincidence.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~





If only Sony continued to make these. . . (and make them smaller, and cheaper . . .)



Click to expand...

Wow, wtf is that? Is it "better" than the FW900?
 
christpunchersg said:
Wow, wtf is that? Is it "better" than the FW900?
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It is subjective. Sony put a lot more money into it, but it was aimed to be a high end TV rather than a computer monitor. Don't get your hopes up either way. Anything Qualia is extremely rare and whoever has one is either not going to part with theirs or will want a rather large amount of money for it (like I mentioned, when it came out in 2003, it cost $11000). I personally wouldn't pass one up for a reasonable price, but you'll have a very hard time finding one (I don't think that model was released outside of Japan).
 
Rock&Roll said:
W00t W00t. My pristine (once dead) FW900 is back with a vengance. I ran the Dynamic convergence function in windas. Against the guide's advice (the guide on this thread's first page), and went ahead and had windas reset the initial values (all sliders to 127). Bada-bing. excellent convergance. (will require minor tweaking) I'm friggin extatic.
Click to expand...

I've got a dead FW900 i'd like to revive. Any details you can provide to make that happen? Thanks!
 
Blue Fox said:
It is subjective. Sony put a lot more money into it, but it was aimed to be a high end TV rather than a computer monitor. Don't get your hopes up either way. Anything Qualia is extremely rare and whoever has one is either not going to part with theirs or will want a rather large amount of money for it (like I mentioned, when it came out in 2003, it cost $11000). I personally wouldn't pass one up for a reasonable price, but you'll have a very hard time finding one (I don't think that model was released outside of Japan).
Click to expand...

Yeah I couldn't find the specs for it. I guess it wasn't meant to compete against the FW900 for PC purposes, probably was only meant to be a really nice TV. $11,000 could feed an entire tribe of people in very poor countries for years.
 
dopee123 said:
I've got a dead FW900 i'd like to revive. Any details you can provide to make that happen? Thanks!
Click to expand...

That depends on what's making your FW900 dead. Mine acted as if it were going to turn on. The electron generating vacuum tube at the back of the picture tube would light up. But the degauss circuit would never engage, and no picture would ever show up. I was able to read the "No PW Supply" error code in windas. I just needed to put a new power-supply board in mine to get it running again.


So, first things first. I would try to find some error codes in WinDAS.

Then, after setting for a few years, something had the convergence 5-miles off. After doing an initial value rest, I spend about 5 hours doing fine dynamic convergence adjustments until I got it damn near perfect everywhere on the screen.

I do have one last thing I need to do. And it's not a major deal. But I need to reset the color balance on the thing. Has anyone seen a guide for going through the White Balance adjustments in windas? I need to get rid of a red overtone at 9300k temp. Everything I tried in windas caused more issues than it helped. For instance, after going through the procedure, I would get good color balance. But when displaying really bright colors, the monitor would visibly dim. Eventually I gave up and went back to my DAT with fixed convergence.
 
R&R: You should be able to everything you need for colour balance with the OSD controls in "advanced" or "expert" colour temperature mode. That gives you R,G,B contrast and brightness (gain and bias, with some components of gamma) controls.

I used this with a colorimeter to get the proper balance on a per-channel basis (with my GDM-F520, but it should be identical on the -FW900)
 
I realize this. I just want to set it up so that the defaults are correct. The defaults needed a lot of adjustment.
 
Has anyone else encountered an 'echoing' issue on their fw900? I notice it most in text and my desktop icons, but only when the two colors are very different (light on dark, dark on light). I see multiple images of whatever I'm looking at drifting off to the right. <--I see another "t." at the end of that phrase (but only very faintly). It doesn't bother me intensely, but it can be rather annoying at times. Folders on my blue desktop really do it as well, I can see three or four folder edges off to the right of the real one.

I have yet to see anyone else bring this up, but I wasn't exactly sure what to search to find a solution. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks.
 
FinalSight said:
Has anyone else encountered an 'echoing' issue on their fw900? I notice it most in text and my desktop icons, but only when the two colors are very different (light on dark, dark on light). I see multiple images of whatever I'm looking at drifting off to the right. <--I see another "t." at the end of that phrase (but only very faintly). It doesn't bother me intensely, but it can be rather annoying at times. Folders on my blue desktop really do it as well, I can see three or four folder edges off to the right of the real one.

I have yet to see anyone else bring this up, but I wasn't exactly sure what to search to find a solution. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks.
Click to expand...

sounds like u may need a new video cable. which input are you using on your fw900?
 
A big thanks to the both of you, I knew exactly what to blame the instant I read "cable." I guess since I figured it was a monitor setting or adjustment of somesort, I didn't think to point a finger at my vga switch...

213og0.jpg


And taking it off of there solved the problem. But I put it right back on since it makes it easier to play my xbox360. Besides, when my desktop is done I'll have an LCD monitor on the switch, not the fw900. I'm thinking the LCD will handle it better...(I hope).

Thanks again guys.
 
FinalSight said:
A big thanks to the both of you, I knew exactly what to blame the instant I read "cable." I guess since I figured it was a monitor setting or adjustment of somesort, I didn't think to point a finger at my vga switch...



And taking it off of there solved the problem. But I put it right back on since it makes it easier to play my xbox360. Besides, when my desktop is done I'll have an LCD monitor on the switch, not the fw900. I'm thinking the LCD will handle it better...(I hope).

Thanks again guys.
Click to expand...


yaaaay. :D
 
Blue Fox said:
The Qualia line was horrendously overpriced. That TV cost $11k at launch.
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Can't agree with you. It wasn't overpriced considering what it offered at the time. This was 6 years ago, a direct-view CRT offering 1125i/750p (I'm guessing the ATSC version was 1080i/720p) at 36". It was succeeded by the Qualia 006 and Qualia 007 TVs, although they were LCD and LCoS Projection, respectively, so I'd still take a Qualia 015 over them (even though the 007 was twice the screen size).

Hell, even the Qualia 004 -- $30,000 for a 1080p projector, and $3,000 replacement bulbs -- was amazing, and well worth the price if you were looking for the best-of-the-best. And some people who tried out those headphones agreed it was worth it, although the lack of any real headband adjustment was odd.
 
Well, no doubt they were good, but they were way beyond the average luxury TV at the time (which isn't exactly a bad thing). Still bloody expensive though. The teeny tiny camera they made was awfully cool, but it was still ~$5k however. I personally would have bought a 8/9" CRT projector instead if given the choice.
 
dopee123 said:
I've got a dead FW900 i'd like to revive. Any details you can provide to make that happen? Thanks!
Click to expand...

I got mine fixed at a local shop in Chicago I found searching the web. A fair number of people used to fix TVs and CRT monitors; the challenge is just finding someone who's still in the business. That was a couple years back, so I have no idea if the place that fixed mine is still around. I forgot the name of the place but if you're around Chicago PM me and I'll find the receipt. A lot of these places probably switched to fixing LCD & plasma TVs and monitors, so as long as they have someone around who knows how to fix a tube you might be able to find someone who can fix it. Just look around in the phone book and on Google.
 
FinalSight said:
A big thanks to the both of you, I knew exactly what to blame the instant I read "cable." I guess since I figured it was a monitor setting or adjustment of somesort, I didn't think to point a finger at my vga switch...

213og0.jpg


And taking it off of there solved the problem. But I put it right back on since it makes it easier to play my xbox360. Besides, when my desktop is done I'll have an LCD monitor on the switch, not the fw900. I'm thinking the LCD will handle it better...(I hope).

Thanks again guys.
Click to expand...

The HDFury (green) will allow you to hook you XB360 to the BNC ports. You could then bypass your external switch, and just use the input switch on the monitor. I would rather gouge out my eyes than try to use my FW-900 with such degraded signal
 
FinalSight said:
Has anyone else encountered an 'echoing' issue on their fw900? I notice it most in text and my desktop icons, but only when the two colors are very different (light on dark, dark on light). I see multiple images of whatever I'm looking at drifting off to the right. <--I see another "t." at the end of that phrase (but only very faintly). It doesn't bother me intensely, but it can be rather annoying at times. Folders on my blue desktop really do it as well, I can see three or four folder edges off to the right of the real one.

I have yet to see anyone else bring this up, but I wasn't exactly sure what to search to find a solution. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks.
Click to expand...

Yes, this has been written about in this thread before, and possibly a separate GDM-F520 thread. A search might find it.

Wiggle the input board, either the VGA input or the power plug and it'll clean up.

I believe that it's an issue with mechanical stability of the input board feeding into the main board. The connectors are allowed to slip and I believe there's a grounding issue. The echo you see is the bandwidth of the signal path being reduced and high-frequency transitions are causing the circuit network to "ring". This will be increasingly worse with higher frequencies (ie. high resolution, high refresh, or both)

I've stopped using my GDM-Fs and never formulated a true mechanical fix. I've tried a Stabiliant-22 clone on the connector strips - it wasn't permanent. Genuine S-22 might work better - I don't know.
 
Mine was doing the ghosting when I got it.. Turns out it was a cheap vga extension I had. Replaced that with a quality one and never had the problem again.. May want to give that a shot


Surly73 said:
Yes, this has been written about in this thread before, and possibly a separate GDM-F520 thread. A search might find it.

Wiggle the input board, either the VGA input or the power plug and it'll clean up.

I believe that it's an issue with mechanical stability of the input board feeding into the main board. The connectors are allowed to slip and I believe there's a grounding issue. The echo you see is the bandwidth of the signal path being reduced and high-frequency transitions are causing the circuit network to "ring". This will be increasingly worse with higher frequencies (ie. high resolution, high refresh, or both)

I've stopped using my GDM-Fs and never formulated a true mechanical fix. I've tried a Stabiliant-22 clone on the connector strips - it wasn't permanent. Genuine S-22 might work better - I don't know.
Click to expand...
 
Rock&Roll said:
The HDFury (green) will allow you to hook you XB360 to the BNC ports. You could then bypass your external switch, and just use the input switch on the monitor. I would rather gouge out my eyes than try to use my FW-900 with such degraded signal
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Thanks for the idea but the switch is just temporary and doesn't bother me for the time being. It's actually for a multi-monitor setup controlling two computers (which my G5 and G15 will be controlling using a KVM). I just didn't want to have to force one of my monitors to switch with them. It will make multi tasking a whole lot easier.

Anyway, once that is setup I just intend to keep the XB360 out and hooked to a tv instead of at my desk. Too cluttered in here anyway. But regardless, I believe I could just use a BNC to VGA cable. I already have a VGA cable for my xbox, which is how that switch is currently hooked to both my laptop and the 360. I wouldn't need to use an HDFury unless I really wanted to use the HDMI port, but really? It looks fine with the analog signal. When hooked up to this monitor and run at 1920 x 1080, the picture is just plain gorgeous.

I just got this fw900 like 2 weeks ago for $250. 2 small scratches in the anti-glare coating, so I'm definitely playing around with the idea of removing it. Actually, over the summer I have a couple big plans for this thing. I'm gonna look into vinyl dying the casing, as well as removing the built in usb hub and modding a 2.0 one I have laying around into the spot. I'll have to dremel out one large rectangle in the casing (instead of finding a usb hub with that EXACT spacing..), and then just drill a few holes for a bracket to hold a new one in its place.

I may come back here to post pics of my modifications once it's all done, but unfortunately I can't really start any of that while I'm here at school. Anyone have thoughts/concerns on any of my plans?

I'm changing the color of the case because I just can't stand this off-white bullshit. The monitor was listed as a Sony FW900, but of course it was the HP version (which just looks like crap in comparison...). I'm playing around with different ideas for stenciling different types of designs, I'm thinking of going with tribal-style design up both sides.
 
For Vista, if I were to run a BNC cable to the FW900 do I need to do anything special to run at 1920x1200 @ 85hz using a Nvidia card?

Using XP right now on an ATI card I usually need to use ATI Tool Tray, set the DDC from the default 1600x1200 resolution limit to a higher number as well as the refresh rate. I'm just worried that in Vista there will be no such way of tweaking the values. Or is there a switch built into the Nvidia's driver to disable reading off DDC info and just allowing us to set the resolution/refreshrate based off the FW900 driver?
 
Why does most peeps ask about 1920x1200@85HZ when it does 96HZ.

Do some older models MAX at 85HZ for above RES ?
 
helmutcheese said:
Why does most peeps ask about 1920x1200@85HZ when it does 96HZ.

Do some older models MAX at 85HZ for above RES ?
Click to expand...

Raising the refresh raises the frequencies. Since this is an all-analog technology, you will typically get a lower quality picture the higher your frequencies. Historically I've been able to see the picture quality decrease with each step from 60i, 60p, 70, 75, 80 etc... Hz for a given resolution.

When I used my GDM-F520s, I used to run 70Hz in all modes - retain the most sharpness while avoiding visible flicker. I understand some serious gamers actually want the frames - fine - but there are lots of reasons to lower refresh when not gaming. Clarity/sharpness being the most prevalent.

I will say that my GDM-F series showed the least degradation as signal frequency increased, but it was still discernable, even on top-notch BNC cables. There's more to the signal path than the cable - the RAMDACs on the video card are the first place you'll see things go downhill. Then cables, connectors, traces on the input board, the relatively crappy interconnects between the input PCB and others within the monitor etc...
 
For the FW900, I was happiest with a desktop resolution of 1600 by 1024 at 100Hz.

Probably will need to experiment to see what gives the best image quality for you...
 
On each of my 5+ monitors I've used 1152x864 for the 17" monitors, 1280x960 or 1600x1200 for 19" monitors, all @ 70Hz. Using a higher refresh rate didn't seem to help much if anything, that I noticed anyways.

FinalSight said:
I may come back here to post pics of my modifications once it's all done, but unfortunately I can't really start any of that while I'm here at school. Anyone have thoughts/concerns on any of my plans?
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I'm probably not the only one interesting to see what you have in mind. :)
 
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