Many thanks to all that have added to this thread. Excellent information here.
I have read over all 34 pages of it a few pages at a time.
I didn't find what I was looking for, so I have regisitered and would like to ask my questions.
I have a Micronpc.com 900Mx. It has a 19" Sony Trinitron CRT. It was manufactured around the end of 2000. I know this thread is mainly for the Dell monitors, but I hope someone will help me all the same.
I have the same problem as most everyone with the overly bright picture, green tint and the retrace lines showing.
I took the cover off, but mine isn't exactly like the Dell in the pictures in the resistor change guide. I don't know where the correct resistor is located. I have been unable to find a schematic for my monitor. I guess it is probably around the same place on the rear of the tube, but the board is different and so are the numbers. I can't see it very well either, since the metal plate is soldered on in several places rather than a screw holding it on. Mine is very similar to the pictures in Paul's Post 462
Although, after removing the case I noticed a few adjusters on the side of the tube. There are both screw driver type and thumb knobs.
Screw driver types are as follows:
TLV
YCH
YBH
and one that is written like this:
H.
TRP
The thumb knobs were covered with tape, and when I pealed the pieces back I found:
APH
CBH
XBV
XCV
Do any of these have anything to do with the brightness?
Can anyone explain the function of these screws and knobs?
I saw where Patrik had fixed his with an adjuster, but he didn't say which one. Post 467
My monitor doesn't have the full metal shielding around the tube, so everything is exposed. There is a gray plastic cover over the thing mounted on the side of the tube where the adjusters are at, though it shouldn't need to be removed to make any adjustments to the screws and/or knobs.
Any tips on this are very welcome and apperciated.
First off, this thread has nothing to do with Dell monitors. The topic was made without the understanding that the brightness problem happnens on nearly all sony CRTs. The resistor fix just happened to be explained only for a P1110.
XCV XBV, knobs adjust convergence. Of those that don't adjust convergence, they probably adjust geometry,purity or something else to do with the deflection yoke.They are explained in any service manual, those names are not specific to your monitor.
If you are lucky, your monitor may not have an MCU controlling the G2, and instead will have a screw knob varistor. (I've found they are on the board with the CRT socket (board on the back of the tube)).
If your monitor has knobs like this, it may not have many MCU controlled adjustments , which means windas will be of little use.
However, the whole brightness problem is currently thought to be caused by faulty MCU controll of the G2, the other competing theory was that the IC controllintg the G2 became faulty. The theory that the resistor used in the G2 circuit had become faulty was found to be false, as the resistor has always been found to be at the labeled resistance.
So if you don't have MCU controlled G2, yet have the birghtness problem, this would rule out the MCU theory. If y,ou have color return though, you definitely have MCU controll of something.
I'd like to hear wether or not you have an MCU in there, and if you do have the G2 varistor, as this will narrow everyone down to finding the real cause of this widespread problem.
The theory that the resistor used in the G2 circuit had become faulty was found to be false, as the resistor has always been found to be at the labeled resistance.
Hi P991, are you saying the resistor hack is no longer a viable workaround (ie will not work in all scenarios?). There seemed to be a lot of success stories in this thread of this method.
Hi everyone. Wow what a night of different emotions and lots of reading.
I picked up my Dell P1110 (bought from Ebay - I'm from Australia) tonight and was very disheartened to bring it home, turn it on and immediately notice an unacceptable brightness level. After 2-3 hours I've read through this forum and gather it boils down to two main options:
Replace the R459 Resistor with a 6.2MOhm resistor (hardware option - not safe)
or
Buy/build a cable, download specific software (more money, and often some hardware work involved to get the pinout correct - but safer).
All this seems a little overwhelming given I've just purchased this monitor (obviously hoping to 'plug & play'). My question is since there literally seem to be hundreds of people on this thread and no doubt thousands more who will find it on google... is anyone willing to produce a CD with the appropriate software drivers/etc on it, a simple '10-step' instruction guide, and a pre-built cable, and share it around (expenses would be covered). I figure most of us only need to fix this once... what is everyone doing with their cable once they're done? Surely we can pass it on to another Sony tube victim/recoup some of their costs?
If anyone out there (particularly from Australia) has fixed their monitor using the software & cable fix... I'd be happy to work out something mutally beneficial.
PS: I didnt notice it in this thread but I assume there are no software utilities to artificially lower the gamma output from windows/dos that lead to an acceptable result?
Yeah, you can change your video cards color LUT to help correct the problem, but if it's severe enough, some may still not find it acceptable. As far as I could tell, the LUT lets you set a curve of RGB values 0-255 to RGB signal intensity, at 0 how much lower can the intensity go?
Currently, no one has made an alternative to Sony Windas. The reason it's not on cd is because it has no EULA, and no one seems to want to risk getting in some trouble for distributing it.
However, people have expressed interest in finding out what the serial protocol is to change the registers, and how to read the monitor definiton files. This will allow a freely distrutable alternative to sony windas which will have much easier adjustments.
For example, you click 'Adjust G2' your monitor switches modes and shows a grayscale pattern, instructions flash and tell you to lower or raise G2 with your arrow keys so that the first step just becomes visible.
That is the goal.
The cable is really not that expensive. Just by the chip for $1 and wire it up somehow. I used tape, and I poked the wires into DB9->DB25 serial plug. Your local electronics shop probably has stuff to make this easier.
But yeah, I admit the price for buying a complete cable is too expensive. It used to be $19 with shipping included. Now the market price seems to be $19 with 6$ shipping in the US, add even more for international! At that price, you may as well buy another used monitor. The places selling these keep selling out, so the price can only get worse. The places I mention on my website are the cheapest (besides ebay deals, when they aren't sold out) I've heard of, I'm not getting commision for mentioning any of them, so don't blame me for driving up prices. If you ask me, everyone should buy parts at their local electronics store. The chip is only $1, and how much can wires cost?
I think passing the cables around is a great idea, and passing around a cd with the software I mentioned above. This would make it a perfectly precise ten minute procedure, afterwhich you just pass it on.
The people on this thread have bought so many cables they only need once, that if everyone got together to do this, there would be atleast over 100 to go around.
Maybe the cost of fixing the monitor could be reduced to only the cost of shipping. Pay for what you want of it, and keep track of who has it, and so eventually, the cost to fix your monitor is just the cost of shipping the cable.If some one keeps it, and can't prove it got lost, level a paypal dispute on them, or do whatever the library does to people who steal books.
Hope people go in this dirrection, as completed cable sellers have been making a killing off of you guys. They keep selling out and the buisness shows no signs of letting up, or letting down the price. Build your own cables, or pass around the completed ones to keep this as cheap as possible.
Hi P991, are you saying the resistor hack is no longer a viable workaround (ie will not work in all scenarios?). There seemed to be a lot of success stories in this thread of this method.
It is a viable work around. Some how, some way, the resistance in that part of the G2 circuit is not as little as it should be.
However, the reason this resistance is more than it should be has nothing to do with the resistor there. That resistor has been tested by numerous people who've done the mod, and they find that it fits the labeled resistance.(Read the color code and test it with a multi-meter)
Either the IC(a.k.a. chip) which is also involved in adjusting that resistance is faulty, or the MCU has decided to adjust that chips resistance to something it shouldn't be.
Whatever the case, no one has found a faulty resistor.Something else is not resisting as it should, and so adjusting the resistance via other resistors is still just as viable as instructing the MCU to change that resistance via windas. It's just a matter of preference.
And yes, the resistor hack works in ALL scenarios, for any CRT device that adjusts the grid voltage in this way, which I think may be all of them, windas is doing the exact same thing by sending a different signal to that IC in the G2 circuit.
I think passing the cables around is a great idea, and passing around a cd with the software I mentioned above. This would make it a perfectly precise ten minute procedure, afterwhich you just pass it on.
The people on this thread have bought so many cables they only need once, that if everyone got together to do this, there would be atleast over 100 to go around.
Maybe the cost of fixing the monitor could be reduced to only the cost of shipping. Pay for what you want of it, and keep track of who has it, and so eventually, the cost to fix your monitor is just the cost of shipping the cable.If some one keeps it, and can't prove it got lost, level a paypal dispute on them, or do whatever the library does to people who steal books.
Hope people go in this direction
Thanks for the support of the idea. I've seen similar things facilitated in other forums, whereby people express their interest in a dedicated thread and the object is posted from one person to the next in a first-in-first served basis. The thread itself provides a record of who its currently with and who its next due to go to. However for an 'international' problem like though it would be more viable to have a one/a few devices and an associated thread for each country so that we're not dealing with international shipping.
Anybody out there want to take the plunge? Surely someone has a cable they no longer need?
If you are lucky, your monitor may not have an MCU controlling the G2, and instead will have a screw knob varistor. (I've found they are on the board with the CRT socket (board on the back of the tube)).
If your monitor has knobs like this, it may not have many MCU controlled adjustments , which means windas will be of little use.
However, the whole brightness problem is currently thought to be caused by faulty MCU controll of the G2, the other competing theory was that the IC controllintg the G2 became faulty. The theory that the resistor used in the G2 circuit had become faulty was found to be false, as the resistor has always been found to be at the labeled resistance.
So if you don't have MCU controlled G2, yet have the birghtness problem, this would rule out the MCU theory. If y,ou have color return though, you definitely have MCU controll of something.
I'd like to hear wether or not you have an MCU in there, and if you do have the G2 varistor, as this will narrow everyone down to finding the real cause of this widespread problem.
Thanks.
Hi
I didn't see any varistor on the board with the crt socket. There are some on the mainboard and the ones on the side of the tube. Also the 3 I mentioned here.
I don't have Color Return...BUT another menu I do have:
Property > Statis, Recall, Language.
Under Property > Recall, I have:
Picture, Converge, Purity.
Color menu offers 9300*K, 6500*K, 5000*K or User. But I guess the Recall > Picture is the same as the Color Return you are speaking of?
I had the same over-bright and visible rescan lines as many of the people on this forum have. Thankfully I stumbled upon this page and after following all the steps I was able to lower my G2 voltage and fix the problem.
However, now I'm having a new problem. The monitor will occasionally flash bright green and then go very pink before slowly fading back to normal. This only started after changing my g2 voltage, any ideas?
For anyone who's curious, I ordered my cable from Digital Nemesis. I didn't specify any custom pinout so I had to rearrange the pins to match my monitor, but the cable worked perfectly after that. My only regret is not requesting a long cable (it's about 6 inches long).
I didn't see any varistor on the board with the crt socket. There are some on the mainboard and the ones on the side of the tube. Also the 3 I mentioned here.
I don't have Color Return...BUT another menu I do have:
Property > Statis, Recall, Language.
Under Property > Recall, I have:
Picture, Converge, Purity.
Color menu offers 9300*K, 6500*K, 5000*K or User. But I guess the Recall > Picture is the same as the Color Return you are speaking of?
If so that means I have an MCU, correct?
Yes, it has an MCU. Actually, I think all with an OSD have an MCU. I had a 17sf2 which had an OSD, but the MCU didn't even controll the G2.
Color return does some calibration of your monitor, you will see flahsing color on the screen when you run it.
Is this what Recall > picture does?
Maybe your MCU just doesn't adjust convergence.
So you can't find any 4 pin header? hmm. Sometimes it looks a little bit different, as it did on some of those FW900s mentioned earlier.
I wonder if the electronics were made by Sony, or if that is even necessary for using DAS. Maybe some of the ICs will be the same? hmm.
I don't know, I'm wondering if that third knob on your flyback is B+. Ofcourse, chaning that will change other things more than it will change brightness. May not be good for some stuff either.
I suggest you do the resitor mod., easiest way to do this is to trace back from the G2 pin on the CRT socket, and find a suitable spot. More resistance means brighter picture. As far as I can tell G2 is held at a static voltage by some resistance and the voltage source is the from some tap on the flyback. It may go through a multi function IC before the trace reaches the voltage source. I'm not familiar with the hardware beyond the tube, ask some of the resistor mod guys. I'm sure some one here has done it on something other than a P1110.
That you don't have any other way to controll the G2 (as via varistor), this almost narrows this down to MCU involvment.
If the trace to the G2 does pass through a multifunction IC, which itself has traces to the MCU, then I'd suspect MCU involment.
However, if the G2 never touches any ICs on it's way to the voltage source, then your problem is definetly not color return/MCU related, and it may be the same problem. I hope not though, as it would indicate the source of the problem is from something more serious.
I had the same over-bright and visible rescan lines as many of the people on this forum have. Thankfully I stumbled upon this page and after following all the steps I was able to lower my G2 voltage and fix the problem.
However, now I'm having a new problem. The monitor will occasionally flash bright green and then go very pink before slowly fading back to normal. This only started after changing my g2 voltage, any ideas?
For anyone who's curious, I ordered my cable from Digital Nemesis. I didn't specify any custom pinout so I had to rearrange the pins to match my monitor, but the cable worked perfectly after that. My only regret is not requesting a long cable (it's about 6 inches long).
Thanks,
Draxus
What monitor do you have again? Some are known for internal tube shorts caused by flakes of metal.
Pink is the combination of red and blue, with no green.
This sounds like a G1 problem, if your G1 is not shared between the three cathodes.
Or maybe an amplifier problem, something is wrong with the chain of electronics from the green signal, to the green cathode amplifier, which varies the voltage between the cathode and the G1.
Since your problem is dynamic, windas isn't going to be able to compensate. Make sure nothing is shorting in the tube, and that everything look allright.
This is almost certainly not caused by changing your G2, else, why would it only affect one color gun?
What monitor do you have again? Some are known for internal tube shorts caused by flakes of metal.
Pink is the combination of red and blue, with no green.
This sounds like a G1 problem, if your G1 is not shared between the three cathodes.
Or maybe an amplifier problem, something is wrong with the chain of electronics from the green signal, to the green cathode amplifier, which varies the voltage between the cathode and the G1.
Since your problem is dynamic, windas isn't going to be able to compensate. Make sure nothing is shorting in the tube, and that everything look allright.
This is almost certainly not caused by changing your G2, else, why would it only affect one color gun?
It's an IBM P275 (model # on the back says 6652_u3n). As far as I can tell nothing is out of the ordinary with the monitor phsyically... and the it hasn't flashed green or gone pink since shortly after setting it back up. If there's nothing windas can do to fix the problem I suppose I'll just wait and see what happens.
Thanks again for all your help... I would have ended up buying a new monitor after living with the over-brightness for awhile if it wasn't for this site.
Yes, it has an MCU. Actually, I think all with an OSD have an MCU. I had a 17sf2 which had an OSD, but the MCU didn't even controll the G2.
Color return does some calibration of your monitor, you will see flahsing color on the screen when you run it.
Is this what Recall > picture does?
Maybe your MCU just doesn't adjust convergence.
So you can't find any 4 pin header? hmm. Sometimes it looks a little bit different, as it did on some of those FW900s mentioned earlier.
I wonder if the electronics were made by Sony, or if that is even necessary for using DAS. Maybe some of the ICs will be the same? hmm.
I don't know, I'm wondering if that third knob on your flyback is B+. Ofcourse, chaning that will change other things more than it will change brightness. May not be good for some stuff either.
I suggest you do the resitor mod., easiest way to do this is to trace back from the G2 pin on the CRT socket, and find a suitable spot. More resistance means brighter picture. As far as I can tell G2 is held at a static voltage by some resistance and the voltage source is the from some tap on the flyback. It may go through a multi function IC before the trace reaches the voltage source. I'm not familiar with the hardware beyond the tube, ask some of the resistor mod guys. I'm sure some one here has done it on something other than a P1110.
That you don't have any other way to controll the G2 (as via varistor), this almost narrows this down to MCU involvment.
If the trace to the G2 does pass through a multifunction IC, which itself has traces to the MCU, then I'd suspect MCU involment.
However, if the G2 never touches any ICs on it's way to the voltage source, then your problem is definetly not color return/MCU related, and it may be the same problem. I hope not though, as it would indicate the source of the problem is from something more serious.
Hi
Thank you for the help.
My monitor is a Micronpc.com 900mx. I got it new in Dec 2000.
I think I might have found the 4 pin connector.
Mine is very much like the one in the pictures from Pauls earlier post.
I have four pins coming out and they all turn up giving a top view of them like " :: " These I guess are the ones to connect the interface cable to.
Nearly everything I have read here has been over my head. I know nothing about the inner workings of a monitor, as I feel sure you can tell, hehe.
I was hoping mine would be exactly like the pictures in the resistor guide, but it isn't. LOL, wasn't one of Dell's ads saying "I should have got a Dell".
Little by little I am picking up on things, so I might wind up fixing it. The resistor fix is better for me, but I have to figure out exactly which one I need to change. I haven't been able to find a schematic for my monitor, so I am stuck at the moment. I was hoping that one of the knobs would work, as that would have been perfect for my skills. Actually I can solder fairly well, but not knowing which resistor must be changed...
One thing still, please.
The box on the side of my tube. The one with the other adjusters:
Cut and paste from my first post "Although, after removing the case I noticed a few adjusters on the side of the tube. There are both screw driver type and thumb knobs.
Screw driver types are as follows:
TLV
YCH
YBH
and one that is written like this:
H.
TRP
The thumb knobs were covered with tape, and when I pealed the pieces back I found:
APH
CBH
XBV
XCV
"
This isn't the flyback. Maybe you know this, I just want to make sure you understand me. I now know what the flyback is (thanks again), but this thing on the side of my tube with the above adjusters is seperate from the flyback that is mounted on the mainboard. The flyback has the 3 other adjusters.
I don't suppose that this thing on the side of the tube might be a non-MCU thingy? Probably not, just wishful thinking. Still it seems strange to have so many adjusters and none control brightness.
Anyway, I think I might be able to trace down the resistor to change. I sorta understand your instructions for finding the correct place.
Hi
Thank you for the help.
My monitor is a Micronpc.com 900mx. I got it new in Dec 2000.
I think I might have found the 4 pin connector.
Mine is very much like the one in the pictures from Pauls earlier post.
I have four pins coming out and they all turn up giving a top view of them like " :: " These I guess are the ones to connect the interface cable to.
Nearly everything I have read here has been over my head. I know nothing about the inner workings of a monitor, as I feel sure you can tell, hehe.
I was hoping mine would be exactly like the pictures in the resistor guide, but it isn't. LOL, wasn't one of Dell's ads saying "I should have got a Dell".
Little by little I am picking up on things, so I might wind up fixing it. The resistor fix is better for me, but I have to figure out exactly which one I need to change. I haven't been able to find a schematic for my monitor, so I am stuck at the moment. I was hoping that one of the knobs would work, as that would have been perfect for my skills. Actually I can solder fairly well, but not knowing which resistor must be changed...
One thing still, please.
The box on the side of my tube. The one with the other adjusters:
Cut and paste from my first post "Although, after removing the case I noticed a few adjusters on the side of the tube. There are both screw driver type and thumb knobs.
Screw driver types are as follows:
TLV
YCH
YBH
and one that is written like this:
H.
TRP
The thumb knobs were covered with tape, and when I pealed the pieces back I found:
APH
CBH
XBV
XCV
"
This isn't the flyback. Maybe you know this, I just want to make sure you understand me. I now know what the flyback is (thanks again), but this thing on the side of my tube with the above adjusters is seperate from the flyback that is mounted on the mainboard. The flyback has the 3 other adjusters.
I don't suppose that this thing on the side of the tube might be a non-MCU thingy? Probably not, just wishful thinking. Still it seems strange to have so many adjusters and none control brightness.
Anyway, I think I might be able to trace down the resistor to change. I sorta understand your instructions for finding the correct place.
yeah, as I understood, what you mentioned below
TLV
YCH
YBH
and one that is written like this:
H.
TRP
The thumb knobs were covered with tape, and when I pealed the pieces back I found:
APH
CBH
XBV
XCV
.. were on the yoke(yolk?) of the CRT. I've seen many monitors with the same labels for knobs in that area.
Those knobs adjust convergence, XCV, XBV, etc. Some may adjust other things to do with the deflection yolk, I'm not sure.
The flyback though has atleast two knobs, I don't know how they are labeled, but they are for vertical and horizontal focous, and the other is probably for the high voltage on the anode? Not sure.
As to that 4 pin header, I wouldn't think it is a connection to the MCU. If it is, one is +5v and another is GRND, so you could check it out with your multimeter before trying anything.
anyhow,
Xweebie told me that one of his monitors with no color return, but manufactured around the same time and with the same hours of use, had a G2 value of 192 out of 255!!! This is really high, and yet there is no brightness problem with that monitor.
Xweebie has also monitored the CRT for testing the 'bright warmup' problem, and has claimed that all voltages are stable as the monitor settles down to displaying a non-bright picture.
I don't know what to think about that last bit of info. He hasn't been able to measure the HV across the tube yet, so maybe something is drifting. Considering the memo said to patch something in the ABL circuit, perhaps the ABL is trying to controll the HV tension improperly.
Interesting. Thanks again all for info and insights into the true cause of this widespread catastrophic Sony CRT problem.
You can correct this "overly bright" problem in a more mechanical way. First set brightness to 50% with the normal front controls and then adjust the "screen" adjustment on the flyback transformer with a plastic screwdriver (very important that a plastic screwdriver is used) until black gets black.
Take it carefully in the beginning so you see which way makes it brighter/darker and when you see which way to turn, don't turn it any more in the way which makes it brighter as if you make it too bright, a safety circuit will turn of the monitor.
When removing the monitors plastic case, don't use a regular screwdriver push clips, instead use something that has an uniform thickness (a screwdriver gets thicker as you get further from the end of it), or else your monitors case will look like ****e afterwards. I use the flat pin on a KRONE tool for this .
When the case is removed, put some support under the front part of the monitor, just before the plastic front begins (it is forward-heavy and doesn't need support at the back).
The flyback adjustments should now be accessible through holes in the metal shielding.
Btw, the monitor needs to be running when you are doing this and it should have been running with a rather quite bright picture showing for atleast 10mins so it is heated up properly. Don't poke any fingers through any holes in the shielding, that can be lethal!
/Patrik
Not all monitors have the screen(g2) pot, and those that do can have it on the flyback, or on the board the CRT socket is on.
The people using the resistor mod and Windas adjustment should make sure they can't do this easier fix.
Unfourtunately, only one of my older cheaper monitors has a pot for adjusting that voltage. My p991 has nothing like it.
My monitor is now working correctly again.
See my other post for details. I put the results there because the first post is about the adjuster I used to fix it.
Full credit goes to Xweebie, for without his help over the last few days, I would never have gotten it working again.
I must also thank P991 DELL SONY. He also offered much advice.
I recently rescued a Dell P1110 monitor from a factory because I just took one look at it and decided I was keeping it lol. They threw it out because of the over-bright screen issue.
Anyway when I powered it on all my black areas of the screen are bright green, and very bright green raster aperture lines are visible.
Apart from the black values looking awful (@P991_Dell_Sony: Your avatar text is invisible on the Dell monitor, it shows up fine on my VAIO 15" LCD Laptop panel) the picture quality is reasonable, just a little too washed out.
I'm taking this huge monitor to uni this week so I can run an apple mac + my VAIO laptop using one monitor
I want to go ahead with the resistor fix. I believe there is the resistors I need from Maplin Electronics? (I live in the U.K.) Should I use about 6.7M Ohm resistance? Will I need to snip away the old resistor or can I solder a new resistor on the circuit board leaving the old one still soldered on and in tact?
Oh and one more thing, would I electrocute myself soldering this resistor on the board? Obviously I'd unplug the monitor from the mains first.
(Oh and don't you just LOVE Google? Its how I came to this forum Without it I'd have sold the monitor on unfixed lol).
I recently rescued a Dell P1110 monitor from a factory because I just took one look at it and decided I was keeping it lol. They threw it out because of the over-bright screen issue.
Anyway when I powered it on all my black areas of the screen are bright green, and very bright green raster aperture lines are visible.
Apart from the black values looking awful (@P991_Dell_Sony: Your avatar text is invisible on the Dell monitor, it shows up fine on my VAIO 15" LCD Laptop panel) the picture quality is reasonable, just a little too washed out.
I'm taking this huge monitor to uni this week so I can run an apple mac + my VAIO laptop using one monitor
I want to go ahead with the resistor fix. I believe there is the resistors I need from Maplin Electronics? (I live in the U.K.) Should I use about 6.7M Ohm resistance? Will I need to snip away the old resistor or can I solder a new resistor on the circuit board leaving the old one still soldered on and in tact?
Oh and one more thing, would I electrocute myself soldering this resistor on the board? Obviously I'd unplug the monitor from the mains first.
(Oh and don't you just LOVE Google? Its how I came to this forum Without it I'd have sold the monitor on unfixed lol).
Hi
By the way discribe the look of the screen 6.7 might not be low enough. Maybe 6.2 would be better, or possibly even less.
Yes you have to remove the existing one before you put on the new one. Unless you do like a couple people and run anothe 10MOhm. I think if I was doing it, I would remove the old one and put a new one in it's place.
It might be a good idea to get a selection of resistors. Like 4.7, 5.2, 5.7, 6.2 and 6.7. This way if one doesn't do it, you can try a different one.
Just be caredul not to short any capacitors and try not to touch anything other than the resistor and all should go well. Just be very careful and you shouldn't get shocked. Maybe someone will point out areas to completely avoild. I really don't know what all might store energy.
Hi
By the way discribe the look of the screen 6.7 might not be low enough. Maybe 6.2 would be better, or possibly even less.
Yes you have to remove the existing one before you put on the new one. Unless you do like a couple people and run anothe 10MOhm. I think if I was doing it, I would remove the old one and put a new one in it's place.
It might be a good idea to get a selection of resistors. Like 4.7, 5.2, 5.7, 6.2 and 6.7. This way if one doesn't do it, you can try a different one.
Just be caredul not to short any capacitors and try not to touch anything other than the resistor and all should go well. Just be very careful and you shouldn't get shocked. Maybe someone will point out areas to completely avoild. I really don't know what all might store energy.
Good luck and please let us know how it went.
Hi.
Just installed the new resistor and now the screen is a tad too dark. Its now usable on my apple mac but tested from my PC the screen looks too dim.
I've preformed the colour calibration after soldering the new resistor to the Sony A board, and still the monitor just remained quite dark.
One thing I did forget to do was to remove the old resistor on the board, its nigh on impossible for a scaredy cat like me to snip it off the board, so I soldered the resistor over the top. I can't remember the value of the new resistor I soldered on, but it wasn't the 10M Ohm one.
Do I need to get a 10M Ohm resistor and solder this over the top? I've either got a 5.2 or 6.2M Ohm installed at the moment, with the original in its place.
When I fire up the display with no video signal, one thing I now notice is the "Monitor is working" box is a very dull muddy white colour, and the colour bars for red, and green are visible but the one for Blue is not.
I can cope with it for now but I see another tweak coming on. At least its killed that horrible snot-green background and horizontal retrace lines!
Just installed the new resistor and now the screen is a tad too dark.
One thing I did forget to do was to remove the old resistor on the board, its nigh on impossible for a scaredy cat like me to snip it off the board, so I soldered the resistor over the top. I can't remember the value of the new resistor I soldered on, but it wasn't the 10M Ohm one.
Do I need to get a 10M Ohm resistor and solder this over the top? I've either got a 5.2 or 6.2M Ohm installed at the moment, with the original in its place.
When I fire up the display with no video signal, one thing I now notice is the "Monitor is working" box is a very dull muddy white colour, and the colour bars for red, and green are visible but the one for Blue is not.
That is why it is too dark, I think. If you had of removed the old one first, or used another 10MOhm it might have been good.
I'm no expert at all and really should just be reading, not offering advice. I could be entirely wrong, but the way I understanf it, you lowered the resistance too much by leaving in the old one and using a 4 through 6 MOhm range. Had you of used another 10MOhm (with the stock one still in place), it would have resulted in 5MOhm range. Thus removing it and putting in a 4-6 MOhm gives the same range, give or take whatever value you use.
You have lowered the resistance past the 5MOhm range = picture is too dark.
Someone please correct me if I am wrong. Thank you
That is why it is too dark, I think. If you had of removed the old one first, or used another 10MOhm it might have been good.
I'm no expert at all and really should just be reading, not offering advice. I could be entirely wrong, but the way I understanf it, you lowered the resistance too much by leaving in the old one and using a 4 through 6 MOhm range. Had you of used another 10MOhm (with the stock one still in place), it would have resulted in 5MOhm range. Thus removing it and putting in a 4-6 MOhm gives the same range, give or take whatever value you use.
You have lowered the resistance past the 5MOhm range = picture is too dark.
Someone please correct me if I am wrong. Thank you
Ah thats why, had a feeling I may need to, but to be honest I think I can put up with it being a little too dark for now.
I'll snip the resistor in half when I get the chance to take the back of the monitor (3rd time round and it gets so easy to remove the case lol). To be honest the display is more than reasonable once I ran a few cycles of the colour return menu option.
I also discovered that if the monitor is in standby (amber LED) with no video signal, that pushing and pressing the menu button for more than four seconds made the screen info box go blank, then slowly fade from black to bright blue. I've never seen that happen before on other's P1110's but since that happened the picture seems a lot better.
(edited the original message found in this topic cause it didn't worked,This way it will work)
Access to the service mode is as follows :
1) Turn the monitor off(powerbutton).
2) Push the menubutton holding it down, Power on the monitor.
3) Release the menubutton.
4) Push the menubutton again to acces servicemode.
The password is 7711
Many thanx to all posters..
I just bought two HP P1110's to use as secondary monitors (for $25 each!) and stumbled across this thread after discovering that they were way too bright (black was more like a light gray even at the 0 brightness setting).
Using this method (in the above-quoted post) I was able to access the service menu and turn the G2 way down and have brightness return to normal. I still plan on reading through the whole thread to see if I should know anything else, and I still have to adjust the colors a bit (so many settings...), but I'm very happy so far.
Synth, out of curiosity, how did you find this thread?
It sort of has a life of its own. I want to know how many times it has been viewed.
I have to look at it once in a while just to see. There is a ton of great tech data on monitors here. It just seems strange that a forum thread would live on like this. I guess that it is how we know that we are helping people.
tks
It was one of the first Google search hits for something like "CRT monitor too bright" - I was rather surprised to find a huge thread dealing with my exact issue on my exact monitor (or at least a range of similar monitors).
Hello.
A few days ago I bought a refurbished HP P1130 monitor, but the picture is vertically "bent" a little (pixels at the top corners are lower than the center). I have built an ECS cable and installed Windas (thanx to all people in this thread for schemes and experiences), but it seems that there isn't any adjustment tool for "vertical pin balance". Anybody has some tip how to correct it? Thanks
Hello.
A few days ago I bought a refurbished HP P1130 monitor, but the picture is vertically "bent" a little (pixels at the top corners are lower than the center). I have built an ECS cable and installed Windas (thanx to all people in this thread for schemes and experiences), but it seems that there isn't any adjustment tool for "vertical pin balance". Anybody has some tip how to correct it? Thanks
There is an adjustment, (saw something?) , that lifts just the top corners.
You are using the screen geometetry procedure, under the procedures menu?
Before you give up, aske some one with the same monitor chasis if they know of the lack of certain geometry adjustents.
Actually, that really needs to be done.. a list of chassis and features. I have a major howto update in the works on my hardrive, graphics and text bits all scraped from reading the thread backwards and forwards. Still, I didn't think of a chasis to features list, hmm.
So the new howto would feature:
hold button fixes
service mode fixes
better step by step building of windas cable and 'part packs' of places where you can buy the parts.
link to hosted .zip of complete windas and dlls. No more lengthy setup.
windas G2 fix (already there)
comprehensive list of windas features by chasis/model
register/procedure howtos on each set of adjustment.
link to service manual? I can't host these via geocities, but I've found places to link to for some of them.
monitor basics (some one volunteer, I'm not qualified to write too much detail on that)
monitor test pages/images/programs
A third edition of the howto would add to the above with:
new implementation of windas
protocol docs, beyond the source of the implementation
bootable cd, with said implementation, which sets modes and displays patterns, along with making adjustments in realtime. (that way, a second computer isn't needed to do realtime adjustment.
(I'm probably never going to do the third edition, it's a ton of work for almost no practical benefit, most people just want to lowere the G2. Others have expressed an interest in doing so, I hope they do it.)
Currently, the howto is not easily digestable, as >70% of the people who hit it, only load the first page, and of those who bear with it, many just buy the cable off ebay. Further, once the cable is obtained, there is confusion about how to edit the file, which editor to use, how do I increase contrast, etc.
People from non english speaking countries are also hitting the howto, and my lengthy, sloppy descriptions really don't help anyone in that group.
So the second edition is about 5% done, I got all the raw data, and am trying to sort it out into an easily digestible site. I've taken some cues from Dorian's howto, which he unfortunately took down some time ago.
I am going to go much heavier on graphics and illustration this time. Although, I am aware that grahpics sizes low though, black and white, (1 bit per pixel) compresses very nicely .
I'm uncertain what to do about CSS, .png and other features browsers may not support. If IE4, Links and Netscape 4 can render it , it should be safe.
I'd love to hear more complaints about my howto,
1.why can't you just host a link to a zip (addressed in 2.0)
2.why does my notepad save in the wrong format? (addresed weakly)
3. you said it was 'only the begining' where are the other tweaks? (addressed in 2.0)
4. you don't show how to build the cable, you just spew generic trash (addressed in 2.0)
5. Reading the thread is like panning for gold. (gold has been collected and included in 2.0)
If anyone has made any other howtos, speak up so we can link eachother and share in google pagerank, (or other MSN, Lycos, Ask etc. ranking systems. Exalead .com has wild card '*' search and regexp, a step up from google.).
2.0 will be released no later than June 1st this year, despite my long post don't expect much, if you've read this, you're probably not one of the 70% who hit the howto and turn back.
There are people who have gone all the way with the colorimeter and needed no information than what was on the howto. The update of the howto is not going to give anyone new capabilities, all the information is already on this thread. The update of the howto is aimed at the 70% who are not going beyond the first page, (of the thread, or the howto) and is made to minimize investment of time, money, effort, and concentration.
I tried the Windas solution on my too bright Dell 991. Dropping G2 from 114 to 100 helped. Brought up the brightness OSD to 50 and tried to change G2 to 90. Now I cannot power up the monitor at all. Pushing the power button causes the green light to come on for about a second then go out immediately. I used another monitor to open the original .dat file in Windas, but could not laod it to the 991 because Windas came up with as WSC error. Have I blown it with the 991? I was so close!
There is an adjustment, (saw something?) , that lifts just the top corners.
You are using the screen geometetry procedure, under the procedures menu?
Before you give up, aske some one with the same monitor chasis if they know of the lack of certain geometry adjustents.
Actually, that really needs to be done.. a list of chassis and features. I have a major howto update in the works on my hardrive, graphics and text bits all scraped from reading the thread backwards and forwards. Still, I didn't think of a chasis to features list, hmm.
I tried all the procedures and adjustments. I did not find any procedure that "moves" corners vertically. It seems that every monitor type has its own set of adjustments, e.g. adjustment of horizontal linearity is missing too for P1130
I tried the Windas solution on my too bright Dell 991. Dropping G2 from 114 to 100 helped. Brought up the brightness OSD to 50 and tried to change G2 to 90. Now I cannot power up the monitor at all. Pushing the power button causes the green light to come on for about a second then go out immediately. I used another monitor to open the original .dat file in Windas, but could not laod it to the 991 because Windas came up with as WSC error. Have I blown it with the 991? I was so close!
The monitor has to have a signal going to it in order to load a new .dat. (Maybe there are exceptions to this, but, I don't remember getting it to work by having it in standby mode). I'm betting that the lack of signal is all that WSC error is about.
Since you have the orginial .dat try MPUing the monitor.
Also, check the failures. This usually resets them.
I've been in the same situation (or atleast very similiar) myself, I had cranked up the G2 way too much, and the thing shut off, and wouldn't turn back on. I think checking failures, with signal applied, fixed it. It's happened to me a few other times since then, I really should remember exactyl what I did, but in anycase it was something simple like checking the failures dialog, or MPUing and reloading it.
Maybe try the 'test patterns' accesible through holding the OSD controlls down. Though, I don't think those modes count as a signal.
Good luck, I hope it's the same thing that happened to me.
The monitor has to have a signal going to it in order to load a new .dat. (Maybe there are exceptions to this, but, I don't remember getting it to work by having it in standby mode). I'm betting that the lack of signal is all that WSC error is about.
Since you have the orginial .dat try MPUing the monitor.
Also, check the failures. This usually resets them.
I've been in the same situation (or atleast very similiar) myself, I had cranked up the G2 way too much, and the thing shut off, and wouldn't turn back on. I think checking failures, with signal applied, fixed it. It's happened to me a few other times since then, I really should remember exactyl what I did, but in anycase it was something simple like checking the failures dialog, or MPUing and reloading it.
Maybe try the 'test patterns' accesible through holding the OSD controlls down. Though, I don't think those modes count as a signal.
Good luck, I hope it's the same thing that happened to me.
When I have the Dell 991 attached to the computer , so it should be getting a signal, I can't power it up at all. With no image, I can't run Windas to reload original.dat. Maybe I'm missing the point because I don't know what MPUing is or how to do it. Also what is the failures dialog? How do I check failures with signal applied? Can I attach a working monitor to the video card with the rs232 to TTL gizmo attached to the 991, and somehow bypass the wsc error? Will Windas update a monitor that is not powered up and not even in standby mode?
When I have the Dell 991 attached to the computer , so it should be getting a signal, I can't power it up at all. With no image, I can't run Windas to reload original.dat. Maybe I'm missing the point because I don't know what MPUing is or how to do it. Also what is the failures dialog? How do I check failures with signal applied? Can I attach a working monitor to the video card with the rs232 to TTL gizmo attached to the 991, and somehow bypass the wsc error? Will Windas update a monitor that is not powered up and not even in standby mode?
MPUing is under some one of the main menus, forget which. I don't think you need to do it, but, try it just in case. Maybe if you corrupted a dat upload, this would fix it as it sets everything back to defauts.And I mean, factory defaults (before fine tuning and calibration).
Failures is underneath the procedures menu.
Windas has no idea what, if anything, is connected to your video card. It's the monitor that won't communicate with windas when it's in standby. (Atleast, as I remember it)
I think, as long as there is a signal going to the monitor (the p991), you should be able to check failures. Checking them will clear them. It's probably worth a try to check it without the signal too.
ABL_SHUTDOWN does this kind of thing, where you can't power the monitor back up. Seem to be like what you're describing. Even though you didn't seem to crank up the brightness, perhaps the dat was messed up some how.
So, check procedures->failures, if that doesn't help , try the MPU opiton (under one of the main menus, not procedures). All monitors have these procedures, so they're on there somewhere . If it still doesn't help, make sure you have a signal going to the P991 , (second computer or dual head video card helps)perhaps you'll need to try it blind.
If all still fails... hmm, try leaving it unplugged? Try powering it up while holding the 'middle' OSD button, or the little OSD reset button (need to press it with your fingernail.)
I'm not sure if the first has any effect, but the second will reset your serialnumber and so maybe it might reset other settings.
It'd be nice if you could give more detail to exactly what you did before it started mis behaving. No seems to have had an un-fixable problem such as this before, maybe I can reproduce your steps.
Comments
First off, this thread has nothing to do with Dell monitors. The topic was made without the understanding that the brightness problem happnens on nearly all sony CRTs. The resistor fix just happened to be explained only for a P1110.
XCV XBV, knobs adjust convergence. Of those that don't adjust convergence, they probably adjust geometry,purity or something else to do with the deflection yoke.They are explained in any service manual, those names are not specific to your monitor.
If you are lucky, your monitor may not have an MCU controlling the G2, and instead will have a screw knob varistor. (I've found they are on the board with the CRT socket (board on the back of the tube)).
If your monitor has knobs like this, it may not have many MCU controlled adjustments
However, the whole brightness problem is currently thought to be caused by faulty MCU controll of the G2, the other competing theory was that the IC controllintg the G2 became faulty. The theory that the resistor used in the G2 circuit had become faulty was found to be false, as the resistor has always been found to be at the labeled resistance.
So if you don't have MCU controlled G2, yet have the birghtness problem, this would rule out the MCU theory. If y,ou have color return though, you definitely have MCU controll of something.
I'd like to hear wether or not you have an MCU in there, and if you do have the G2 varistor, as this will narrow everyone down to finding the real cause of this widespread problem.
Thanks.
Hi P991, are you saying the resistor hack is no longer a viable workaround (ie will not work in all scenarios?). There seemed to be a lot of success stories in this thread of this method.
Yeah, you can change your video cards color LUT to help correct the problem, but if it's severe enough, some may still not find it acceptable. As far as I could tell, the LUT lets you set a curve of RGB values 0-255 to RGB signal intensity, at 0 how much lower can the intensity go?
Currently, no one has made an alternative to Sony Windas. The reason it's not on cd is because it has no EULA, and no one seems to want to risk getting in some trouble for distributing it.
However, people have expressed interest in finding out what the serial protocol is to change the registers, and how to read the monitor definiton files. This will allow a freely distrutable alternative to sony windas which will have much easier adjustments.
For example, you click 'Adjust G2' your monitor switches modes and shows a grayscale pattern, instructions flash and tell you to lower or raise G2 with your arrow keys so that the first step just becomes visible.
That is the goal.
The cable is really not that expensive. Just by the chip for $1 and wire it up somehow. I used tape, and I poked the wires into DB9->DB25 serial plug. Your local electronics shop probably has stuff to make this easier.
But yeah, I admit the price for buying a complete cable is too expensive. It used to be $19 with shipping included. Now the market price seems to be $19 with 6$ shipping in the US, add even more for international! At that price, you may as well buy another used monitor. The places selling these keep selling out, so the price can only get worse. The places I mention on my website are the cheapest (besides ebay deals, when they aren't sold out) I've heard of, I'm not getting commision for mentioning any of them, so don't blame me for driving up prices. If you ask me, everyone should buy parts at their local electronics store. The chip is only $1, and how much can wires cost?
I think passing the cables around is a great idea, and passing around a cd with the software I mentioned above. This would make it a perfectly precise ten minute procedure, afterwhich you just pass it on.
The people on this thread have bought so many cables they only need once, that if everyone got together to do this, there would be atleast over 100 to go around.
Maybe the cost of fixing the monitor could be reduced to only the cost of shipping. Pay for what you want of it, and keep track of who has it, and so eventually, the cost to fix your monitor is just the cost of shipping the cable.If some one keeps it, and can't prove it got lost, level a paypal dispute on them, or do whatever the library does to people who steal books.
Hope people go in this dirrection, as completed cable sellers have been making a killing off of you guys. They keep selling out and the buisness shows no signs of letting up, or letting down the price. Build your own cables, or pass around the completed ones to keep this as cheap as possible.
It is a viable work around. Some how, some way, the resistance in that part of the G2 circuit is not as little as it should be.
However, the reason this resistance is more than it should be has nothing to do with the resistor there. That resistor has been tested by numerous people who've done the mod, and they find that it fits the labeled resistance.(Read the color code and test it with a multi-meter)
Either the IC(a.k.a. chip) which is also involved in adjusting that resistance is faulty, or the MCU has decided to adjust that chips resistance to something it shouldn't be.
Whatever the case, no one has found a faulty resistor.Something else is not resisting as it should, and so adjusting the resistance via other resistors is still just as viable as instructing the MCU to change that resistance via windas. It's just a matter of preference.
And yes, the resistor hack works in ALL scenarios, for any CRT device that adjusts the grid voltage in this way, which I think may be all of them, windas is doing the exact same thing by sending a different signal to that IC in the G2 circuit.
Thanks for the support of the idea. I've seen similar things facilitated in other forums, whereby people express their interest in a dedicated thread and the object is posted from one person to the next in a first-in-first served basis. The thread itself provides a record of who its currently with and who its next due to go to. However for an 'international' problem like though it would be more viable to have a one/a few devices and an associated thread for each country so that we're not dealing with international shipping.
Anybody out there want to take the plunge? Surely someone has a cable they no longer need?
I didn't see any varistor on the board with the crt socket. There are some on the mainboard and the ones on the side of the tube. Also the 3 I mentioned here.
I don't have Color Return...BUT another menu I do have:
Property > Statis, Recall, Language.
Under Property > Recall, I have:
Picture, Converge, Purity.
Color menu offers 9300*K, 6500*K, 5000*K or User. But I guess the Recall > Picture is the same as the Color Return you are speaking of?
If so that means I have an MCU, correct?
However, now I'm having a new problem. The monitor will occasionally flash bright green and then go very pink before slowly fading back to normal. This only started after changing my g2 voltage, any ideas?
For anyone who's curious, I ordered my cable from Digital Nemesis. I didn't specify any custom pinout so I had to rearrange the pins to match my monitor, but the cable worked perfectly after that. My only regret is not requesting a long cable (it's about 6 inches long).
Thanks,
Draxus
Yes, it has an MCU. Actually, I think all with an OSD have an MCU. I had a 17sf2 which had an OSD, but the MCU didn't even controll the G2.
Color return does some calibration of your monitor, you will see flahsing color on the screen when you run it.
Is this what Recall > picture does?
Maybe your MCU just doesn't adjust convergence.
So you can't find any 4 pin header? hmm. Sometimes it looks a little bit different, as it did on some of those FW900s mentioned earlier.
I wonder if the electronics were made by Sony, or if that is even necessary for using DAS. Maybe some of the ICs will be the same? hmm.
I don't know, I'm wondering if that third knob on your flyback is B+. Ofcourse, chaning that will change other things more than it will change brightness. May not be good for some stuff either.
I suggest you do the resitor mod., easiest way to do this is to trace back from the G2 pin on the CRT socket, and find a suitable spot. More resistance means brighter picture. As far as I can tell G2 is held at a static voltage by some resistance and the voltage source is the from some tap on the flyback. It may go through a multi function IC before the trace reaches the voltage source. I'm not familiar with the hardware beyond the tube, ask some of the resistor mod guys. I'm sure some one here has done it on something other than a P1110.
That you don't have any other way to controll the G2 (as via varistor), this almost narrows this down to MCU involvment.
If the trace to the G2 does pass through a multifunction IC, which itself has traces to the MCU, then I'd suspect MCU involment.
However, if the G2 never touches any ICs on it's way to the voltage source, then your problem is definetly not color return/MCU related, and it may be the same problem. I hope not though, as it would indicate the source of the problem is from something more serious.
What monitor do you have again? Some are known for internal tube shorts caused by flakes of metal.
Pink is the combination of red and blue, with no green.
This sounds like a G1 problem, if your G1 is not shared between the three cathodes.
Or maybe an amplifier problem, something is wrong with the chain of electronics from the green signal, to the green cathode amplifier, which varies the voltage between the cathode and the G1.
Since your problem is dynamic, windas isn't going to be able to compensate. Make sure nothing is shorting in the tube, and that everything look allright.
This is almost certainly not caused by changing your G2, else, why would it only affect one color gun?
It's an IBM P275 (model # on the back says 6652_u3n). As far as I can tell nothing is out of the ordinary with the monitor phsyically... and the it hasn't flashed green or gone pink since shortly after setting it back up. If there's nothing windas can do to fix the problem I suppose I'll just wait and see what happens.
Thanks again for all your help... I would have ended up buying a new monitor after living with the over-brightness for awhile if it wasn't for this site.
Thank you for the help.
My monitor is a Micronpc.com 900mx. I got it new in Dec 2000.
I think I might have found the 4 pin connector.
Mine is very much like the one in the pictures from Pauls earlier post.
I have four pins coming out and they all turn up giving a top view of them like " :: " These I guess are the ones to connect the interface cable to.
Nearly everything I have read here has been over my head. I know nothing about the inner workings of a monitor, as I feel sure you can tell, hehe.
I was hoping mine would be exactly like the pictures in the resistor guide, but it isn't. LOL, wasn't one of Dell's ads saying "I should have got a Dell".
Little by little I am picking up on things, so I might wind up fixing it. The resistor fix is better for me, but I have to figure out exactly which one I need to change. I haven't been able to find a schematic for my monitor, so I am stuck at the moment. I was hoping that one of the knobs would work, as that would have been perfect for my skills. Actually I can solder fairly well, but not knowing which resistor must be changed...
One thing still, please.
The box on the side of my tube. The one with the other adjusters:
Cut and paste from my first post
"Although, after removing the case I noticed a few adjusters on the side of the tube. There are both screw driver type and thumb knobs.
Screw driver types are as follows:
TLV
YCH
YBH
and one that is written like this:
H.
TRP
The thumb knobs were covered with tape, and when I pealed the pieces back I found:
APH
CBH
XBV
XCV
"
This isn't the flyback. Maybe you know this, I just want to make sure you understand me. I now know what the flyback is (thanks again), but this thing on the side of my tube with the above adjusters is seperate from the flyback that is mounted on the mainboard. The flyback has the 3 other adjusters.
I don't suppose that this thing on the side of the tube might be a non-MCU thingy? Probably not, just wishful thinking. Still it seems strange to have so many adjusters and none control brightness.
Anyway, I think I might be able to trace down the resistor to change. I sorta understand your instructions for finding the correct place.
yeah, as I understood, what you mentioned below
.. were on the yoke(yolk?) of the CRT. I've seen many monitors with the same labels for knobs in that area.
Those knobs adjust convergence, XCV, XBV, etc. Some may adjust other things to do with the deflection yolk, I'm not sure.
The flyback though has atleast two knobs, I don't know how they are labeled, but they are for vertical and horizontal focous, and the other is probably for the high voltage on the anode? Not sure.
As to that 4 pin header, I wouldn't think it is a connection to the MCU. If it is, one is +5v and another is GRND, so you could check it out with your multimeter before trying anything.
anyhow,
Xweebie told me that one of his monitors with no color return, but manufactured around the same time and with the same hours of use, had a G2 value of 192 out of 255!!! This is really high, and yet there is no brightness problem with that monitor.
Xweebie has also monitored the CRT for testing the 'bright warmup' problem, and has claimed that all voltages are stable as the monitor settles down to displaying a non-bright picture.
I don't know what to think about that last bit of info. He hasn't been able to measure the HV across the tube yet, so maybe something is drifting. Considering the memo said to patch something in the ABL circuit, perhaps the ABL is trying to controll the HV tension improperly.
Interesting. Thanks again all for info and insights into the true cause of this widespread catastrophic Sony CRT problem.
Not all monitors have the screen(g2) pot, and those that do can have it on the flyback, or on the board the CRT socket is on.
The people using the resistor mod and Windas adjustment should make sure they can't do this easier fix.
Unfourtunately, only one of my older cheaper monitors has a pot for adjusting that voltage. My p991 has nothing like it.
See my other post for details. I put the results there because the first post is about the adjuster I used to fix it.
Full credit goes to Xweebie, for without his help over the last few days, I would never have gotten it working again.
I must also thank P991 DELL SONY. He also offered much advice.
Thanks to both you guys!
I recently rescued a Dell P1110 monitor from a factory because I just took one look at it and decided I was keeping it lol. They threw it out because of the over-bright screen issue.
Anyway when I powered it on all my black areas of the screen are bright green, and very bright green raster aperture lines are visible.
Apart from the black values looking awful (@P991_Dell_Sony: Your avatar text is invisible on the Dell monitor, it shows up fine on my VAIO 15" LCD Laptop panel) the picture quality is reasonable, just a little too washed out.
I'm taking this huge monitor to uni this week so I can run an apple mac + my VAIO laptop using one monitor
I want to go ahead with the resistor fix. I believe there is the resistors I need from Maplin Electronics? (I live in the U.K.) Should I use about 6.7M Ohm resistance? Will I need to snip away the old resistor or can I solder a new resistor on the circuit board leaving the old one still soldered on and in tact?
Oh and one more thing, would I electrocute myself soldering this resistor on the board? Obviously I'd unplug the monitor from the mains first.
(Oh and don't you just LOVE Google? Its how I came to this forum
By the way discribe the look of the screen 6.7 might not be low enough. Maybe 6.2 would be better, or possibly even less.
Yes you have to remove the existing one before you put on the new one. Unless you do like a couple people and run anothe 10MOhm. I think if I was doing it, I would remove the old one and put a new one in it's place.
It might be a good idea to get a selection of resistors. Like 4.7, 5.2, 5.7, 6.2 and 6.7. This way if one doesn't do it, you can try a different one.
Just be caredul not to short any capacitors and try not to touch anything other than the resistor and all should go well. Just be very careful and you shouldn't get shocked. Maybe someone will point out areas to completely avoild. I really don't know what all might store energy.
Good luck and please let us know how it went.
Hi.
Just installed the new resistor and now the screen is a tad too dark. Its now usable on my apple mac but tested from my PC the screen looks too dim.
I've preformed the colour calibration after soldering the new resistor to the Sony A board, and still the monitor just remained quite dark.
One thing I did forget to do was to remove the old resistor on the board, its nigh on impossible for a scaredy cat like me to snip it off the board, so I soldered the resistor over the top. I can't remember the value of the new resistor I soldered on, but it wasn't the 10M Ohm one.
Do I need to get a 10M Ohm resistor and solder this over the top? I've either got a 5.2 or 6.2M Ohm installed at the moment, with the original in its place.
When I fire up the display with no video signal, one thing I now notice is the "Monitor is working" box is a very dull muddy white colour, and the colour bars for red, and green are visible but the one for Blue is not.
I can cope with it for now but I see another tweak coming on. At least its killed that horrible snot-green background and horizontal retrace lines!
I'm no expert at all and really should just be reading, not offering advice. I could be entirely wrong, but the way I understanf it, you lowered the resistance too much by leaving in the old one and using a 4 through 6 MOhm range. Had you of used another 10MOhm (with the stock one still in place), it would have resulted in 5MOhm range. Thus removing it and putting in a 4-6 MOhm gives the same range, give or take whatever value you use.
You have lowered the resistance past the 5MOhm range = picture is too dark.
Someone please correct me if I am wrong. Thank you
Ah thats why, had a feeling I may need to, but to be honest I think I can put up with it being a little too dark for now.
I'll snip the resistor in half when I get the chance to take the back of the monitor (3rd time round and it gets so easy to remove the case lol). To be honest the display is more than reasonable once I ran a few cycles of the colour return menu option.
I also discovered that if the monitor is in standby (amber LED) with no video signal, that pushing and pressing the menu button for more than four seconds made the screen info box go blank, then slowly fade from black to bright blue. I've never seen that happen before on other's P1110's but since that happened the picture seems a lot better.
Thanks for the help guys!
I just bought two HP P1110's to use as secondary monitors (for $25 each!) and stumbled across this thread after discovering that they were way too bright (black was more like a light gray even at the 0 brightness setting).
Using this method (in the above-quoted post) I was able to access the service menu and turn the G2 way down and have brightness return to normal. I still plan on reading through the whole thread to see if I should know anything else, and I still have to adjust the colors a bit (so many settings...), but I'm very happy so far.
Thanks for sharing all this information!
Matt
It sort of has a life of its own. I want to know how many times it has been viewed.
I have to look at it once in a while just to see. There is a ton of great tech data on monitors here. It just seems strange that a forum thread would live on like this. I guess that it is how we know that we are helping people.
tks
A few days ago I bought a refurbished HP P1130 monitor, but the picture is vertically "bent" a little (pixels at the top corners are lower than the center). I have built an ECS cable and installed Windas (thanx to all people in this thread for schemes and experiences), but it seems that there isn't any adjustment tool for "vertical pin balance". Anybody has some tip how to correct it? Thanks
There is an adjustment, (saw something?) , that lifts just the top corners.
You are using the screen geometetry procedure, under the procedures menu?
Before you give up, aske some one with the same monitor chasis if they know of the lack of certain geometry adjustents.
Actually, that really needs to be done.. a list of chassis and features. I have a major howto update in the works on my hardrive, graphics and text bits all scraped from reading the thread backwards and forwards. Still, I didn't think of a chasis to features list, hmm.
So the new howto would feature:
hold button fixes
service mode fixes
better step by step building of windas cable and 'part packs' of places where you can buy the parts.
link to hosted .zip of complete windas and dlls. No more lengthy setup.
windas G2 fix (already there)
comprehensive list of windas features by chasis/model
register/procedure howtos on each set of adjustment.
link to service manual? I can't host these via geocities, but I've found places to link to for some of them.
monitor basics (some one volunteer, I'm not qualified to write too much detail on that)
monitor test pages/images/programs
A third edition of the howto would add to the above with:
new implementation of windas
protocol docs, beyond the source of the implementation
bootable cd, with said implementation, which sets modes and displays patterns, along with making adjustments in realtime. (that way, a second computer isn't needed to do realtime adjustment.
(I'm probably never going to do the third edition, it's a ton of work for almost no practical benefit, most people just want to lowere the G2. Others have expressed an interest in doing so, I hope they do it.)
Currently, the howto is not easily digestable, as >70% of the people who hit it, only load the first page, and of those who bear with it, many just buy the cable off ebay. Further, once the cable is obtained, there is confusion about how to edit the file, which editor to use, how do I increase contrast, etc.
People from non english speaking countries are also hitting the howto, and my lengthy, sloppy descriptions really don't help anyone in that group.
So the second edition is about 5% done, I got all the raw data, and am trying to sort it out into an easily digestible site. I've taken some cues from Dorian's howto, which he unfortunately took down some time ago.
I am going to go much heavier on graphics and illustration this time. Although, I am aware that grahpics sizes low though, black and white, (1 bit per pixel) compresses very nicely
I'm uncertain what to do about CSS, .png and other features browsers may not support. If IE4, Links and Netscape 4 can render it , it should be safe.
I'd love to hear more complaints about my howto,
1.why can't you just host a link to a zip (addressed in 2.0)
2.why does my notepad save in the wrong format? (addresed weakly)
3. you said it was 'only the begining' where are the other tweaks? (addressed in 2.0)
4. you don't show how to build the cable, you just spew generic trash (addressed in 2.0)
5. Reading the thread is like panning for gold. (gold has been collected and included in 2.0)
If anyone has made any other howtos, speak up so we can link eachother and share in google pagerank, (or other MSN, Lycos, Ask etc. ranking systems. Exalead .com has wild card '*' search and regexp, a step up from google.).
2.0 will be released no later than June 1st this year, despite my long post don't expect much, if you've read this, you're probably not one of the 70% who hit the howto and turn back.
There are people who have gone all the way with the colorimeter and needed no information than what was on the howto. The update of the howto is not going to give anyone new capabilities, all the information is already on this thread. The update of the howto is aimed at the 70% who are not going beyond the first page, (of the thread, or the howto) and is made to minimize investment of time, money, effort, and concentration.
I tried all the procedures and adjustments. I did not find any procedure that "moves" corners vertically. It seems that every monitor type has its own set of adjustments, e.g. adjustment of horizontal linearity is missing too for P1130
The monitor has to have a signal going to it in order to load a new .dat. (Maybe there are exceptions to this, but, I don't remember getting it to work by having it in standby mode). I'm betting that the lack of signal is all that WSC error is about.
Since you have the orginial .dat try MPUing the monitor.
Also, check the failures. This usually resets them.
I've been in the same situation (or atleast very similiar) myself, I had cranked up the G2 way too much, and the thing shut off, and wouldn't turn back on. I think checking failures, with signal applied, fixed it. It's happened to me a few other times since then, I really should remember exactyl what I did, but in anycase it was something simple like checking the failures dialog, or MPUing and reloading it.
Maybe try the 'test patterns' accesible through holding the OSD controlls down. Though, I don't think those modes count as a signal.
Good luck, I hope it's the same thing that happened to me.
When I have the Dell 991 attached to the computer , so it should be getting a signal, I can't power it up at all. With no image, I can't run Windas to reload original.dat. Maybe I'm missing the point because I don't know what MPUing is or how to do it. Also what is the failures dialog? How do I check failures with signal applied? Can I attach a working monitor to the video card with the rs232 to TTL gizmo attached to the 991, and somehow bypass the wsc error? Will Windas update a monitor that is not powered up and not even in standby mode?
MPUing is under some one of the main menus, forget which. I don't think you need to do it, but, try it just in case. Maybe if you corrupted a dat upload, this would fix it as it sets everything back to defauts.And I mean, factory defaults (before fine tuning and calibration).
Failures is underneath the procedures menu.
Windas has no idea what, if anything, is connected to your video card. It's the monitor that won't communicate with windas when it's in standby. (Atleast, as I remember it)
I think, as long as there is a signal going to the monitor (the p991), you should be able to check failures. Checking them will clear them. It's probably worth a try to check it without the signal too.
ABL_SHUTDOWN does this kind of thing, where you can't power the monitor back up. Seem to be like what you're describing. Even though you didn't seem to crank up the brightness, perhaps the dat was messed up some how.
So, check procedures->failures, if that doesn't help , try the MPU opiton (under one of the main menus, not procedures). All monitors have these procedures, so they're on there somewhere . If it still doesn't help, make sure you have a signal going to the P991 , (second computer or dual head video card helps)perhaps you'll need to try it blind.
If all still fails... hmm, try leaving it unplugged? Try powering it up while holding the 'middle' OSD button, or the little OSD reset button (need to press it with your fingernail.)
I'm not sure if the first has any effect, but the second will reset your serialnumber and so maybe it might reset other settings.
It'd be nice if you could give more detail to exactly what you did before it started mis behaving. No seems to have had an un-fixable problem such as this before, maybe I can reproduce your steps.