Sony, as most other monitor manufacturers use microcontrollers/DSPs to control the many different voltages required to drive a CRT so that it works and looks good.
After reviewing the schematics of the G500 it became apparent that the ECS port (thats what Sony call it - allows connection to a PC) is nothing more than RX/TX & GND. More importantly these signals run directly to the microcontroller inside the monitor to its UART pins. All of the I2C signals are generated by the microcontroller on separate lines.
The connection to the monitor is nothing more than a standard RS232<>TTL converter (AKA MAX232). These are available from a variety of sources.
My ECS port is labeled as CN503:
Pin 1 = GND / Ground
Pin 2 = STBY5 / 5VDC when monitor in Standby mode (use it to power the converter)
Pin 3 = RXD / TTL Connect to TXD of TTL<>RS232 converter
Pin 4 = TXD / TTL Connect to RXD of TTL<>RS232 converter
The connector is a 4 pin .100 header, all very standard stuff.
What I hope is that some kind sole will be able to send me the later Windows version of DAS so I can have a go at adjusting the G2 output.
I have done the resistor mod for now, albeit its not what I would like as the screen controls no longer function as they should (increasing brightness dims the gun output).
As you can see, the interface cable is not very complex.Doesn't have to be clean and fancy. This is a cable that just wants to work. And it's way cheaper if you just cut the serial cable you got at the garage sale for 50 cents.
Wow, way to slap it together. It just works.
If you have wires and household tape at home, all you need is the IC,(max232*,hin232, etc. many chips convert ttl>rs232) and that costs less than 1$, I got 5 chips and 25 capacitors to go with them for 7.50$ including shipping, ttl<>rs232 conversion is common and used in cell phone data cables, robotics and other applications.
There appears to be a completed 4pin GRND,5v+,TX,RX to DB9 serial connector at this link for 17$, may want to check to make sure the 4 pins are in the above order, if not, it's trivial to change.
I'm finishing a step by step howto on how to build a cable, install and enable windas, and edit the saved .dat files to change any setting on the monitor. It shouldn't be more than a couple days till release here on shortmedia.
HOWTO covering the following topics in step by step fashion with screenshots/photos/links
*Build your own monitor<>computer cable for under 10$, or buy a completed one for only 17$. I will detail the general procedure of what you need, how to get it, and what to do with it.Check out an earlier post by Atomist, this is as easy as cutting a serial cable you got at a garage sale for 0.50$.
*How to install windas and all .dlls and apply my patch to disable the need for the security key
*How change ANY setting on your monitor through editing the savefile (screen shot says it all)
*HOWTO will cover any computer controlled sony monitor manufactured for any of their customers
*binary patch for das software eliminates need for security dongle,just what 300PSI needed
That alone is enough to fix the classic overbrightness problem without any hardware modification, you can save/restore/modify geometry settings, tweak the ABL settings etc.
In another Howto I will cover how to use a second computer as a signal generator while you use the first computer to adjust the monitor using the adjustment procedures in Windas. There are 100 'dynamic convergence' settings which you can adjust for perfect convergence this way. Dynamic because you do one set of 50 for low frequency modes and the next set of 50 for high frequency modes.
Thanks again to everyone on this thread for their information, insight, and success stories.
The 'Preliminary Windas HOWTO' is ready for visitors! It covers Installation of windas, patching of windas, how to build/buy an Ecs cable, and how to edit your monitors settings! But you already knew that! Here it is!
There is a screenshot for every step of installing/using Windas, the only part that really needs more work is the Ecs cable part. You can still find a reasonably cheap one to buy, and the parts you need to build one are listed, but I plan on getting photos of the whole process.
If any one from short-media is interested, I can get the text and compressed/indexed screenshots all zipped up and emailed whenever you want. :celebrate:
Thanks for all the effort and time you have put into this. A job well Done ! Software now works great with no dongle problems. I've reset the G2 level on my G500 to something much lower, the scan lines are gone and the screen doesnt look so washed out.
The 'Preliminary Windas HOWTO' is ready for visitors! It covers Installation of windas, patching of windas, how to build/buy an Ecs cable, and how to edit your monitors settings! But you already knew that! Here it is!
There is a screenshot for every step of installing/using Windas, the only part that really needs more work is the Ecs cable part. You can still find a reasonably cheap one to buy, and the parts you need to build one are listed, but I plan on getting photos of the whole process.
If any one from short-media is interested, I can get the text and compressed/indexed screenshots all zipped up and emailed whenever you want. :celebrate:
A hearty thanks and a fat cigar to all contributors, in particular "P991 DELL SONY" for his excellent grief-relieving guide and security circumvention trick
I have a Sony E400 (refurbished by Sony UK in 2001), which had always been a *bit* bright. For example the very first thing I noticed when switching it on the first time I received it was nasty messy scanlines when mode switching.
Aside from that, the black level wasn't particularly poor, although certainly nothing like black.
Over a period of time this had gradually grown worse, just like a lot of other people here have experienced, eventually leading me just in the last couple of weeks to do a little reading and finding that I was in the same boat as everyone else.
Ordered a few components from Maplin UK a couple days ago intending to have a stab at tweaking the EPROM settings myself. They arrived this morning, so lo and behold when I do a little more googling this afternoon I find that someone has actually created a proper write-up just in the last week or so ! I couldn't believe my luck
Anyway, I used a MAX232 (the std one) on proto-typing board and a rats-nest of wires to connect an RS232 serial cable from the PC to the protoboard to the monitor.
If you have an old AT/ATX powersupply handy, you'll find that the floppy power connecter is a pretty good fit on the Sony interface socket, and this is what I used. Just remember that the wire colours are going to be slightly misleading
Need to raise a couple of points.
On windows XP SP2 here, so regsvr32.exe resides in the %systemroot%\system32 folder. It's in the path, so "copy msflxgrd.ocx %systemroot%\system32" and "regsvr32 %systemroot%\system32\msflxgrd.ocx" are more appropriate. "%systemroot%\system" isn't in the path on XP by default.
After running windas and selecting the appropriate monitor and serial port/mode, windas bombs when attemping to select "Save Data to File".
Thankfully, it still remembers the settings you have chosen, and simply restarting windas and going straight to the "Save Data to File" option works fine.
Should mention that my E400 shuts the CRT down whilst EPROM reading/writing operations are in progress, usually for 15-30secs, and fires up again once complete.
The first time I performed a read operation on the display, i noticed afterwards that the Monitors external controls had ceased to operate!
Running windas again and performing another download operation restored the external controls.
Anyway, my E400's G2 setting was 106. I dropped it by 4-6 notches each time, testing in-between, and finally settled on 90 as a reasonable figure that gives pretty much a pure black screen in a black room at the user brightness setting of around 30. Much better than the constant 0 setting it had needed before whilst still displaying scanline-retrace during warm-up.
I'd like to reiterate just how important the initial DOWNLOAD and SAVING of the EPROM data from your monitor is. I started fiddling with some of the other options wondering what they did, only to find that the MPU option appeared to reset the data on the EPROM. The resulting display was horrible, although still readable, so I was particularly thankful that uploading the original EPROM data I had downloaded from the monitor appeared to restore everything to its normal state. If you don't have this data saved, you're in for a load of fiddling to get things looking ok again.
Again, I'm suitably chuffed with the results, so "P991 DELL SONY" thoroughly deserves all the plaudits he receives for all his work.
The first time I performed a read operation on the display, i noticed afterwards that the Monitors external controls had ceased to operate!
Running windas again and performing another download operation restored the external controls.
Your OSD locks whenever the software is about to read from the EPROM. If you disconnect the cable or turn off the monitor before the program gets the chance to re-enable it, you'll stay locked out until you reoprm and close the EPROM program window.
Your OSD locks whenever the software is about to read from the EPROM. If you disconnect the cable or turn off the monitor before the program gets the chance to re-enable it, you'll stay locked out until you reoprm and close the EPROM program window.
Thanks for response. In my case, it's been several months since I ran WinDAS and the OSD worked fine afterwards. But it locked up last week after I powered down the monitor for a long trip, something I rarely do. The screen is noticably darker, perhaps having reverted to the default or a previous state. You know, it's possible this was the first time I had turned off the power since I ran WinDAS. Hmm...
Fortunately, I backed up my data file after tweaking all the settings so it should just be a matter of reloading that data file, and making sure I close the program properly. If I can just find my interface cable...
Aside from that, the black level wasn't particularly poor, although certainly nothing like black.
Over a period of time this had gradually grown worse, just like a lot of other people here have experienced, eventually leading me just in the last couple of weeks to do a little reading and finding that I was in the same boat as everyone else.
Anyway, I used a MAX232 (the std one) on proto-typing board and a rats-nest of wires to connect an RS232 serial cable from the PC to the protoboard to the monitor.
If you have an old AT/ATX powersupply handy, you'll find that the floppy power connecter is a pretty good fit on the Sony interface socket, and this is what I used. Just remember that the wire colours are going to be slightly misleading
Need to raise a couple of points.
On windows XP SP2 here, so regsvr32.exe resides in the %systemroot%\system32 folder. It's in the path, so "copy msflxgrd.ocx %systemroot%\system32" and "regsvr32 %systemroot%\system32\msflxgrd.ocx" are more appropriate. "%systemroot%\system" isn't in the path on XP by default.
After running windas and selecting the appropriate monitor and serial port/mode, windas bombs when attemping to select "Save Data to File".
Thankfully, it still remembers the settings you have chosen, and simply restarting windas and going straight to the "Save Data to File" option works fine.
Should mention that my E400 shuts the CRT down whilst EPROM reading/writing operations are in progress, usually for 15-30secs, and fires up again once complete.
The first time I performed a read operation on the display, i noticed afterwards that the Monitors external controls had ceased to operate!
Running windas again and performing another download operation restored the external controls.
Thanks for your tips! Sorry that the .bat wasn't generic enough , I was in a rush just get the patch out and I didn't remember how to genericly refer to the system folder, neither did I know that XP doesn't have a sytem folder. I'll have that fixed soon, hopefully it hasn't caused anyone significant problems yet.
Nice way to get a 4 pin connector. I even had an old AT powersupply and didn't think of looking there. I really need to improve the cable building instructions.
I wonder why windas bombed the first time you tried to save? Anyhow, I should have mentioned that the OSD is disabled before you make adjustments, and will remained so if the program/procedure isn't closed properly.
Thanks for including your initial and adjusted G2 setting. I'm begining to think that in most cases G2 isn't raised at all, either by the MPU or by faulty components. Some property of the tube may be changing.
Toward the bottom of the above page there are tips on how to fix the common excessive brightness problem. He mentions that hid did find a faulty resistor once, but this quote gave me an idea.
..check R053 on the tube base board (G2 circuit) if OK the CRT may be leaky or the monitor requires adjustment due to normal CRT ageing.
I've always thought normal CRT aging was the wearing down of the cathodes such that they get dimmer and emit electrons from more surface area. I've remember reading from a TV repairman that a leaky CRT does cause excessive brightness, not sure how.
Maybe the beams hit air molecules in the tube and so the beam is scattered all over, causing brightness in areas that should be black? This seems to fit, because before I modified my G2, lowering the brightness to 0 actually dimmed the beams noticeably and caused lower intensity pixels to be swallowed by the grey pedastool.
This alone doesn't seem to fit with the scanlines being visible. But I've also heard from the same TV repairman that a leaky tube causes your EHT (extra high tension(voltage)) transformer to work overtime, and so you may also experience 'zooming', or when the image changes size when the number of the bright pixels on the screen increase. This is because an overworked EHT is harder to regulate, and so the HT deflectors which move the beams behave differently. Some people have complained of zooming, I have a slight problem with it myself, I'm not sure how normal it is, or if the hypothesized CRT leak is indirectly causing it.
If we find that the G2 setting in the EEPROM is basicly the same for everyone, and we all check our G2 circuit for faulty resistors, we can safely say the CRT is at fault. Hopefully, some one can explain this CRT fault as normal aging, if not, we've got to find a way to stop the CRT leak.
I'm only guessing about what could be wrong, I really don't see how the EHT transformer knows to work harder, or why it even should have to work harder if there is a CRT leak. I have less than a highschool understanding of electronics, so I hope some one more qualified can explain what is up with this brightness problem.
Either forget that monitor or live with its problems as long as you can. All the drivers, software, or tweaking will not fix it.
Over brightness is usually a CRT cathode/heater leak.
Size increase with picture brightness is due to the EHT falling (scan coils then have more influence), and vice versa. If you have either a CRT problem or worn out EHT rectifier these will cause poor EHT regulation as the brightness changes with picture content.
None of this matters a fig. You can't fix it unless you are into that sort of thing and it wouldn't be worth getting it fixed (assuming anyone would even take it on).
I used to do TV repairs.
What he needs to explain is how a CRT problem causes poor EHT regulation?
And again, this is just a guess of what may be causing the problem, it may just be normal CRT aging, or as more initial EEPROM G2 values are posted, it may actually be the EEPROM setting. If the problem is just CRT ageing, we may be able to fix the EHT regulation problems by changing the ABL settings, and even if it is a leak, it could easily be pluged with something that doesn't burn or conduct and is fluid enough to fill small gaps.
I've read that a faulty IC could be the problem, not sure if that IC is controlled indirectly by settings in the EEPROM.
So anyway, let's hope our CRTs are not leaky, which we can confirm by posting initial G2 settings, wether or not our resistors failed, if we suspect an IC? (not sure how to suspect an IC), and if we have 'zooming' or other problems.
I didn't mean to scare anybody, just wanted to bring information up that could help find the real cause of the problem, and perhaps help us fix other problems like 'zooming' (which may just be normal, all the CRTS I've had do it a little bit,(lower end ones were really bad) but it'd be nice to get rid of completely).
hmm
my orignal G2 setting was apparently 172, its now 130.
tho heres, my question
we have a P780, the 17" version of this monitor,
it to this day, runs 50% on brightness, perfect blacklevel, has been on basically 24\7 since new, tho i did always use the standby function after 1hr.. so i donno total hours of use, but its up there..
i still, dont trust the "color restore" on the p1100, this is the one function the 780 DOES NOT have...
what does the color restore do? does it mess with the G2 level?
i cant see the crt being leaky, not ALL of them...
im not sure what a gassy CRT does, but gassy tubes in amplifiers very often hum..
gassy tubes also get weak very quick, short cathode lives... and test weak to begin with
id have to assume a weak crt would need a higher G2 level, not a lower one...
just an assumption
btw, using displaymates test for sizechange, the p1100 scores as well as any monitor ive ever seen, basically 0 change in size during blink tests. theres a nice test where half the monitor is bright white, and half black, and it switches top\bottom so u can see change easily, and atleast this p1100, basically doesnt change, atall
might be a HINT, but so little its impossible to tell
In my case, it's been several months since I ran WinDAS and the OSD worked fine afterwards. But it locked up last week after I powered down the monitor for a long trip, something I rarely do. The screen is noticably darker, perhaps having reverted to the default or a previous state. You know, it's possible this was the first time I had turned off the power since I ran WinDAS. Hmm...
Fortunately, I backed up my data file after tweaking all the settings so it should just be a matter of reloading that data file, and making sure I close the program properly. If I can just find my interface cable...David
Ok, I just ran WinDAS and re-loaded my backup Data file. The monitor, which is a P992, returned to nominal appearance. The OSD unlocked as soon as I clicked OK on the load screen. I then exited WinDAS and verified the OSD was still unlocked. I then powered down the monitor and removed the interface cable. When I powered back up again, the OSD was locked again!! I repeated these steps a couple of times, even loading a backup of my original dat file prior to making changes. Same result.
Of course, my problem may be unrelated to WinDAS. At least WinDAS enables me to temporarily unlock the OSD to make adjustments, if needed. I can live with that.
So anyway, let's hope our CRTs are not leaky, which we can confirm by posting initial G2 settings, wether or not our resistors failed, if we suspect an IC? (not sure how to suspect an IC), and if we have 'zooming' or other problems.
I didn't mean to scare anybody, just wanted to bring information up that could help find the real cause of the problem, and perhaps help us fix other problems like 'zooming' (which may just be normal, all the CRTS I've had do it a little bit,(lower end ones were really bad) but it'd be nice to get rid of completely).
Thanks for posting your accounts!:D
I have the Sony G500 and my initial G2 value was 159. My screen was completly washed out and I had tri-colour (red,blue/green) tracelines on the screen.
I knocked the value down to 120 and my screen is perfect, colors vibrant and black, as black can be
Seems my G2 value is different to others, but you guys have 19" monitors and mine is a 21". However I thought the 19" would have a lower G2 value and someone posted they had a much higer G2 with a 19" than me.
Hope you find out what causes the problem and the the G2 Windas fix will keep our monitors running for a long time to come.
I have the Sony G500 and my initial G2 value was 159. My screen was completly washed out and I had tri-colour (red,blue/green) tracelines on the screen.
I knocked the value down to 120 and my screen is perfect, colors vibrant and black, as black can be
Seems my G2 value is different to others, but you guys have 19" monitors and mine is a 21". However I thought the 19" would have a lower G2 value and someone posted they had a much higer G2 with a 19" than me.
Hope you find out what causes the problem and the the G2 Windas fix will keep our monitors running for a long time to come.
Hi, I've had a superbright Sony G500 for a few years now and I'm so glad that people have actually discovered a fix. I think I'll buy the RS-232 cable from hobby engineering and use the windas software to fix my monitor. I just have two questions. Is it normal to get those Astro SG errors when starting up windas? I can select my monitor model just fine in the menu. Also, where is the 4-pin port located on the G500? Maybe it's obvious and I just have to look harder
Ok, I just ran WinDAS and re-loaded my backup Data file. The monitor, which is a P992, returned to nominal appearance. The OSD unlocked as soon as I clicked OK on the load screen. I then exited WinDAS and verified the OSD was still unlocked. I then powered down the monitor and removed the interface cable. When I powered back up again, the OSD was locked again!! I repeated these steps a couple of times, even loading a backup of my original dat file prior to making changes. Same result.
Since writing this, I solved my problem thanks to a little help from DW at eMusicraft. I'm not sure if other monitors behave this way, but with my P992, if I access the OSD prior to cycling the power, it will remain permanently locked when I power the monitor back up. By simply keeping my little fingers off the external controls until AFTER cycling the power, all is well. Who would'a thunk it?
David
Hi, I've had a superbright Sony G500 for a few years now and I'm so glad that people have actually discovered a fix. I think I'll buy the RS-232 cable from hobby engineering and use the windas software to fix my monitor. I just have two questions. Is it normal to get those Astro SG errors when starting up windas? I can select my monitor model just fine in the menu. Also, where is the 4-pin port located on the G500? Maybe it's obvious and I just have to look harder
Finding the ECS port on the G500 requires the removal of the back part of the case. Be carefull that you do not break the top tabs of as they need to be sprung with a flatblade screendriver. The port is on the bottom right side.
I did'nt have any problems with the OCS locking once I had left Windas, however I was not able to use them when the cable was connected and the program was running.
hmm
my orignal G2 setting was apparently 172, its now 130.
tho heres, my question
we have a P780, the 17" version of this monitor,
it to this day, runs 50% on brightness, perfect blacklevel, has been on basically 24\7 since new, tho i did always use the standby function after 1hr.. so i donno total hours of use, but its up there..
i still, dont trust the "color restore" on the p1100, this is the one function the 780 DOES NOT have...
what does the color restore do? does it mess with the G2 level?
i cant see the crt being leaky, not ALL of them...
im not sure what a gassy CRT does, but gassy tubes in amplifiers very often hum..
gassy tubes also get weak very quick, short cathode lives... and test weak to begin with
id have to assume a weak crt would need a higher G2 level, not a lower one...
just an assumption
btw, using displaymates test for sizechange, the p1100 scores as well as any monitor ive ever seen, basically 0 change in size during blink tests. theres a nice test where half the monitor is bright white, and half black, and it switches top\bottom so u can see change easily, and atleast this p1100, basically doesnt change, atall
might be a HINT, but so little its impossible to tell
I was thinking along your lines untill I saw those posts from the TV repair people.They say gassy CRTs have over brightness problems, the early FD trinitron tubes are said to be cruddy (colors slightly change in corners), but I've heard people with tubes from as late as 2002 have the same problem. Those repair guys have found one with a verified resistor problem in the G2 circuit, but atleast 2 on this thread have found no problem with their resistors. There is some IC they mention.. not sure what it does of if it's behavior is adjust through the EEPROM settings.
I had forgot about color return. Thanks for bringing it up !
At the end of the white balance procedure, the monitor does the 'color return thing', presumably it mesures beam current at the end of the calibration. When you do color return again it mesures beam current then tweaks settings. I think you may be right, it probably touches the G2 when raising contrast to some limit fails to achieve the proper current.
But if color return measures current, can't it see there is too much current , atleast during darker pixels?
Or maybe, g2 doesn't increase current? and electron speed changes?
Well, we know the beam is 'swept' so it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable, but greater speed would mean greater current in the end.
I assume voltage only means more current, and that the voltage of this cathode ray is always the same, so basicly, the amount your screen glows is the amount of electrons hiting it?
Did anybody adjust the g1? it has opposite voltage from g2, I think it sits behind the tips of the cathodes? while G2 is a grid in the front that gives the electrons on the hot cathodes reason to move toward the screen.
I don't really know what I'm doing or what I'm talking about.
Anyone know how the beams are kept to only activate the phosphor of their respective color?Are they actually switching on/off reall fast? I guess if the horizontal freq doubled the beam would cover twice as much screen, but the RGB pulses would come twice as fast so it would cancel. Beam speed would need to be contsant, otherwise, the beam would squish by a non integer aomount of RGB strips, discoloring. The beam does squish toward the end of the scanline, so this can't be it. And how are verticle retrace lines still pure R G and B?
Maybe the phosphors have verticle seperation? but then there would be the same problem, only with the much slower vertical frequency. Magnets can cause it to discolor... so I wonder how the magnets used for convergence don't cause discoloring.)
The white balance is controlled by the Max and Min cutoffs for each gun and the Drive for each gun. These seem to be set by the =color section of the data, the color settings get swapped in/out from the current settings. There is no G2 in these settings.
How does warmup work? everyone says it's G2, but when switching video modes during warmup, the screen is black, unlike when you have a high G2 ( you would see some brightness). Maybe doing color return before the warmup is finished causes a problem?
Regardless, what really needs to be answered is how color return can do anything, yet not notice over brightness.
Has anyone noticed that pure black seems to catch 'reflected light' when you have something bright filling most of the screen? It makes the black level look brighter, untill you view a mostly black screen, then it looks fine. Changing the ABL_max_CNT doesn't change the affect. It seems weird that a monitor would be designed knowing that if the screen is bright dark will look less black because of reflection or something.
I need to try a small black rectangel in the middle of white, that would have least real reflection from the sides of the screen.
My G2 is pretty low now, I've gotten it down to 84 but that requires lots of contrast and even peak contrast doesn't get to the apropriate brightness levels for lower color temps (can't take advantage of blue color gun)( I use a colorimeter to do the white balance adjustment, been testing things and measuring xyY values). G2 of 90 currently, the bottom of the intensity curve become visible at about 55 on the brightness controll. It's funny that sony Windas wb procedure says in the begining "adjust G2 so first step cuts of and second step barely illuminates" I haven't figured out what the pattern is supposed to be yet, but at about G2=90 0 (RGB black) starts getting gray so those first and second steps of the sony grascale must be 0 and 1? Bumping up G2 and doing the white balance procedure hasn't changed the black level <> brightness relation so much as I expected, I should try higher G2s.
Anyway, the less contrast, the less screen distortion when the average brightness on the screen changes.
the ABL can be set to automaticly lower contrast in order to keep the average brightness below a certain level, if your contrast is high and your max average contrast is low, you REALLY notice the contrast lowering.There is also an ABL shutdown, which shuts down the powersupply when the average brightness changes too much, the MPU puts it at 255.. heh, white balance says "IMPORTANT! wait for luminance to stabilize", but it's already stable! so I don't know, if I wait too long it sets the average brightnes to something really low. Maybe this is something to do with my G2 being too low.
I'd be interested in hearing what your default ABL_MAX_CONT and ABL_SHUTDOWN values are? Not real important, but if you have the chance it'd be nice to hear.
Changing from a black on white cross hatch to a white on black crosshatch should show you distortion and is an ideal way to adjust your max average contrast and G2.
So, anyhow, I'm not entirely convinced that the tube properties aren't causing the increase in brightness. It goes against all my intuition to say that a leaky tube gets brighter, I still can't figure out why the TV people would be suspecting it. Some one needs to avoid doing color return for a long time, save their data file, do color return, then save another data file and compare them. I should look up some of the physical info about cathode ray tubes.
Thanks for your replies! I'll update the howto on http://www.geocities.com/gregua/windas/ soon as I figure out the root problem. I'm still fixing the style sheet and the layout of the info, I'm going to add generic CRT physics info as soon as (if?) I figure it out.
Oh and make sure to try the Dynamic Convergence procedure!!!!!! if you have two computers. It is well worth it!
Hi all !!!
First a big thank you to P991 DELL SONY for his excellent contribution !
I fixed a 21" IBM with no problem. It had the "too bright screen" problem. I used 120 as G2 value and it's a brand new monitor !
I have another question : I have a P97 IBM (Sony chassis) that has a sync problem... I have horizontal rolling bars on the screen. I wondered if it could be fixed using WinDAS ?
Horizontal rolling bars? Not sure what you mean exactly. What makes you think it's a sync problem? Either way, I don't think you could do much for that problem in WinDAS. There is a mode timings setting, which I think matches up the input signal to the stored geometry settings for a mode, other than that I can't think of anything else in WinDAS that talks about snyc. Try doing the failure info and see what that says.
I think your best bet is finding the service manual, and if it is a vertical sync problem, maybe replace parts that commonly go bad ( like caps) in the vertical deflection circuit.
Good luck with that, hope it turns out to be more simple than I thought!
Hi all !!!
First a big thank you to P991 DELL SONY for his excellent contribution !
I fixed a 21" IBM with no problem. It had the "too bright screen" problem. I used 120 as G2 value and it's a brand new monitor !
I have another question : I have a P97 IBM (Sony chassis) that has a sync problem... I have horizontal rolling bars on the screen. I wondered if it could be fixed using WinDAS ?
I have just installed WinDas and am having a few problems with communicating with the monitor through the 4pin serial port using a pre built cable i brought online. it comes up and says Can't connect the Monitor! check bus line and condition. does anyone have any ideas??????
Which prebuilt cable? The bus line is your cable. I get this error when I don't plug the cable in very good. Make sure the pinout of the cable matches the pinout of the Ecs port. If you are refering to the pre-built cable I mentioned in my howto from Hobby Engineering, then make sure the pins are in the right order.
Hobby Engineering apears to have a completed adapter that will requre no assembly for 24.50 + S/H. Make sure to ask if the 4 pin pinout is (GRND, 5+, RX, TX) in that order, if not you can just switch them. This is a rip off, but atleast it's easy. Completed adapter
So, if you bought any odd ttl<>rs232 cable online, the serial side should be hooked up the same no matter what it is, the Ecs port on the monitor is (GRND, 5+, RX, TX) so make sure that is hooked up appropriately. Look inside the adapter and there should be a chip, google it's name and get the data sheet, now you know which wires are grnd,5+,RX,TX and you can put them in the right order. You may have to switch RX and TX, grnd and 5v+ are obvious.
In the case of the cable Hobby Engineering things are really easy, their website should say what the pinout of the 4 pins is, if not, email them about it.
Infact, any place you bought an adapter from should tell you the pinout of the 4 pins.
If you can't id the the chip and the people you bought it from are really rude, you could try all 24 combinations, maybe the colors of the 4 pins would give clues about which are tx/rx and which are grnd and 5v+.
If you know you have the pins in the right order, maybe you didn't connect the 4 pin connector snug enough.
I have just installed WinDas and am having a few problems with communicating with the monitor through the 4pin serial port using a pre built cable i brought online. it comes up and says Can't connect the Monitor! check bus line and condition. does anyone have any ideas??????
You guys should check out my avatar! No, it isn't just a black box. I've written messages in dark colors, some in the darkest color possible.I didn't change the font size from the lighter ones.. See if you can find the scecret word. Your monitors black should be black, if you can't read the message, increas the brightness (bias) untill you can. However, if your monitor isn't adjusted right , this may make your black gray, thus making it harder to see messages. The secret word message is all but invisible except on a perfectly calibrated monitor. I had thought I was all set up untill I tried this, distinguishing color 0,0,0 from 1,1,1 is extremely hard even with a big square of it. If you set your brightness (bias) too low in order to obtain a black black, your lower values will become just as black as 0,0,0. I hope everyone enjoys this teaser, let me know how well you display it.
i checked out this cable and it seems to be wired ok! it is using a SP202EEN chip. but still no connection between monitor and WinDas.
i was thinking maybe WinDas that i downloaded off your site is not functioning as it should with Windows XP. is there another version you have that i could maybe try at all.
Others have used windas in XP with no problems, only reason it should be giving that error would be if you have the wrong comport selected under File->config, or your comport settings are wrong under windows ( but I think the program sets the comport settings itself). You did select the correct comport? Maybe try it in a different comport ( For probably no reason at all, I once was unable to get it to work on com2 but got it to work on com1? Maybe I had the wrong comport settings and forgot to check it.)
I don't know about another windas version, but if you find a later one, be sure to tell everyone. I wonder if Sony has windas for their LCD displays? Sony windas for their huge HD TV displays? It'd be interesting.
You can try dumping garbage into the serial port and seeing if you get a reply, that was how I tested that my cable was atleast wired properly and set to the right comport settings, so I could Isolate windas. Use HyperTerminal or something like that, I forget what the bytes are that generate replies, but a large file, or a random stream of junk should generate something.
Just to reiterate, it's super unlikely the API for doing serial stuff in windows has changed, so this isn't at all a problem with the version of windas. It's like upgrading to the latest windows service pack, probably not going to help.
Had a look at the datasheet, so yeah, you've got all the right stuff. Make sure the pins are in order ( which, I think you told me you did, but I can't be sure what you mean by 'wired ok', just checking) and that the plug isn't upside down.
Can't think of what else to say. Hopefully I mentione something you haven't tried, or that you find whatever the little something is that is causing the problem. I wonder how easy it is for the chip to get damaged? I don't really know, but if it can survive ESD, I think a +5v across something can't touch it.
From my experience it's rarely a problem like needing a new version, or a broken chip or whatever, it's usually the simple stuff you forget about.
i checked out this cable and it seems to be wired ok! it is using a SP202EEN chip. but still no connection between monitor and WinDas.
i was thinking maybe WinDas that i downloaded off your site is not functioning as it should with Windows XP. is there another version you have that i could maybe try at all.
I got it working :bigggrin:, the wires were wrong in the cable like you said! but not i have another slight problem, i can save the dat file and read it etc but after i have edited it, i can't load it back to the monitor it says save format is different even thou i have changed nothing except a number and clicked save. any ideas?
You guys should check out my avatar! No, it isn't just a black box. I've written messages in dark colors, some in the darkest color possible.I didn't change the font size from the lighter ones.. See if you can find the scecret word. Your monitors black should be black, if you can't read the message, increas the brightness (bias) untill you can. However, if your monitor isn't adjusted right , this may make your black gray, thus making it harder to see messages. The secret word message is all but invisible except on a perfectly calibrated monitor. I had thought I was all set up untill I tried this, distinguishing color 0,0,0 from 1,1,1 is extremely hard even with a big square of it. If you set your brightness (bias) too low in order to obtain a black black, your lower values will become just as black as 0,0,0. I hope everyone enjoys this teaser, let me know how well you display it.
Nice Avatar, I can read the first two messages and see the last but can't read it. Probably more to do with my bad eyesite than my monitor
What did you use to save the file? Wordpad in windows XP likes to save stuff as unicode rather than ASCII. Make sure you save the file in ASCII. Use notepad if you can (not sure if there is a notepad in XP, or if it has changed and doesn't use ACSII anymore). If all else fails use a hex editor, which is overkill, but atleast you'll be sure of which bytes you changed.
I got it working :bigggrin:, the wires were wrong in the cable like you said! but not i have another slight problem, i can save the dat file and read it etc but after i have edited it, i can't load it back to the monitor it says save format is different even thou i have changed nothing except a number and clicked save. any ideas?
That's amazing! I can barely read the first one without ruining my black level, and I'm only in 1280x1024.
Using a different gamma makes things easier though, I'm not sure how things are supposed to be though. Maybe 1,1,1 and 0,0,0 are supposed to be real close? A CRT without it's own gamma correction is said to have a gamma of 2.2 or something. I should look into that.
The sRGB color setting on my monitor doesn't have a real dark black, and I think it attempts to do whatever the sRGB gamma is in hardware.
I was wondering if someone can help me out. I have a Sony 24" W900 (different from the one posted by someone else here). It has the brightness problem and I can clearly see the retrace scan lines. There is one really noticeable white one going right across the screen.
This monitor doesn't have the 4pin connector in the back. There is a service input that looks similar to an S-Video input.
I'm trying to find the R459 to solder the resistor but I can't find it. I've uploaded some pics of the back. Please help me find where to solder the resistor.
Edit: I've attached a pic of what plugs are in the back. Most of the Dells and Sonys here have that 4pin outlet. Mine has the S-video looking plug
I think I MAY have found the resistor. Correct me if I'm wrong please! I don't have a schematic of the board. I'm just relying on the past comments on this thread. It looks like the faulty resistor is R1823 on mine(attached pic). But I don't know what type of resistor it is. It's some kind of blue bean shaped resistor?? (pic attached). Please help!!
Comments
From http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19549&page=9&pp=20
Also check out posts on same page by 300PSI
As you can see, the interface cable is not very complex.Doesn't have to be clean and fancy. This is a cable that just wants to work. And it's way cheaper if you just cut the serial cable you got at the garage sale for 50 cents.
Wow, way to slap it together. It just works.
If you have wires and household tape at home, all you need is the IC,(max232*,hin232, etc. many chips convert ttl>rs232) and that costs less than 1$, I got 5 chips and 25 capacitors to go with them for 7.50$ including shipping, ttl<>rs232 conversion is common and used in cell phone data cables, robotics and other applications.
There appears to be a completed 4pin GRND,5v+,TX,RX to DB9 serial connector at this link for 17$, may want to check to make sure the 4 pins are in the above order, if not, it's trivial to change.
http://www.hobbyengineering.com/H1994.html
I'm finishing a step by step howto on how to build a cable, install and enable windas, and edit the saved .dat files to change any setting on the monitor. It shouldn't be more than a couple days till release here on shortmedia.
HOWTO covering the following topics in step by step fashion with screenshots/photos/links
*Build your own monitor<>computer cable for under 10$, or buy a completed one for only 17$. I will detail the general procedure of what you need, how to get it, and what to do with it.Check out an earlier post by Atomist, this is as easy as cutting a serial cable you got at a garage sale for 0.50$.
*How to install windas and all .dlls and apply my patch to disable the need for the security key
*How change ANY setting on your monitor through editing the savefile (screen shot says it all)
*HOWTO will cover any computer controlled sony monitor manufactured for any of their customers
*binary patch for das software eliminates need for security dongle,just what 300PSI needed
That alone is enough to fix the classic overbrightness problem without any hardware modification, you can save/restore/modify geometry settings, tweak the ABL settings etc.
In another Howto I will cover how to use a second computer as a signal generator while you use the first computer to adjust the monitor using the adjustment procedures in Windas. There are 100 'dynamic convergence' settings which you can adjust for perfect convergence this way. Dynamic because you do one set of 50 for low frequency modes and the next set of 50 for high frequency modes.
Thanks again to everyone on this thread for their information, insight, and success stories.
http://www.geocities.com/ gregua/windas/index.html
There is a screenshot for every step of installing/using Windas, the only part that really needs more work is the Ecs cable part. You can still find a reasonably cheap one to buy, and the parts you need to build one are listed, but I plan on getting photos of the whole process.
If any one from short-media is interested, I can get the text and compressed/indexed screenshots all zipped up and emailed whenever you want.
Thanks Again,
Gez.
I have a Sony E400 (refurbished by Sony UK in 2001), which had always been a *bit* bright. For example the very first thing I noticed when switching it on the first time I received it was nasty messy scanlines when mode switching.
Aside from that, the black level wasn't particularly poor, although certainly nothing like black.
Over a period of time this had gradually grown worse, just like a lot of other people here have experienced, eventually leading me just in the last couple of weeks to do a little reading and finding that I was in the same boat as everyone else.
Ordered a few components from Maplin UK a couple days ago intending to have a stab at tweaking the EPROM settings myself. They arrived this morning, so lo and behold when I do a little more googling this afternoon I find that someone has actually created a proper write-up just in the last week or so ! I couldn't believe my luck
Anyway, I used a MAX232 (the std one) on proto-typing board and a rats-nest of wires to connect an RS232 serial cable from the PC to the protoboard to the monitor.
If you have an old AT/ATX powersupply handy, you'll find that the floppy power connecter is a pretty good fit on the Sony interface socket, and this is what I used. Just remember that the wire colours are going to be slightly misleading
Need to raise a couple of points.
On windows XP SP2 here, so regsvr32.exe resides in the %systemroot%\system32 folder. It's in the path, so "copy msflxgrd.ocx %systemroot%\system32" and "regsvr32 %systemroot%\system32\msflxgrd.ocx" are more appropriate. "%systemroot%\system" isn't in the path on XP by default.
After running windas and selecting the appropriate monitor and serial port/mode, windas bombs when attemping to select "Save Data to File".
Thankfully, it still remembers the settings you have chosen, and simply restarting windas and going straight to the "Save Data to File" option works fine.
Should mention that my E400 shuts the CRT down whilst EPROM reading/writing operations are in progress, usually for 15-30secs, and fires up again once complete.
The first time I performed a read operation on the display, i noticed afterwards that the Monitors external controls had ceased to operate!
Running windas again and performing another download operation restored the external controls.
Anyway, my E400's G2 setting was 106. I dropped it by 4-6 notches each time, testing in-between, and finally settled on 90 as a reasonable figure that gives pretty much a pure black screen in a black room at the user brightness setting of around 30. Much better than the constant 0 setting it had needed before whilst still displaying scanline-retrace during warm-up.
I'd like to reiterate just how important the initial DOWNLOAD and SAVING of the EPROM data from your monitor is. I started fiddling with some of the other options wondering what they did, only to find that the MPU option appeared to reset the data on the EPROM. The resulting display was horrible, although still readable, so I was particularly thankful that uploading the original EPROM data I had downloaded from the monitor appeared to restore everything to its normal state. If you don't have this data saved, you're in for a load of fiddling to get things looking ok again.
Again, I'm suitably chuffed with the results, so "P991 DELL SONY" thoroughly deserves all the plaudits he receives for all his work.
Fortunately, I backed up my data file after tweaking all the settings so it should just be a matter of reloading that data file, and making sure I close the program properly. If I can just find my interface cable...
David
Thanks for your tips! Sorry that the .bat wasn't generic enough
Nice way to get a 4 pin connector. I even had an old AT powersupply and didn't think of looking there. I really need to improve the cable building instructions.
I wonder why windas bombed the first time you tried to save? Anyhow, I should have mentioned that the OSD is disabled before you make adjustments, and will remained so if the program/procedure isn't closed properly.
Thanks for including your initial and adjusted G2 setting. I'm begining to think that in most cases G2 isn't raised at all, either by the MPU or by faulty components. Some property of the tube may be changing.
http://www.adrian-smith31.clara.co.uk/pctips/monitor_tips.htm
Toward the bottom of the above page there are tips on how to fix the common excessive brightness problem. He mentions that hid did find a faulty resistor once, but this quote gave me an idea.
I've always thought normal CRT aging was the wearing down of the cathodes such that they get dimmer and emit electrons from more surface area. I've remember reading from a TV repairman that a leaky CRT does cause excessive brightness, not sure how.
Maybe the beams hit air molecules in the tube and so the beam is scattered all over, causing brightness in areas that should be black? This seems to fit, because before I modified my G2, lowering the brightness to 0 actually dimmed the beams noticeably and caused lower intensity pixels to be swallowed by the grey pedastool.
This alone doesn't seem to fit with the scanlines being visible. But I've also heard from the same TV repairman that a leaky tube causes your EHT (extra high tension(voltage)) transformer to work overtime, and so you may also experience 'zooming', or when the image changes size when the number of the bright pixels on the screen increase. This is because an overworked EHT is harder to regulate, and so the HT deflectors which move the beams behave differently. Some people have complained of zooming, I have a slight problem with it myself, I'm not sure how normal it is, or if the hypothesized CRT leak is indirectly causing it.
If we find that the G2 setting in the EEPROM is basicly the same for everyone, and we all check our G2 circuit for faulty resistors, we can safely say the CRT is at fault. Hopefully, some one can explain this CRT fault as normal aging, if not, we've got to find a way to stop the CRT leak.
I'm only guessing about what could be wrong, I really don't see how the EHT transformer knows to work harder, or why it even should have to work harder if there is a CRT leak. I have less than a highschool understanding of electronics, so I hope some one more qualified can explain what is up with this brightness problem.
Here is the post I refered to from:
http://www.computing.net/hardware/wwwboard/forum/40226.html
What he needs to explain is how a CRT problem causes poor EHT regulation?
And again, this is just a guess of what may be causing the problem, it may just be normal CRT aging, or as more initial EEPROM G2 values are posted, it may actually be the EEPROM setting. If the problem is just CRT ageing, we may be able to fix the EHT regulation problems by changing the ABL settings, and even if it is a leak, it could easily be pluged with something that doesn't burn or conduct and is fluid enough to fill small gaps.
I've read that a faulty IC could be the problem, not sure if that IC is controlled indirectly by settings in the EEPROM.
So anyway, let's hope our CRTs are not leaky, which we can confirm by posting initial G2 settings, wether or not our resistors failed, if we suspect an IC? (not sure how to suspect an IC), and if we have 'zooming' or other problems.
I didn't mean to scare anybody, just wanted to bring information up that could help find the real cause of the problem, and perhaps help us fix other problems like 'zooming' (which may just be normal, all the CRTS I've had do it a little bit,(lower end ones were really bad) but it'd be nice to get rid of completely).
Thanks for posting your accounts!:D
my orignal G2 setting was apparently 172, its now 130.
tho heres, my question
we have a P780, the 17" version of this monitor,
it to this day, runs 50% on brightness, perfect blacklevel, has been on basically 24\7 since new, tho i did always use the standby function after 1hr.. so i donno total hours of use, but its up there..
i still, dont trust the "color restore" on the p1100, this is the one function the 780 DOES NOT have...
what does the color restore do? does it mess with the G2 level?
i cant see the crt being leaky, not ALL of them...
im not sure what a gassy CRT does, but gassy tubes in amplifiers very often hum..
gassy tubes also get weak very quick, short cathode lives... and test weak to begin with
id have to assume a weak crt would need a higher G2 level, not a lower one...
just an assumption
btw, using displaymates test for sizechange, the p1100 scores as well as any monitor ive ever seen, basically 0 change in size during blink tests. theres a nice test where half the monitor is bright white, and half black, and it switches top\bottom so u can see change easily, and atleast this p1100, basically doesnt change, atall
might be a HINT, but so little its impossible to tell
Of course, my problem may be unrelated to WinDAS. At least WinDAS enables me to temporarily unlock the OSD to make adjustments, if needed. I can live with that.
But if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears.
David
I have the Sony G500 and my initial G2 value was 159. My screen was completly washed out and I had tri-colour (red,blue/green) tracelines on the screen.
I knocked the value down to 120 and my screen is perfect, colors vibrant and black, as black can be
Seems my G2 value is different to others, but you guys have 19" monitors and mine is a 21". However I thought the 19" would have a lower G2 value and someone posted they had a much higer G2 with a 19" than me.
Hope you find out what causes the problem and the the G2 Windas fix will keep our monitors running for a long time to come.
David
Finding the ECS port on the G500 requires the removal of the back part of the case. Be carefull that you do not break the top tabs of as they need to be sprung with a flatblade screendriver. The port is on the bottom right side.
I did'nt have any problems with the OCS locking once I had left Windas, however I was not able to use them when the cable was connected and the program was running.
I was thinking along your lines untill I saw those posts from the TV repair people.They say gassy CRTs have over brightness problems, the early FD trinitron tubes are said to be cruddy (colors slightly change in corners), but I've heard people with tubes from as late as 2002 have the same problem. Those repair guys have found one with a verified resistor problem in the G2 circuit, but atleast 2 on this thread have found no problem with their resistors. There is some IC they mention.. not sure what it does of if it's behavior is adjust through the EEPROM settings.
I had forgot about color return. Thanks for bringing it up
At the end of the white balance procedure, the monitor does the 'color return thing', presumably it mesures beam current at the end of the calibration. When you do color return again it mesures beam current then tweaks settings. I think you may be right, it probably touches the G2 when raising contrast to some limit fails to achieve the proper current.
But if color return measures current, can't it see there is too much current , atleast during darker pixels?
Or maybe, g2 doesn't increase current? and electron speed changes?
Well, we know the beam is 'swept' so it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable, but greater speed would mean greater current in the end.
I assume voltage only means more current, and that the voltage of this cathode ray is always the same, so basicly, the amount your screen glows is the amount of electrons hiting it?
Did anybody adjust the g1? it has opposite voltage from g2, I think it sits behind the tips of the cathodes? while G2 is a grid in the front that gives the electrons on the hot cathodes reason to move toward the screen.
I don't really know what I'm doing or what I'm talking about.
Anyone know how the beams are kept to only activate the phosphor of their respective color?Are they actually switching on/off reall fast? I guess if the horizontal freq doubled the beam would cover twice as much screen, but the RGB pulses would come twice as fast so it would cancel. Beam speed would need to be contsant, otherwise, the beam would squish by a non integer aomount of RGB strips, discoloring. The beam does squish toward the end of the scanline, so this can't be it. And how are verticle retrace lines still pure R G and B?
Maybe the phosphors have verticle seperation? but then there would be the same problem, only with the much slower vertical frequency. Magnets can cause it to discolor... so I wonder how the magnets used for convergence don't cause discoloring.)
The white balance is controlled by the Max and Min cutoffs for each gun and the Drive for each gun. These seem to be set by the =color section of the data, the color settings get swapped in/out from the current settings. There is no G2 in these settings.
How does warmup work? everyone says it's G2, but when switching video modes during warmup, the screen is black, unlike when you have a high G2 ( you would see some brightness). Maybe doing color return before the warmup is finished causes a problem?
Regardless, what really needs to be answered is how color return can do anything, yet not notice over brightness.
Has anyone noticed that pure black seems to catch 'reflected light' when you have something bright filling most of the screen? It makes the black level look brighter, untill you view a mostly black screen, then it looks fine. Changing the ABL_max_CNT doesn't change the affect. It seems weird that a monitor would be designed knowing that if the screen is bright dark will look less black because of reflection or something.
I need to try a small black rectangel in the middle of white, that would have least real reflection from the sides of the screen.
My G2 is pretty low now, I've gotten it down to 84 but that requires lots of contrast and even peak contrast doesn't get to the apropriate brightness levels for lower color temps (can't take advantage of blue color gun)( I use a colorimeter to do the white balance adjustment, been testing things and measuring xyY values). G2 of 90 currently, the bottom of the intensity curve become visible at about 55 on the brightness controll. It's funny that sony Windas wb procedure says in the begining "adjust G2 so first step cuts of and second step barely illuminates" I haven't figured out what the pattern is supposed to be yet, but at about G2=90 0 (RGB black) starts getting gray so those first and second steps of the sony grascale must be 0 and 1? Bumping up G2 and doing the white balance procedure hasn't changed the black level <> brightness relation so much as I expected, I should try higher G2s.
Anyway, the less contrast, the less screen distortion when the average brightness on the screen changes.
the ABL can be set to automaticly lower contrast in order to keep the average brightness below a certain level, if your contrast is high and your max average contrast is low, you REALLY notice the contrast lowering.There is also an ABL shutdown, which shuts down the powersupply when the average brightness changes too much, the MPU puts it at 255.. heh, white balance says "IMPORTANT! wait for luminance to stabilize", but it's already stable! so I don't know, if I wait too long it sets the average brightnes to something really low. Maybe this is something to do with my G2 being too low.
I'd be interested in hearing what your default ABL_MAX_CONT and ABL_SHUTDOWN values are? Not real important, but if you have the chance it'd be nice to hear.
Changing from a black on white cross hatch to a white on black crosshatch should show you distortion and is an ideal way to adjust your max average contrast and G2.
So, anyhow, I'm not entirely convinced that the tube properties aren't causing the increase in brightness. It goes against all my intuition to say that a leaky tube gets brighter, I still can't figure out why the TV people would be suspecting it. Some one needs to avoid doing color return for a long time, save their data file, do color return, then save another data file and compare them. I should look up some of the physical info about cathode ray tubes.
Thanks for your replies! I'll update the howto on http://www.geocities.com/gregua/windas/ soon as I figure out the root problem. I'm still fixing the style sheet and the layout of the info, I'm going to add generic CRT physics info as soon as (if?) I figure it out.
Oh and make sure to try the Dynamic Convergence procedure!!!!!! if you have two computers. It is well worth it!
First a big thank you to P991 DELL SONY for his excellent contribution !
I fixed a 21" IBM with no problem. It had the "too bright screen" problem. I used 120 as G2 value and it's a brand new monitor !
I have another question : I have a P97 IBM (Sony chassis) that has a sync problem... I have horizontal rolling bars on the screen. I wondered if it could be fixed using WinDAS ?
Any hint ?
Thank you
I think your best bet is finding the service manual, and if it is a vertical sync problem, maybe replace parts that commonly go bad ( like caps) in the vertical deflection circuit.
Good luck with that, hope it turns out to be more simple than I thought!
So, if you bought any odd ttl<>rs232 cable online, the serial side should be hooked up the same no matter what it is, the Ecs port on the monitor is (GRND, 5+, RX, TX) so make sure that is hooked up appropriately. Look inside the adapter and there should be a chip, google it's name and get the data sheet, now you know which wires are grnd,5+,RX,TX and you can put them in the right order. You may have to switch RX and TX, grnd and 5v+ are obvious.
In the case of the cable Hobby Engineering things are really easy, their website should say what the pinout of the 4 pins is, if not, email them about it.
Infact, any place you bought an adapter from should tell you the pinout of the 4 pins.
If you can't id the the chip and the people you bought it from are really rude, you could try all 24 combinations, maybe the colors of the 4 pins would give clues about which are tx/rx and which are grnd and 5v+.
If you know you have the pins in the right order, maybe you didn't connect the 4 pin connector snug enough.
Good luck!
i was thinking maybe WinDas that i downloaded off your site is not functioning as it should with Windows XP. is there another version you have that i could maybe try at all.
thanx for any help.
I don't know about another windas version, but if you find a later one, be sure to tell everyone. I wonder if Sony has windas for their LCD displays? Sony windas for their huge HD TV displays? It'd be interesting.
You can try dumping garbage into the serial port and seeing if you get a reply, that was how I tested that my cable was atleast wired properly and set to the right comport settings, so I could Isolate windas. Use HyperTerminal or something like that, I forget what the bytes are that generate replies, but a large file, or a random stream of junk should generate something.
Just to reiterate, it's super unlikely the API for doing serial stuff in windows has changed, so this isn't at all a problem with the version of windas. It's like upgrading to the latest windows service pack, probably not going to help.
Had a look at the datasheet, so yeah, you've got all the right stuff. Make sure the pins are in order ( which, I think you told me you did, but I can't be sure what you mean by 'wired ok', just checking) and that the plug isn't upside down.
Can't think of what else to say. Hopefully I mentione something you haven't tried, or that you find whatever the little something is that is causing the problem. I wonder how easy it is for the chip to get damaged? I don't really know, but if it can survive ESD, I think a +5v across something can't touch it.
From my experience it's rarely a problem like needing a new version, or a broken chip or whatever, it's usually the simple stuff you forget about.
Good luck.
Nice Avatar, I can read the first two messages and see the last but can't read it. Probably more to do with my bad eyesite than my monitor
What did you use to save the file? Wordpad in windows XP likes to save stuff as unicode rather than ASCII. Make sure you save the file in ASCII. Use notepad if you can (not sure if there is a notepad in XP, or if it has changed and doesn't use ACSII anymore). If all else fails use a hex editor, which is overkill, but atleast you'll be sure of which bytes you changed.
Good luck.
Using a different gamma makes things easier though, I'm not sure how things are supposed to be though. Maybe 1,1,1 and 0,0,0 are supposed to be real close? A CRT without it's own gamma correction is said to have a gamma of 2.2 or something. I should look into that.
The sRGB color setting on my monitor doesn't have a real dark black, and I think it attempts to do whatever the sRGB gamma is in hardware.
This monitor doesn't have the 4pin connector in the back. There is a service input that looks similar to an S-Video input.
I'm trying to find the R459 to solder the resistor but I can't find it. I've uploaded some pics of the back. Please help me find where to solder the resistor.
Edit: I've attached a pic of what plugs are in the back. Most of the Dells and Sonys here have that 4pin outlet. Mine has the S-video looking plug