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

[T2k]

Originally posted by: JRW

Originally posted by: T2k

Originally posted by: JRW

Originally posted by: T2k

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello


Great monitor but it was a monster, consumed a LOT of power, killed my eyes - 1920 or 2048@80-85Hz isn't too good - and made me tired after several hours, much more than an LCD. I used it together with m,y current 24" Dell 2405FPW and tthe Dell was much better for health, for my eyes, let alone my ConEd bills.


Great monitor but its time has passed, I believe (unless you need a 24" or bigger one, calibrated color precisity).

Nonsense if you're a gamer ..the 2405FPW suffers from deal breaking input lag ,

... which is not true at all, I always laighed on those threads. :disgust:
FYI: I happily beat the ****** out of you in UT2k4 anytime. 🙂

poor viewing angles

Umm since when anybody plays outside of, say 90-120 degrees? Because within that range there's no difference between the two - you have to want to play from the side of your CRT to be able to overcome the 2405FPW...

I can tell you never had the 2405FPW side-by-side to this 24" CRT like I had them for a year.

and you're stuck at its native 1920x1200 for gaming. Pass

Jees, another nice one. Who's telling you these funny things...? 😀 Why would I be?

Power consumption on CRTs is overated ,you wouldnt actually notice any substantial differance on your power bill from month to month thats for sure.

Now this is quite an obvious BS, frankly. Do you actually have these monitor, including the Dell one or only the CRT or even that only exists in your sig? I had this monitor (HP A7217A) for 3 years or so, my friend and I DID notice when I sold it.

You're either already paying several hundreds for electricity or you are just a weekend gamer - this 24" CRT consumes somewhere between 100-200W when it's on. Compare it to my 24" LCD's ~60W load consumption. Numbers are telling, no matter you don't like them.

1920x1200 @ 98hz is the recommended res for this monitor but being a CRT you can run it at whatever res you want without worry of image degration. "1920x2048" is not a resolution used by this monitor ..or any for that matter, but 2304x1440@80hz is its max setting.

None of the half dozen (both Sony and HP) I've ever seen was 100% sharp at resolutions over 2048.
This CRT is actually designed for 1920x1200 otherwise its sharpness won't be any better than an LCD but rather worse. Colorwise always better but that's a niche requirement.

I guess it depends on the person but ive never had eyestrain issues with my CRTs as long as I run at least 85hz.

Raising the tube size/resolution you have to raise the refresh rate if you want to avoid flickering. 85Hz is not really ideal from 1920 and up - in fact it's maybe "OK" at 1600/1920 but certainly not ideal.

You're not going to convience me any differantely , I guess it would've helped if I mentioned ive already owned and compared a 2001FP and 2405FPW next to my G520P & FW900 CRT's , Long story short I returned the LCDs .. And if you think the 2405FPW doesnt suffer from input lag you're in denial.. this doesnt mean you cant play games online but you ARE playing with an additional 20-30ms added to your ping.

Unless my UPS is lying to me my FW900 only consumes 90W when its on, If I were to run it at its max contrast setting and stare at a pure white screen all day then it would hit its maximum power load I suppose.

Viewing angles on the 2405fpw required me to look straight at the screen ,any slight head shift would start showing color changes on the screen ..if you're trying to tell me you dont see this ...again ... denial 😉

*me shrugs shoulder*

Arrogancy (should I say denial?) won't make you more right... comparing 2001 and 2405FPW is just downright hilarious, let me put this way.
Apparently it's not me who's living in denial - my UPS told me different story back then and I do play without any problem, no lag. And guess what? If your 2405 had color distortion then you either A) have eye problems or B) had a broken monitor.

 

[T2k]

Originally posted by: NKSRoadKill

Originally posted by: T2k


Tsk tsk tsk... and what did you play in the seventies for long hours? 😉

hmm some thing wrong with your math?

Umm or perhaps just you don't even know what are you talking pal?
You said more than 24 years and 2006-24=1982, so longer than 24 years is 25 and more which puts your "CRT-based gaming" into the seventies...

first computers i played on where pong, then trs80's then c64's then a 10mhz at then a 386sx, then a 386 then a 486 then a ppro then a p3 650 then a p4 1.8 then a xp2800
and now i play whats in my sig.
and i also used to play on my friends apple 2e green screen.

FYI: if it's true it's even more interesting to claim that you didn't feel any problem on monitors with such low refresh rate (unless you were playing on a brightness down-dark room setup all the time)...

like i said if crt's give you problems then your eye's already have problems.

Which, like I said too, is most likely crap. 🙂 I may be more sensitive than others (I have blue eyes which usually more sensistive by general) but that's not a 'problem', let alone it is highly unlikely that all the CAD folks I had known had bad eyes, don't you agree?
FYI: it's maybe news for you but it's been proven and stated N zillion times that CRTs do pose health dangers including flicker-caused migraine etc. See Wiki on this.

 

[pkme2]

😀Verrrrrrrrrrry Interesting!

 

[JRW]

Originally posted by: T2k
Nonsense if you're a gamer ..the 2405FPW suffers from deal breaking input lag ,

... which is not true at all, I always laighed on those threads. :disgust:
FYI: I happily beat the ****** out of you in UT2k4 anytime. 🙂
[/quote]

Theres plenty of evidence online that proves the lag exists .. heres a few examples:

Video 1
Video 2

Forum thread on lag here.

It's all a matter of preference ..if you like your LCD then fine so be it , I much prefer a lag free / instant response time , multiple resolution , true black level display for my gaming & movies 😉

 

[secretanchitman]

wow damn that monitor looks bloody clear!

 

[GreenMonkey]

bump

I just got one of these from the lady selling them in Macomb, MI on ebay...pickup only for $200. Took a 30 mile drive up from the hotel in Detroit we were staying in. Then drove it home in the car a few hundred miles north back home.

Here's some pics

http://www.svsu.edu/~dpbatzer/monitor_2.jpg

http://www.svsu.edu/~dpbatzer/new_monitor.jpg

Running 1920x1200 right now. Guild Wars runs good at 1920x1200, and for Q4, etc I can always run lower rez. Gotta love a $200 22.5" CRT monitor 😀

Build date on mine is 2002-2003. Had to do some tweaking/convergence adjustment, still need do do a little. But pretty awesome so far. It makes my old 19" seem tiny.

Thanks for all the input here and the crazy long thread on hardforum. This is an awesome monitor.

LCDs...pfft. Maybe if you don't play games or care about good black level detail 😛 I might get my wife an LCD some day, she just uses the internet and plays the Sims on it 😀

 

[Sonikku]

access forbidden.

 

[GreenMonkey]

Weird, well, here they are on imageshack


http://img234.imageshack.us/my.php?image=monitor27jd.jpg

http://img234.imageshack.us/my.php?image=newmonitor7ln.jpg

 

[CrystalBay]

Very Nice GM....

 

[Sonikku]

Nice Slime!

The monitor is pretty sweet too, although it's the HP version and not the Sony.

 

[GreenMonkey]

Originally posted by: Sonikku
Nice Slime!

The monitor is pretty sweet too, although it's the HP version and not the Sony.

The Sonys are silver, which would definitely go better with my silver stuff. But for $200 I wasn't going to argue 😀

I know you can spray paint monitors given some care. Maybe I'll try it sometime.

BTW Manufacture date is 2002-2003 according to the monitor.

 

[Avalon]

The only thing that ever stopped me from picking one of these up was the fact that it weighed 90 pounds. I bet it could crush my little desk. Otherwise, this is one of the few monitors I've ever really wanted.

 

[NeezyDeezy]

I bought two of the sony's on a single ebay auction. It ended at $397 for both.

They are flawless and I run them at 2048x1280 in dual display at for 4096x1280.

 

[Sonikku]

That must be crazy. 😵

 

[rfisher983]

Hey, I'm new to the forums at anandtech. I just recently purchased a Sony GDM-FW900 24" Widescreen CRT from a local computer shop for $200. The monitor was pretty beat up when I got it. I'm having some problems with the monitor and don't know if it was because of the bad shape the previous user or users put it through or it?s a simple setting on the monitor.

The picture quality on the FW900 is best described as "hazy." I've tried adjusting the brightness / gamma levels, color, convergence, moiré, etc and I can't seem to fix the issue. This monitor seems to be a lot brighter (even when I adjusted the brightness to 0) compared to my older NEC 22". I will try to post pictures letter to help you describe what I'm seeing.

I've tried multiple vga cables including this HQ belkin cable: http://catalog.belkin.com/PureAV_detail.process?Product_Id=174190

I'm wondering if one of those bnc cable would correct the issue I'm having? If you can give me and suggestions what to try, it will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Rob

 

[flexy]

this seems to be an awesome monitor...nothing better than a CRT...and 24" widescreen sounds awesome, especially for $200 !!

ALTHOUGH...i already had BIG problems moving (car) and shipping my current 19", i dont even want to THINK about shipping or moving w/ a monster like this.....it's weight alone is 108lbs, twice as much as a 19".

Otherwise i am jealous 🙂

 

[rfisher983]

after doing some more research I found out that my monitor was made in 2000.

2703785

2000-44
gdm-fw900

I then later found this thread:
http://www.hutzelman.com/home/hardware/mods/monitor/

I think the fw900 I have has a brightness problem where there is no true black level. Switching the brightness to 0 still seems like there is too much brightness 🙁

I already opened my monitor up and it is the exact same image as in the picture. I'm going to pick up a resistor tomorrow and try it out.

 

[JRW]

Originally posted by: rfisher983
after doing some more research I found out that my monitor was made in 2000.

2703785

2000-44
gdm-fw900

I then later found this thread:
http://www.hutzelman.com/home/hardware/mods/monitor/

I think the fw900 I have has a brightness problem where there is no true black level. Switching the brightness to 0 still seems like there is too much brightness 🙁

I already opened my monitor up and it is the exact same image as in the picture. I'm going to pick up a resistor tomorrow and try it out.

Im not sure if the resistor method works on the FW900 but if it looks the same inside I suppose it should, There is another method for fixing it tho.. it involves buying a special windas cable which plugs into the monitor (the other end plugs into a Serial port on your PC) You then use Windas software to access the FW900's firmware and lower the G2 value which will affect brightness / black levels, I used this cable on a 6 year old Sony G400 which had a severe brightness problem but now it looks like new again, you can see before and after pics of it here.

Ive also used this cable on my FW900 to slightly lower the G2 value with no problems, I ordered the cable from this site. ignore the part about paying $9.99 per monitor repair since you'll be doing the repairs yourself, he usualy sends the software along with the cable but if not I can send it (its only 1.4MB).

You can find more info by doing a thread search for windas here.

 

[rfisher983]

So basically it is like going into the service menu on my xbr960 ? One end of the Windas plugs into my vga port and the other plugs into my serial port into my computer ? How are you suppose to access the monitor through the serial port ? I also have the same mobo as you and didnt install the serial port yet 🙁

Those before pictures looks exactly like my monitor.... It looks very hazy because the brightness seems to be too bright. I will try the resistor tomorrow and see if that works. If that doesn't I will shell down the 35 bones and hook up my serial port.

 

[JRW]

Originally posted by: rfisher983
So basically it is like going into the service menu on my xbr960 ? One end of the Windas plugs into my vga port and the other plugs into my serial port into my computer ? How are you suppose to access the monitor through the serial port ? I also have the same mobo as you and didnt install the serial port yet 🙁

Those before pictures looks exactly like my monitor.... It looks very hazy because the brightness seems to be too bright. I will try the resistor tomorrow and see if that works. If that doesn't I will shell down the 35 bones and hook up my serial port.

Yea the serial port addon should be in your motherboard box and the windas cable plugs into a special port on the back of the monitor (some pics here) ,It's not as user friendly as entering the service menu on a sony tv such as xbr960 (I have the same tv) , you have to manualy edit a .dat file to change the g2 value etc. and then upload it to the monitor, in other words changes you make arent done on the fly but it gets the job done, Good luck with the resistor mod let me know how it goes.

This page shows how to use Windas: Link

 

[GreenMonkey]

Originally posted by: NeezyDeezy
I bought two of the sony's on a single ebay auction. It ended at $397 for both.

They are flawless and I run them at 2048x1280 in dual display at for 4096x1280.

:Q

2 FW900s for the win!

 

[shabby]

[lil jon]yeeeeeeeeeeeeah![/lil jon] managed to find one of these bad boys locally, damn its huge 😀
Picked it up for $340cdn with bnc cables, i've been looking for half a year but those ebay deals really sucked after shipping got added onto the cost.

 

[rfisher983]

The soldering method did not work. I purchased the cable from that link and it works great!

 

[lamere]

I can't believe I missed this thread somehow...
I got mine for $190 locally and couldn't be happier. This monitor, as 98% of all other CRT's OWN any LCD out there, period.
Yeah, samsung makes a kickass LCD monitor that comes as close to perfect as you can get, but it's also $6400, and is pointed at photoshop designers.
People who think LCD's have anything at all on CRT's need to wake up, geez. LCD's are *still* new technology for desktops and will be for some time. When contrast ratio's are up in the multithousands and color depth gets better, I might consider getting one.
The only thing I don't like about my monitor is the weight, but no big deal, I take my vitamins. I don't take it to LAN's either, I have a samsung 19" for that. 🙂
That being said, I have *never* seem a better picture than this monitor as it was designed to be a CAD monitor needing extreme color accuracy.
Bottom line, there's not really a better monitor out there, CRT or LCD.