Tech: Arcade Monitor not working with PC

[Eddie]

I bought a new Wells Gardner D9800  Arcade Monitor to use with a New PC for my Ultra Arcade  cabinet.

The Monitor works fine with a PS2

The Monitor will not work on my new HP Windows 7 PC. However it will work when the PC is booted in safe mode.

I turned down the PCs resolution to 640 x 480 as a Wells Gardner tech suggested

I just installed an Ultmark Vga Card in the PC and the monitor will still not work with the PC.

Any Ideas?

Thanks.

[grantspain]

if you can see the post screen its a settings issue

[Eddie]

On power up the monitor seems to work.

I can see the screen that is Black and has a lot of Code on the left side before startup then I get the loading spinning wheel symbol and then only a rectangular box with some colored lines in the middle but no Windows desktop.

I only get the desktop and am only able to see anything when starting in safe mode.

I am normally a MAC guy this is my first PC and I only got it for use in the Arcade machine so I do not know how to operate it that well.

Is it possible that its Windows 7 will not work with the Monitor and or VGA card?

I can make and post a vid to show what its doing if that may help.

[grantspain]

i  guess you have connected a normal pc type monitor and forced the res down and also installed the avga drivers correctly

[Eddie]

Yes I connected a normal monitor to change the resolution settings as for drivers neither the monitor or the Ultimarc VGA card came with drivers.

According to WG the Monitor should just plug and play.

[MonMotha]

Win7 runs the bootup splash screen at 1024x768.  Almost no arcade monitors (D9800 included) will handle this.  The desktop also runs by default at 1024x768.  When you set things for 640x480, make sure you check that it's running at 60Hz refresh.  I think Win7 will run it higher by default.  Your BIOS text should be visible if you have any (many brand-name PCs display nothing until Windows starts).

Windows 7 really assumes you have a monitor capable of much higher resolution.  Most dialogs will be unusably large at 640x480 (they were even on XP), but it should be possible to make it at least run.

[Eddie]

How can I check the settings that you suggest? Remember This is my first PC! I know I can hook up the PC monitor to adjust and or check the required settings that is about all that I know

[MonMotha]

Microsoft hides a lot of these settings because they figure most users don't want to or cannot deal with them.

On Win7:

Right click on desktop->Screen Resolution->Advanced settings - A dialog titled "[some monitor] properties" results
Adapter tab->List All Modes - Select "640 x 480, True Color (32-bit), 60 Hz"
OK to close the "List All Modes" dialog
Apply on the "[some monitor] properties" dialog

Things should now be at 640x480 at 60Hz progressive.  Swap to the D9800 (do not reboot - it may attempt a PnP detection upon startup and get it wrong).  Things should display.

Hopefully your video drivers won't attempt to be too smart for their own good and autodetect the monitor when you swap it.  It sounds like either WG got their EDID (monitor PnP) data wrong or Win7 is ignoring it thinking that all monitors these days do >640x480 (an invalid assumption).

Note that this setting does not affect the bootup splash screens and may not even affect the login screen.  Those will still run at the default 1024x768 which your monitor will be unable to display.

[fantoboy]

ugh- i'm having the same issue with windows 7.  I can get it to work by swapping from a pc monitor, but it goes back to out of range when I reboot.  Is there no solution? 

[MonMotha]

Try yanking the DDC lines from the VGA connector.  Then Windows will have no idea what kind of monitor you have hooked up (then again, it may just default to "something that can do 1024x768").

It should be possible to create an INF file for the monitor that you could install that would force things to be correct, but hell if I know how (I use Linux - it does what you tell it to most of the time).  Yet another instance of something being too smart for its own good...

[fantoboy]

I cut the 12 pin in the vga cable.  That worked.  Windows does not auto recognize the monitor and change resolution.  It does go out of range during the bootup, which is annoying.  But I can live with that.  Thanks!

[MonMotha]

Interesting.  At least there's a fix.

Anyone have a dump of the EDID data for that monitor?  I wonder if it's maybe wrong causing Windows to think it can do higher resolution than its actually capable of?  LOTS of monitors have incorrect EDID information, sadly.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/dump_edid.html may work on Windows.  There are some tools for this on Linux, too, or X11 will dump it to your logs if you start it with a sufficiently high verbosity level.

[Epyx]

Hmmm this happens pretty regularly when im first configuring the WG D9800 on a new PC. I just add a 2nd lcd monitor...set the resolution down to 640x288 and then disconnect and connect to the WG D9800...then run Tri Sync and you are good to go with 640x480/800x600.

You shouldn't have to be cutting lines.