Need help with Sony KV-25XBR to video card please!

[teetu]

After my WG monitor died I lucked out and found a kv-25xbr on craigslist for $50 (picture looks great).  Unfortunately I'm not having too much luck making a cable to connect it to my video card.  On other posts people never mention how they get it to work, they just say how long it took them!

Tomorrow I may put banana jacks on the leads so it will be easier to troubleshoot.


I was kindly directed to a pinout here http://www.hardwarebook.info/Sony_RGB_Multi_Input

I basically just connected RGB, ground (vga pin 10, xbr pin 11) and then connected Hsync and Vsync.  When that didn't work I removed the vsync wire and still nothing.  Do I need to combine the h and v sync on one end to get a composite sync?

I also found some more info here but I can't really figure out if I should do the exact same thing this guy did with his amiga
http://inwap.best.vwh.net/inwap/chez/kv25xbr.txt

Any help is appreciated!

[boardjunkie]

I dunno what that ribbon cable connector was intended for, but it has RGB and sync inputs. You prob'ly need to worry about the mode selects tho. perhaps that is detailed in the service manual?

[teetu]

The service manual has no real information about the connector, just that it connects to a computer.

I put a whole bunch of banana jacks on so I can mess with it later tonight or tomorrow.  The one thing that is confusing is whether I need connect H and V sync separately do I combine them on one side?

If I figure this out, I'll be certain to post how I did it so someone else needing help won't be in the same predicament.

[Jack Burton]

I believe you have to connect one of the other pins to ground in order to tell the monitor to use RGB mode.  It might be pin 33 RGB/NORMAL mode select

There are some threads on this forum about the Sony PVM series and its 25pin connector, also called a CMPTR connector. You should take  a look a those as the process is probably similar.

There's this thead too:

http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=2209.0

where a poster mentions that the PVM needs composite sync.  It's likely the XBR will too. 

You might want to sign up for that site and make a thread there.  The posters seem pretty knowledgeable.  It can't hurt anything.  

[boardjunkie]

According to the connector pinout it will take either seperate h/v or composite on the h terminal.

[teetu]

There is a RGB button on the front, so I know I don't need to toggle through the connector, but there is an analog/digital rgb pin that I'm not sure of.

I connected RGB and each corresponding ground seperately, and tried composite sync and ground- but still nothing : (

I also tried registering a those forums but I keep getting an error occurred message with any browser I try registering with.  This is not going well so far...

[Jack Burton]

There's a user named Ummon on this forum who successfully hacked the 25-pin connector on the PVM series.  You can try to PM him.  I haven't seen him around here for a bit so it may be a few days before he gets back to you. 

[teetu]

There's a user named Ummon on this forum who successfully hacked the 25-pin connector on the PVM series.  You can try to PM him.  I haven't seen him around here for a bit so it may be a few days before he gets back to you.  

Thanks for all your help guys, I really appreciate it

I found the old thread by Ummon http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=95517.0


He mentions this:
"Okay. The bottom line is this: the only pins needing connection are:

- RBG  4, 5, 6

- all grounds to any one of 15-24

- sync wires to 3"

I did this on my monitor (RGB, hsync and vsync from vga to HSYNC on XBR, and took all the grounds from vga to XBR grounds) and still nothing!  I hooked the XBR up via composite to make sure it was working, and it looks really good even for composite

[Jack Burton]

Hmmm.  I'm still thinking that RGB/Normal pin does something.  I'm assuming you connected it each ground to see what happens.  

I'm not sure if you need to use that blanking return input or not.  I'm thinking you do.  

The H-sync and V-sync return might also need to be grounded.  

It could still be a number of things.  Try also grounding the composite video grounds, or the audio select pin.  Sometimes monitors can be funny things and expect certain pins to have a signal or be grounded.  I've seen tv's and vcr's that wouldn't accept a video signal unless you plugged an audio cable into the audio ports, even if there wasn't a signal coming through them.  

Also, you might have to ground some of these pins back to the XBR's ground instead of the VGA ground.

And finally, and don't try this yet until you run it by the guys I'm about to mention, but you might be have to connect that +5v pin to the RGB/Normal pin.  Like I said, don't do this someone who knows about it tells you.


There are two other highly knowledgeable (much more so than me) members here who can maybe help you.  Mon Mothma and Sailor Sat.  If you sent them a polite message I'm sure they'd give it a try.  

[teetu]

Hmmm.  I'm still thinking that RGB/Normal pin does something.  I'm assuming you connected it each ground to see what happens.  

I'm not sure if you need to use that blanking return input or not.  I'm thinking you do.  

The H-sync and V-sync return might also need to be grounded.  

It could still be a number of things.  Try also grounding the composite video grounds, or the audio select pin.  Sometimes monitors can be funny things and expect certain pins to have a signal or be grounded.  I've seen tv's and vcr's that wouldn't accept a video signal unless you plugged an audio cable into the audio ports, even if there wasn't a signal coming through them.  

Also, you might have to ground some of these pins back to the XBR's ground instead of the VGA ground.

And finally, and don't try this yet until you run it by the guys I'm about to mention, but you might be have to connect that +5v pin to the RGB/Normal pin.  Like I said, don't do this someone who knows about it tells you.


There are two other highly knowledgeable (much more so than me) members here who can maybe help you.  Mon Mothma and Sailor Sat.  If you sent them a polite message I'm sure they'd give it a try.  

I basically tied all inputs on the sony connector to ground (even audio) and that didn't seem to do anything.

I took the normal/rgb to ground and it doesn't seem to toggle it when I connect and disconnect it- so perhaps it takes 5V?  Like you said, I'm not going to connect anything to +5 unless someone knows for sure