Testing an arcade monitor

[ddbrown30]

Does anyone know of a way to test an arcade monitor to find out if it's still functional? I've tried hooking my monitor up to both an ArcadeVGA card as well as 2 other video cards and I'm unable to get any video output, just a black screen. Any help would be appreciated.

[SirPeale]

Turn up the screen control all the way.  Is it white with lines going thru it?  If so, the monitor "likely" works.

If not, we can probably help you get it going.

How are you hooking it up?  What kind of monitor?

[ddbrown30]

Thanks for the quick response.

I tried going in an adjusting all the knobs on the monitor, but I was unable to get any response from the screen. While I was back there, I noticed a Zenith sticker, but I haven't had a chance to grab the model number. I'll be taking some pictures tonight and I'll post them here as soon as I can.

[Ken Layton]

Better still, read this first and visit the sites mentioned:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=62016.0

[ddbrown30]

Sorry for the missing info in the original post, this was intended as a more generic question to start. Anyway, I've attached some pictures of the monitor. The model is a Wells-Gardner 25K7191. Thanks again for the help.

[ddbrown30]

Oh snap. I was adjusting the wrong stuff before. Turning up the screen control does put white lines in the middle of the screen. Good sign, I'm hoping Still won't display anything from my PC, though.

[ddbrown30]

More good news. With the screen control turned up and the monitor attached to my ArcadeVGA card through the Utlimarc hacked VGA cable, I'm able to get stuff on the screen. It's still mostly unintelligible, but I'm starting to make out what's on screen. I'm actually having problems getting the ArcadeVGA to work with my LCD, so I'm working with Andy on that. Once I can get a clear picture on the LCD, I'll start working on getting the arcade monitor to work as well.

For now, I'm looking around for some windows compatible software that will allow me to output to my arcade monitor from a regular video card so that I can start doing some more testing. If anyone has any tips on any of this, it would be greatly appreciated.

[Kevin Mullins]

If your video card is compatible....... http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=66402.0

[ddbrown30]

Alright, things are looking better and better.

So, I used Soft15Khz and was able to get nice, clear output to the arcade monitor. I think the problem all along was simply that the screen control was just too low for any of the output to appear on screen.

I'm having some weird issues with Soft where the only way to get the output to work correctly is to start the computer with my LCD attached, wait until windows loads, and then swap the LCD for the arcade monitor. Hopefully I'll get my ArcadeVGA up and running and it won't matter.

Thanks again for the responses.

[brock.sampson]

I'm no arcade monitor expert but have been trying to read up lately.  I thought the arcadevga and most vga cards only put out 1v and some monitors require 5v.  I'm wondering since you had to crank up the outputs to get a picture if the monitor is looking for 5v.  I know Ultimarc sells a video amplifier.  I'm not sure if that's what you need just throwing it out there.  I'll let one of the pros verify.