Connecting into a CRT montior panic!!!!!!!

[BigDaddyE]

Ok. Newbie on the loose.

After lots of homework I thought I had all the questions answered, I am in crunch time now and I am panicing out.

Here's the problem:

I bought a Nieman 27" CRT curved screen, since my goal in my cab it to come as close to the originals as possible. I got an ArcadeVGA to help me, but as I talked with Rick at Nieman, I realized that I am not sure how I am supposed to plug the monitor into the card. Is is as simple as taking the 15 pin off my old dead Neotech and placing it on the Nieman and then plugging into the card?

HELP!

Eric

[Kevin Mullins]

Depends on what connections the Nieman monitor has.

But yes, in general.... you go from the "vga" port on the ArcadeVGA directly to the monitor.

[BigDaddyE]

It has 15 wires and no connector. So I need a connector to go into the card.

Eric

[HaRuMaN]

buy a VGA cable, cut it, splice the wires on the cable to the wires on your moniter (amking sure you are connecting the correct lines), and Voila!

[Kevin Mullins]

Or just go down to Radio Shack or similar and pick up a DB15 "vga" replacement cable end and wire it up to the wires coming off the monitor.

Of course you will need the pinout for the monitor and also you will need to know the pinout for the vga connector.

http://pinouts.ws/db15-vga-pinout.html

What options did Rick give you?
(Nieman)

[BigDaddyE]

Rick gave similar ideas as to what has been suggested.

I just wanted to make sure this was normal.

Rick said he would make sure we got it to work over the phone.

Thanks for everyone's help, looks like I will get my splicing abilities going!

Eric

[Kevin Mullins]

I've never dealt with Rick directly... but have only heard good things about him, so figured he would be more than happy to help.
Just make absolutely sure you have the correct pinouts and understand them.

[mrclean]

I'm using a nieman 24.8'' CRT for MAME and he walked me through it, just adjust your resolution in windows to match the resolution of the monitor, you might need to "force" it. Also don't panic if it's too dark a little tiny switch on the monitor board will cure that if needed. (see photo #1)

When I got my monitor it came with this adaptor , which is probably what you need. (see photo #2)

also a side note, that if you get whacky side scrolling / sync issues twist the yellow and white together, Red, Green ,Blue seperate and black/ground seperate.. Hope that helps.

The only thing ive noticed about the monitor is that if It's on a solid white background / while in windows it will start to have a green glob appear but it degausses it self and cures it after going back into a game or the front end. I also notice which is normal that it will flicker upon booting up windows, so don't worry that's normal.

I wonder since HAPP/SUZO is not making the vison pro anymore is nieman going to make 19'' curved CRT's ? who ever does will corner the market soon as most companies will shift towards LCD's.

[BigDaddyE]

Let's see if I can get help in this side of the forum!

Ok, got the cab 85% done, trying to get the monitor to work right, it is being difficult!

Crazy vertical and horizontal rolling.

Arcade card is putting out the right frequentcy, Andy and Rick are beating themselves up, I am freaking out.

Rick and I tried the wrie trick yesterday, I'll look at what you suggested again mrclean.

I am to the point where I will listen to anything that makes remote sense!

Eric

[grantspain]

is this the tri sync or cga monitor from rick?

[BigDaddyE]

Sorry, cga.

New info:

Bought a voltmeter to measrue hz.

60 hz coming from card.

monitor running at 16 hz.

The card gives me 640 x 480, 32 true color, 59 hz as the preferred. My only other option is default refresh for frequency.

Ideas?

[grantspain]

well i am no mame expert but surely that res is far too high for a cga monitor
are you sure you have got all the right drivers for the avga card

[BigDaddyE]

The drivers are correct.

I took the night off from the game, I was ready to throw a hammer at teh screen, thought a day to stand down was in order!

Let everyone know what's going on tomorrow.

Eric

[BigDaddyE]

I've narrowed down the issue with Rick and Andy's help, although, I'm not sure what is wrong, exactly.

Rick made a new break out cable, tested it and sent it to me. I installed it and continue to have the vertical and horizontal rolling, along with the picture leaning to the left or right and small black lines about 1-2 mm apart horizontally across the screen.

So earlier in this thread I said that the CPU will not fire with the monitor connected to the VGA plug on the ARCADE card. Andy is investigating this more, here's what I found:

CPU will not fire with monitor in VGA port
Once CPU is started and the Arcade monitor is plugged in, the LCD monitor will not work (no signal)
CPU fires up just fine with teh LCD monitor in
CPU fires up when the VGA cable is connected to the card, but disconnected from the breakout cable
CPU fires up when the VGA cable is connected to the card, but disconnected from the breakout cable and the LCD is connected (LCD works)
CPU does not fire when connected to the breakout cable (I took the cable off the monitor, since we already know with everything connected I cannot get the CPU to fire

So it looks like the break out cable, however, Rick had this working just fine with an identical monitor, this cable and an Arcade card. All pins are good on the VGA cable too.

Anyone make sense of this puzzle?

Eric

[Kevin Mullins]

Maybe I'm missing something.... but what "VGA cable" are you talking about?
You keep referring to a vga cable AND a breakout cable.

The breakout cable IS the vga cable so to speak.

PC (ArcadeVGA card) ------> Breakout cable ------> Monitor

So if you have JUST the breakout cable connected to the PC it won't fire up?
(no monitor attached) If the cable is open ended then it shouldn't make a bit of difference. Would be the same as if it's unplugged. (unless it was wired wrong and is crossed up somewhere on the vga side)

I guess I need to see what the connection options are for the Nieman displays since I'm not familiar with them.

[BigDaddyE]

 

Update.

Working behind the scenes with Rick and Andy, I have a stable picture on the screen, still slightly jumpy, but I haven't adjusted anything yet, I am just happy to have a picture!

It seems that something was wrong on either the CRT or chassis board. As the three of us worked through the troubleshooting, Rick sent me the new boards, I installed them and have a picture! Much better than I was getting.

I now have a monitor that is severely magnetized, so I am in the process of finding a local degaussing wand or I will order one.

Still have a ways to go, but Rick and Andy have stood by me to get this far and I am sure they will stay by me until I have everything about right. They both get that-a-boys from a very appreciative customer.

I will update again after I get the screen degaussed.

Eric

[Kevin Mullins]

Does it not auto-degauss ?
(after being off for a bit and cold)

[BigDaddyE]

No, it hasn't auto-deguassed well.

I have started it, shut it down, unplugged it, waited 30-40 minutes and started again about 8-10 times and it didn't degauss.

Eric