newbie arcade monitor help please

[mean6]

I have an arcade monitor with a wells gardner chasis K7193.  I am using an ati 3870 videocard with the breakdown cable from ultimarc.  I got picture on my screen, but not much colour.  Mostly blueish, the vertical sync is really hard to get stable.  I have a big red blur in the top left corner, which I cannot get to go away.  I tried adjusting colour through the video card setttings, but nothing works. The colours look washed out. I tried tuning the monitor controls, such as black, and contrast, but cannot make the picture look at all good.  Is this something that can be fixed easily (cap kits???) , or should I replace it with a tv monitor?  Any help is appreciated.  Thanks

[mean6]

Just an update.  I was playing with the colour controls at the back of the monitor, and it does look a little better, but still washed out.  I also forgot to mention, I am running soft15k running a resoloution of 640 x 480.

[grantspain]

sounds like you need a video amp

[Beretta]

speaking of which i've not yet hooked mine up but i'll be going with soft 15khz, how often are amps needed?

100% of the time? or is it vary monitor to monitor? i've heard in cases of dim picture cranking up the controls usually works but there is a belief that this reduces tube life.

wheres the cheapest place to get a amp? or does anyone sell them in kit form?

soldering is ok if i can save some money.

[SirPeale]

It varies from monitor to monitor.

Ultimarc is your best bet.  It's around twenty bucks, practically plug-and-play, though you'll need to add your own monitor connector.

[mean6]

can anybody say that this will fix the problem 100%?

[Malenko]

can anybody say that this will fix the problem 100%?

theres only 1 way to find out.  I havent ever needed an amp, but Ive never used an ATI card for soft15.
Red blur in the corner sounds like degaussing/magnetism.  Have you adjusted the color pots on the back of the monitor?

[mean6]

yes, it helped a little, but picture still looks washed out. The red glow seemed to fade out a little bit after adjusting those though

[Malenko]

pix?

and did this happen with a game  as well or just with the PC?

[mean6]

ok, I have everything set as good as I can, it looks better, but still colours look a little faded, also I am having trouble getting the colour purple to be distinquished.  One new problem is that I am getting the split screen for some reason.  I had everything set, and then turned it off, and back on, and I get the split screen, which won't vertically sync, and once the computer gets into windows, the screen goes black.  I have it so it automatically loads Hyperspin right after boot.  I am not sure what to do from here.  Where do I need to set the resolutions?  I have windows set at 640x480, and in Hyperspin I have it set to run at 640x480 32bit, 0 hertz.  I think the hertz problem is the problem, but not sure.  I works fine on my lcd monitor.  Very frustrated.

[Malenko]

works fine on my lcd monitor. 

if it works on your LCD then its not running at an arcade resolution, uninstall/reinstall soft15?

[mean6]

I should have been more clear, the lcd will not run with soft15, but if I boot into windows in vga mode, everything works.  I have tried installing and uninstalling soft15, and the video driver.  I think it is something to do with resolution.  Right now, I am only able to get picture if I run the computer from boot in vga mode.  It gives me a split screen though.  Once I get into windows, if I change the colour setting through window properties to medium 16 bit, it will fix the split screen issue.  But this only works sometimes.  This is really frustrating.

[mean6]

**UPDATE**, I have everything working as it should. (I think), it boots up into Hyperspin, no sync issues.  I have adjusted the colour pots at the back of the arcade monitor to the best of my ability, and it's as good as it's gonna get right now.  But it still looks a little washed out.  The blacks don't look black, and the colours aren't very vibrant.  So, here's the million dollar question------  Do I need a cap kit, or will the video amp fix the problem??  TIA

[mean6]

anyone?  Should I take a pic?

[SirPeale]

If the caps are original, capping is always recommended.

The only way to see if the amp will work on your setup is to try it.  If you were closer I'd let you try mine to see if it helps.

[mean6]

anybody know how much it would cost to pay someone to replace the caps.  I don't think I would feel comfortable doing it myself.

[atomikbohm]

Not sure if this will work or not but you can safely give it a try. 

Try adjusting the screen pot on your flyback.  It might help with the blacks not being black.  As I understand it the Screen Pot (should be the bottom pot on the flyback) Is like another brightness adjustment. 

As far as a video amp ... Andy on the ultimarc site says "... J-PAC or Video Amp make it easy to do this, but you maybe don't have to use these. All VGA cards (including our ArcadeVGA card) produce a RGB signal level of 1 volt. Game boards use a level of 5 volts. But Wells-Gardner and Hantarex (and many other) monitors are specc-ed to accept 1 volt or 5 volts (Hantarex have a switch, W-G have a pot)..." I have a K7191 25" monitor too and noticed little to no difference when useing the video amp I bought from divemaster.  Though I didn't have any issues with washed out colors.