Hi All,
Maybe this is old news to sone, but given the fact that it took me 2
days to find a solution, I thought a concise repost is in order.
If you have a sony CRT monitor that is too bright, too dark, as retrace
lines or other imaging faults, do not despair, it probably is still
working perfectly, but it simply "forgot" the appropriate internal
settings in its EEPROM due to an aging CMOS / flash memory. These
settings include G2 voltage, factory defaults, geometry settings etc.,
much more that what you can adjust with the user controls.
But how to correct these "forgotten" settings? On some monitors, you
can restore them through a hidden "service menu" or "factory settings"
menu. Not so on the Sony monitors. On these, the EEPROM settings are
serviced and modified via an I2C bus connector that you can use to
interface the monitor's internal logic directly to a laptop running
Sony's DAS monitor calibration software.
But where to get it? And where to get the interface cable? Most posts
said this was impossible to find, and instead recommended crudely
soldering some parts into the monitor instead of software-adjusting the
correct registers.
Short conclusion: All the info, including the Sony DAS software WinDAS,
can be found here:
http://www.geocities.com/gregua/windas/
Thousand thanks to whoever gregua is. Thanks Sony's unreliable flash
memory and thanks to Gregua, I probably have obtained a perfectly
servicable GDM-FW900 23" Flat Wide Screen Trinitron CRT for free!
Maybe this is old news to sone, but given the fact that it took me 2
days to find a solution, I thought a concise repost is in order.
If you have a sony CRT monitor that is too bright, too dark, as retrace
lines or other imaging faults, do not despair, it probably is still
working perfectly, but it simply "forgot" the appropriate internal
settings in its EEPROM due to an aging CMOS / flash memory. These
settings include G2 voltage, factory defaults, geometry settings etc.,
much more that what you can adjust with the user controls.
But how to correct these "forgotten" settings? On some monitors, you
can restore them through a hidden "service menu" or "factory settings"
menu. Not so on the Sony monitors. On these, the EEPROM settings are
serviced and modified via an I2C bus connector that you can use to
interface the monitor's internal logic directly to a laptop running
Sony's DAS monitor calibration software.
But where to get it? And where to get the interface cable? Most posts
said this was impossible to find, and instead recommended crudely
soldering some parts into the monitor instead of software-adjusting the
correct registers.
Short conclusion: All the info, including the Sony DAS software WinDAS,
can be found here:
http://www.geocities.com/gregua/windas/
Thousand thanks to whoever gregua is. Thanks Sony's unreliable flash
memory and thanks to Gregua, I probably have obtained a perfectly
servicable GDM-FW900 23" Flat Wide Screen Trinitron CRT for free!