For the CRT monitor freaks - highest resolution you ran on your tube?

[Derek23]

Re: For the CRT monitor freaks - highest resolution you ran on your tube?

That's like the opposite of what I do here. Normally, I set my resolutions low but at high refresh rates. 17" monitors (both CRT and LCD) I don't like past 1024x768. Even if they remain sharp, things just get too small to see.
It wasn't that long ago when I was still running 800x600. Unfortunately, there are no web pages nowadays that design for that resolution - hence why I moved up a notch to 1024x768.

The highest resolution I'm running right now is 1280x960 on my Dell (Sony) Trinitron D1626HT 21" CRT. Max resolution for that monitor is 1600x1200 @85 Hz and it looks fine on it too. I just like big text

Really i used it normally on 800x600 because of the refresh rate 85 Hz, in 1024x768 it was 65 Hz and cause me headaches. I only changed to 1024x768 when a web page is badly seen on the previous resolution or a program requested to have a higher resolution
in my 17" one I normally set it on 1152x864@85Hz (unless i see photos or videos, in these cases I set on its max res 1600x1200@65Hz) xD

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: For the CRT monitor freaks - highest resolution you ran on your tube?

Just upped the bar a notch on my IBM P275... Switched to 1400x1050 from 1280x1024. I found out that it is actually a 4:3 tube as things looked a little squashed at 1280x1024, comparing it to a LCD which has 1280x1024 native, things look correct at a 4:3 resolution on the IBM.

And surprisingly, text looks clearer at 1400x1050. Might have to do with the refresh rate now being 85Hz vs 100Hz tho... I ran 100Hz to keep the TV on the left (i'm in a PAL area so that's 50Hz for you) from interfering with it, but i don't really watch TV anymore so it's not a problem. That's not saying i don't still have to take it apart, as it still has this slight jitter all over, which is the main reason why it looks kinda bad. I'm sure the problem is on the signal board at the back of the tube, because the jitter appears in the OSD as well.

[momaka]

Re: For the CRT monitor freaks - highest resolution you ran on your tube?

it does have BNC... and I have a bnc to vga cable... is there any benefit to using bnc?

From what I've heard/read around, if it's a good quality BNC connector, the picture should be better. On small resolutions, it probably doesn't matter that much, though.

Just upped the bar a notch on my IBM P275... Switched to 1400x1050 from 1280x1024. I found out that it is actually a 4:3 tube as things looked a little squashed at 1280x1024, comparing it to a LCD which has 1280x1024 native, things look correct at a 4:3 resolution on the IBM.

I told you so .

I had in the past a CTX PR705F 17" W/trinitron tube, its max res was 1600x1200@65Hz though I pushed it in 1920x1080@60 Hz, and the text was still sharp
...
I also had a 1999, LG studioworks (I don't remember the model) 15". I pushed it in 1920x1078@50Hz, despite its max res was 1024x768@85Hz, it looked fine except blurrier in the sides and some convergence issues.

Hmm... The math doesn't quite add up here, though.
A 17" aperture grille screen at that resolution would require slightly less than 0.17 mm horizontal pitch.

For the 15" screen, (assuming it's a shadow mask) you're looking at about 0.153 horizontal pitch, which comes out to ~0.177 diagonal pitch. The monitor *must* have been blurry.

[Derek23]

Re: For the CRT monitor freaks - highest resolution you ran on your tube?

Hmm... The math doesn't quite add up here, though.
A 17" aperture grille screen at that resolution would require slightly less than 0.17 mm horizontal pitch.

For the 15" screen, (assuming it's a shadow mask) you're looking at about 0.153 horizontal pitch, which comes out to ~0.177 diagonal pitch. The monitor *must* have been blurry.

Well it was 0.24 and looked fine in that resolution, xD very sharp image, (though very small text) and further shrinking of the screen due to aspect ratio of 16:9 (this monitor was 4:3), having to reduce height.

About the 15", yes, it was shadow mask and text looked blurry, though images were more or less fine!

[ratdude747]

Re: For the CRT monitor freaks - highest resolution you ran on your tube?

the bnc to vga cable is hp branded... only six pins on the vga end (3 signal, 3 ground?). i assume it's a good cable?

edit- the monitor no longer likes the cable... it doesn't detect anything on the bnc when I conenct that and only that.

my dad's mitsubishi 19" crt has BNC as well... I may test the cable with that.

the cable is a c2300-60005

just like this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Original-Agilent...#ht_2782wt_956

is this a good cable?

[ratdude747]

Re: For the CRT monitor freaks - highest resolution you ran on your tube?

the mitsubishi accepted it but it would frequently complain of out of range signals and when it didn't the image wasn't rendered as a still image... maybe I also need a cable with h and v sync?

[Agent24]

Re: For the CRT monitor freaks - highest resolution you ran on your tube?

Maybe you were just running it too high?

[ratdude747]

Re: For the CRT monitor freaks - highest resolution you ran on your tube?

i used my dell latitude d400 to test... even 800x600 @ 65 hz caused errors.

[momaka]

Re: For the CRT monitor freaks - highest resolution you ran on your tube?

maybe I also need a cable with h and v sync?

Yes, definitely.
You may also need to manually install the monitor driver.

I have a really old HP A4032A 17" monitor that only has BNC inputs and I can't get it past 800x600 @ 60Hz. I don't know if it's the monitor itself (it's a Trinitron tube) or because I don't have the driver for it (it appears as Plug-and-Play monitor). Any ideas?

[Agent24]

Re: For the CRT monitor freaks - highest resolution you ran on your tube?

You don't need the monitor driver usually, you should be able to force the display to whatever you want using your video card drivers.

[ratdude747]

Re: For the CRT monitor freaks - highest resolution you ran on your tube?

Yes, definitely.
You may also need to manually install the monitor driver.

I have a really old HP A4032A 17" monitor that only has BNC inputs and I can't get it past 800x600 @ 60Hz. I don't know if it's the monitor itself (it's a Trinitron tube) or because I don't have the driver for it (it appears as Plug-and-Play monitor). Any ideas?

when used on the vga cable it works great... so i doubt its a driver issue.

my guess is the cable I have is a pro BNC style vga to composite cable... I did get the samsung and an EEE pc to communicate with that cable without issues... who knows?

since the cable is selling for $30, it must be good for something?

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: For the CRT monitor freaks - highest resolution you ran on your tube?

I'm back... I can confirm 100% now that i have a CRT signal board issue on my IBM P275. The picture gets progressively blurrier as the refresh rate gets higher. This explains 100% how i now get clearer text at 1400x1050 85Hz than i got at 1280x1024 100Hz. If i lower the refresh rate further it'll get even better, but unfortunately my eyes don't agree with it.

I know this can also be a phosphor phenomenon, but it wouldn't be this bad. Combined with the jittery everything (that gets progressively better the longer the monitor is on), i know what i'm looking at. I don't know if i'll fix it this summer because i'll have to go home earlier coz i failed some exams and i need to study and take them again... but i'll be getting a 22" Dell to toy with at home (it has the classic G2 overvoltage problem, needs reprogrammed using service cable and WinDAS), so i'll go tweaking that one and get some answers. And yes that'll be a big beast of a monitor.

Unless something markedly better comes up on the market, you'll still see me running those big tubes 10 years from now.

[momaka]

Re: For the CRT monitor freaks - highest resolution you ran on your tube?

About 2 week ago, I got back from my grandmother's countryside house where I have the HP A4032A (Sony Trinitron M41KKA16X) 17" CRT monitor so I finally had some time to play around with it (I've been there without internet for 2 weeks - and I survived! ). It turns out, that monitor is not locked at 800x600 resolution as I though. In fact, I ran it all the way up to 1280x960. According to monitorworld.com, the max resolution for this monitor is 1280x1024. I didn't try it that high though, since it's a 4:3 monitor. There wasn't a point to it anyways - the monitor became very blurry just at 1280x960, but that's due to horizontal convergence issues, though, so I don't blame it. After all, I bought that monitor used about 5 years ago (it cost me all of 50 Euros) and the condition I got it in was far from perfect - there are 2 cracks in the plastic casing near the rear and also some spilled coffee in that area. Moreover, this monitor was built in 1994/1995 so who knows what it has gone through. I wouldn't be surprised if I am the 3rd or 4th owner. It's made in Japan, though, so it will probably last for quite a while.

Unfortunately, this monitor has many other problems besides the convergence (which all I can do about is adjust it so that it's either good in the center and really bad in the corners or blurry in the center and less blurry in the corners. The top-right corner is always pretty bad, though. This problem is less evident on lower resolutions.)

One of the other major problems is that it has uneven brightness - it's normal on the left side but gets progressively brighter towards the right and then for the last 2 to 3 cm on the right, it gets back to normal. There are also two light vertical lines - one about 1 cm thick on the left side (about 8 cm from the left edge of the screen) and one slightly curvy line, less than 1 cm thick but to the right side of the screen (same distance from the edge). You can see it on the picture I attached. It's actually worse than the picture shows, but my camera isn't that sensitive. I tried degaussing it both with the built-in degauss and manually (using 2 magnets on a drill), but that did not have any effect on the issue. So I wonder if it's the caps in the signal board or cheap BNC cable parhaps. The BNC cable looks nice and thick but I don't see any inductors on it on either end. Any ideas?

Among other issues, the top-left corner (and only that corner) of the screen is slightly curved in. It can't be adjusted.
The brightness also changes at different resolutions - at 1024x768 it looks much brighter than at 800x600 and 640x480 (therefore I have to change the brightness when I play games).
And the tube has a slightly reddish tint, even at the brightest (bluest) color temperature. This I've corrected through the ATI Catalyst adjustments, though. But I guess the tube is just getting a bit tired now. It's still plenty bright, nonetheless.

And last but not least, I still can't get the refresh rate to go higher than 60 Hz. I don't know if this is because I'm using a BNC cable or what, but it's very annoying. I think it has to do with the fact that the monitor cannot get recognized in Windows. When I click on the scroll-down menu for the available refresh rates, I get everything from 40 Hz interlaced to 200 Hz (and I get this on all resolutions I've tried). Moreover, I get every imaginable resolution available in the settings tab - so obviously Windows doesn't know what monitor it's outputting to. I tried setting the monitor as Plug-and-Play rather than have it appear as a Default monitor, but that made no difference at all.
So basically I'm stuck in 60 Hz mode. That's actually the biggest annoyance because my eyes get tired much faster. The flicker on this monitor isn't as bad as on other monitors (probably longer phosphor persistence), but it's still quite noticeable. If I could get this issue fixed, though, it would be a very fine monitor. In fact, even with all of these issues above, I still like it very much. The contrast on this Sony tube is, so far, one of the better (if not best) I've seen. I can turn down the brightness so the black appears truly black, and yet the white will still be blindingly-bright. It makes even old games look very nice as if they had HDR.

Like Th3_uN1Qu3, I'll probably be running this monitor for the next 10 years as well.
Here's a picture of it running:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...7&d=1315008911

[Behemot]

Re: For the CRT monitor freaks - highest resolution you ran on your tube?

Whooo how's that I haven't noticed this thread before?

Having 22" biggies lately with some kind of Trinitron every time. Currently have Philips Brilliance 202P4, runing at 1920x1440x85 Hz

[c_hegge]

Re: For the CRT monitor freaks - highest resolution you ran on your tube?

Biggest CRT I've ever owned was a HP 17". I never ran it past 1024x768. It would run up to something like 1600x1200, but I could hardly read anything with it that high. Eventually, I ended up getting my hands on a few cheap and free LCDs, and never looked back.

[larrymoencurly]

Re: For the CRT monitor freaks - highest resolution you ran on your tube?

Intentionally? I had some monitors without digital controls show two narrow pictures, side by side, until I reset the screen resolution in Windows. How long can CRT monitors stand that?

[Heihachi_73]

Re: For the CRT monitor freaks - highest resolution you ran on your tube?

Back in the old days (2006), I ran a 17" Acer monitor at 1152x864, as my onboard graphics card didn't support 1280x960 (I refused to use 1024p on a 4:3 monitor, and higher sizes caused fonts to become too small). Prior to that it was 1024x768x24 (i810 chipset) on my HP 1.2GHz Celeron, and 800x600x24 on my Packard Bell Pentium 166 (2MB S3 ViRGE for the... loss). Yes, both of those only went to a 24-bit graphics mode rather than 32-bit.

Eventually I upgraded to a 16:10 Hisense HDTV, which was previously left in storage after the cat tripped on the aerial cable, ripping it out and leaving a nice hole in the RF modulator box; the whole connector ripped clean off the PCB. Said TV died recently due to bloated Samxon caps in the PSU.

My trash-find 17" LG Studioworks monitor has no trouble with 1680x1050, despite being a 4:3 CRT which is probably over ten years old. By contrast (and ironically, note my first sentence), I'm currently stuck with a 1280x1024 LG Flatron L1710M, which goes out of range and blanks itself during the entire boot process, even if you go into the BIOS/CMOS setup (and works again when the Windows XP logo shows up), yet has no trouble with 720x400 when I full-screen a cmd window. Strangely, 640x400 ends up letterboxed rather than stretched to fit, despite 720x400 being full screen as mentioned; 640x400 works perfectly on each CRT I've tested.

[Behemot]

Re: For the CRT monitor freaks - highest resolution you ran on your tube?

You are using wrong resolutions for 4:3 ratio. It's 640x480 (not 400) and 1400x1050 (not 1680).

[mariushm]

Re: For the CRT monitor freaks - highest resolution you ran on your tube?

The first monitor I've owned was an Aoc 15" one, which was running natively at 1024x768 75 Hz I think ... my parents were poor at the time so I couldn't ask for much better monitor.
I think it was running up to 1600x1200 at 60 hz, but I didn't keep it as such resolution.

For a very short time, I had a Phillips Brilliance 17" or 19" monitor, that was like a mercedes vs ford compared to the Aoc, it was downright beautiful. I didn't dare to mess with it - the owner of the company I bought the computer from gave it to use until the Aoc he ordered was to arrive at the store.

While I was a student, I had an IBM P7.. something but I really don't know what I did with it, I probably sold it when I got the Eizo Flexscan t57s that's sitting under my desk now.

This Eizo I know I ran it up to 2048x1536 ("officially" it can do 1920x1200) but it's painful to use it like that, too low refresh, too small pixels, and mine is not exactly 100% geometrically accurate after so many years of usage.



Nowadays I have two 24" lcds on my screen, one with 1920x1200 the other one with 1920x1080 ... no more eye squinting and messing with making custom monitor drivers.

[Phaihn]

Re: For the CRT monitor freaks - highest resolution you ran on your tube?

I had a Flat 18inch Samsung SyncMaster CRT till I got a 19inch Samsung SyncMaster LCD.