Can't use higher resolution with Topcon 10" monitor

E

emil_lam

Hi,

I've just bought a Topcon VS-10S 10" monitor from shop. Shop staff had
shown me clearly the monitor could be displayed in 800x600 resolution
with 30 bit color (I didn't know his PC configuration). When I
connected the monitor to my PII PC w/ NVIDIA RIVA TNT display card, XP
Professional & XP Home installed in 2 separate HDs, I found I could
only get proper display with VGA mode (640x480). If I changed the
resolution to higher values, the display immediately turned into a
mess.

I tried forced XP to search for Topcon's driver but I found no Topcon's
brand name in monitor driver list.

Please tell me how can I use this 10" in higher resolution ? I checked
from below url that the best resolution for this monitor should be
1024x768.

http://www.aures.com/ang/2_pdv/6_monit/a_vs_10s.html

:(
 
Y

Yves Leclerc

What version of the video card drivers are you running? The video card
drivers that are/were shipped with XP are extremely limited. Head over to
www.nvidia.com and check for the latest drivers for your video card.

BTW: The Riva TNT is getting to be a very old video card.
 
E

emil_lam

Chuck 寫é“:
1024x768 will produce very small objects on a 10" monitor.
Agree. But the point is I can't even change the setting to 800x600
without problem.
 
E

emil_lam

The problem happened with monitor at refresh rate of 60Hz. Common
setting for most monitors.
 
P

Phil Weldon

'emil lam' wrote, in part:
| I've just bought a Topcon VS-10S 10" monitor from shop. Shop staff had
| shown me clearly the monitor could be displayed in 800x600 resolution
| with 30 bit color (I didn't know his PC configuration). When I
| connected the monitor to my PII PC w/ NVIDIA RIVA TNT display card, XP
| Professional & XP Home installed in 2 separate HDs, I found I could
| only get proper display with VGA mode (640x480). If I changed the
| resolution to higher values, the display immediately turned into a
| mess.
_____

The short answer:
Your monitor can not handle a refresh rate above 50 to 63 Hz for 800 X 600
resolution. Higher than that and the display will either be a mess of
misplaced scan lines, or completely missing. The monitor might also be
damaged.

The longer answer:
I looked at the small amount of information on your monitor at the URL you
posted.

Monitors don't really have 'drivers' at most there might be a file with
color information and lists of available horizontal and vertical rates.

A 10 inch CRT is not really suitable for greater resolutions than 640 X 480.
According to the information at the URL, your Topcon 10 inch can handle
horizontal rates of 30,000 Hz to 38 Hz and vertical rates of 50 to 90 Hz;
and resolutions of 640 X 480, 800 X 600, and 1024 X 768. The pitch is 0.28
mm.

The above numbers tell the tale.

Divide the horizontal frequency by the horizontal resolution and you get the
vertical resolution possible.

Taking the higher horizontal frequency given, a 800 X 600 resolution gives
only 63 Hz; taking the lower horizontal frequency gives only 50 Hz. That
means you must set the display adapter refresh rate to 63 Hz at highest, and
perhaps as low as 50 Hz to get the monitor to correctly display 800 X 600
resolution.

For 1024 X 768 the situation is even worse; the refresh rate must be set to
37 Hz or less. This means that the monitor can only display 1024 x 768 with
interlaced scan rather than progressive scan.

The 0.28 mm dot pitch tells an even uglier tale. A 10 inch CRT is 10 inches
diagonally between opposite corners; that means a horizontal line is less
than 8 inches (203 mm). Divide the physical line length by the dot pitch
and you get less than 726. Since the dot pitch is the DIAGONAL distance
between phosphor dots of the same color, the actual horizontal pitch is only
0.866 X 542 mm = 470. So you see, even if you set the refresh rate so as to
make the diplay usable at 800 X 600, the resolution of the diplay will at
best be 628, and not able to physically display 800 pixels by 600 pixels.

Basically you have a monitor useful for 640 X 480. Setting the refresh rate
of your display adapter to 60 Hz ought to give a recognizable image at 800 X
600 but not a sharp image.

I don't know why you purchased the monitor, but you probably did not get
what you thought you were buying. I would recommend taking it back and
closely questioning the 'shop staff'.

Phil Weldon


| Hi,
|
| I've just bought a Topcon VS-10S 10" monitor from shop. Shop staff had
| shown me clearly the monitor could be displayed in 800x600 resolution
| with 30 bit color (I didn't know his PC configuration). When I
| connected the monitor to my PII PC w/ NVIDIA RIVA TNT display card, XP
| Professional & XP Home installed in 2 separate HDs, I found I could
| only get proper display with VGA mode (640x480). If I changed the
| resolution to higher values, the display immediately turned into a
| mess.
|
| I tried forced XP to search for Topcon's driver but I found no Topcon's
| brand name in monitor driver list.
|
| Please tell me how can I use this 10" in higher resolution ? I checked
| from below url that the best resolution for this monitor should be
| 1024x768.
|
| http://www.aures.com/ang/2_pdv/6_monit/a_vs_10s.html
|
| :(
|
 
E

emil_lam

The staff did show me the monitor's image at 800x600 resolution. I've
checked that by right click at desktop then select properties (Display
properties tab). At Settings tab, it showed 800x600 at 32 bit color.
That staff already told me the maximum resolution is 800x600 and I
expect that.

But I haven't checked the display card used by that shop.
 
P

Phil Weldon

But what did you SEE at the shop? The signal may have been 800 X 600, but
the detail was considerably less.
What do you expect to use this monitor for? That information might help me
give a clearer explanation.
The display card used doesn't make a difference as long as the refresh rate
can be set low enough, and interlace can be selected. What you bought is a
very limited monitor completely unsuited for text display at 800 X 600. It
might be suitable for NTSC or PAL resolution, but 800 X 600 ditigal images
will be considerabally degraded.

Phil Weldon

| The staff did show me the monitor's image at 800x600 resolution. I've
| checked that by right click at desktop then select properties (Display
| properties tab). At Settings tab, it showed 800x600 at 32 bit color.
| That staff already told me the maximum resolution is 800x600 and I
| expect that.
|
| But I haven't checked the display card used by that shop.
|
 
C

Chuck

The key just might be the 800x600 interlace vs non interlace setting on the
video card. The last time I got into this sort of thing, the video card
settings (Whatever the ATI video card was at the time) did not include a
setting for interlace/non interlace until it was set to TV compatable
resolutions.
 
E

emil_lam

Phil Weldon 寫é“:
But what did you SEE at the shop? The signal may have been 800 X 600, but
the detail was considerably less.

I saw windows XP display setting telling the monitor was at 800x600, 32
bit color quality. The display resolution was clear better than
standard VGA mode.
What do you expect to use this monitor for? That information might help me
give a clearer explanation.

I reserved one PC for P2P downloading function so I don't need a high
end PC (PII PC). I don't need a high 1024x768 resolution screen. The PC
was old so its size (limited by main case size) couldn't be shrinked
but the monitor could. Actually now I have one 15" monitor shared by 2
old PCs but since I will move this P2P purpose PC to another location,
I need a separate monitor which size is expected as small as possible.
The display card used doesn't make a difference as long as the refresh rate
can be set low enough, and interlace can be selected. What you bought isa
very limited monitor completely unsuited for text display at 800 X 600. It
might be suitable for NTSC or PAL resolution, but 800 X 600 ditigal images
will be considerabally degraded.

Then how to explain what's seen in the shop ? What I saw told me it
could support 800x600 resolution without quality degrade. May be as you
said I need to go back the shop and clarify something. I'll do this
later.
 
E

emil_lam

Let me summarize up the story here (hope it's not too lengthy ;>)

1. At 29-Nov-05, I bought a 2nd hand 10" monitor (Topcon VS-10S) from
shop. I intended to use it to connect my PII PC (P2L97

motherboard) w/ NVIDIA RIVA TNT display card & XP Professional
installed.

2. I could get normal VGA display from 10" monitor connected to PII PC.

Tested WinXP display setting: 640x480, 32 bit color, 60Hz vert. freq.,
PnP monitor (normal output)
Tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 60Hz vert. freq.,
PnP monitor (messy output)

3. Display output was turned into messy as I change the display setting
to value other than 640x480, others kept unchanged.

4. First posted message here.

5. At 30-Nov-05, I connected the 10" monitor to my Althon PC
(MP-7VIP-DR-LE motherboard) w/ winFast S610 AGP display card

(called it NVIDIA GeForce 2DDR in previous messages) w/ ME & XP
Professional installed in C: & D: respectively. Display

driver used that available from XP.

6. Replied messages here.

7. I booted the Althon PC into XP. Then I tried changed display setting
from 1024x768 to 800x600, display output turned into

a mess.

Tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 60Hz vert. freq.,
PnP monitor (messy output)
Tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 70Hz vert. freq.,
PnP monitor (messy output)
Tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 72Hz vert. freq.,
PnP monitor (messy output)
Tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 75Hz vert. freq.,
PnP monitor (messy output)

Note: above setting was changed by connecting PC with my Samsung
SyncMaster 151B LCD monitor then swapped connection to 10"

monitor after setting effective.

During the test, I've called the shop on phone, they reminded me to
make sure vert. freq. was at 60Hz.

8. Discussed case with Phil here.

9. At 1-Nov-05, I tried connect the 10" monitor to my 3rd PC, also a
PII PC (P2L97 motherboard) w/ WinFast 3D L2300 AGP

display card w/ XP Home installed. Display driver used that available
from XP.

10. I tested below WinXP display settings, tests failed.

Tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 60Hz vert. freq.,
PnP monitor (messy output)
Tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 70Hz vert. freq.,
PnP monitor (messy output)
Tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 72Hz vert. freq.,
PnP monitor (messy output)
Tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 75Hz vert. freq.,
PnP monitor (messy output)

Note: this PC was connected to NEC MultiSync V520 while changing
display setting.

11. I went to the shop again by 1-Nov-05 evening, the staff tested my
10" monitor at their PC, no problem at all at 800x600,

60Hz vert. freq.

I checked from XP display properties, they used Matrox Millennium 550G
display card with dual display output, one connected

to original Philips 105S monitor, another to this 10" monitor.

I asked them why will that happened. They had no idea. One guy
suggested me re-installed display driver (may be it's not

update). What a suggestion !!!

Finally they gave me another Topcon 10" monitor (called it NEW 10" MON
below).

12. I tested the NEW 10" MON at my Althon PC with below display
setting:

800x600, 32 bit color, 60Hz vert. freq., PnP monitor (messy output)

13. Suddenly, I remembered this PC also has ME installed. So I booted
into ME & ran the tests again. Test failed with below

settings:

Tested WinME display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 60Hz vert. freq.,
SyncMaster 151B monitor (messy output)

14. At this point, I almost gave up. I tried it again in my PII PC w/
WinFast 3D L2300 display card using below setting:

Tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 16 bit color, 60Hz vert. freq.,
PnP monitor (normal output)

Bingo!

15. I changed the setting to 32 bit color, I could see normal output
too!

16. I repeated the test again at Althon PC w/ XP booted. Firstly I used
800x600, 16 bit color, test successful. Then I

changed the color to 32 bit with no problem.

17. While my PII PC w/ WinFast 3D L2300 display card still had 800x600,
32 bit color, 60Hz vert. freq., PnP monitor setting

effective, I plugged the NEW 10" MON again to this PC. Bingo! Display
output was normal, no need to change setting to 16 bit

color first.

18. Test finished.

Up to now, I still can't provide a explanation for this strange
behaviour. I only know that lower the color depth first for

this 10" monitor first is a safe setting.

PS: I'm not sure if I had tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 16 bit
color, 60Hz vert. freq., PnP monitor (messy output) at step 7. But even
if I did, I'd tested it after using 32 bit color setting.
 
P

Phil Weldon

Thanks very much for posting your further tests and the successful results.
That will be a big help for others with similar problems.

Could you restate what does work?

I get the impression that only the lower color depth works (16 bit rather
than 32 bit). Is this correct? I should have asked you to describe 'messy'
better. Evidently the problem is with bandwidth rather than sync, and your
'messy' meant fuzzy and ghosty with strange contrast rather than crawling
streaks and a disorganized image. Is this a correct statement?

Phil Weldon

| Let me summarize up the story here (hope it's not too lengthy ;>)
|
| 1. At 29-Nov-05, I bought a 2nd hand 10" monitor (Topcon VS-10S) from
| shop. I intended to use it to connect my PII PC (P2L97
|
| motherboard) w/ NVIDIA RIVA TNT display card & XP Professional
| installed.
|
| 2. I could get normal VGA display from 10" monitor connected to PII PC.
|
| Tested WinXP display setting: 640x480, 32 bit color, 60Hz vert. freq.,
| PnP monitor (normal output)
| Tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 60Hz vert. freq.,
| PnP monitor (messy output)
|
| 3. Display output was turned into messy as I change the display setting
| to value other than 640x480, others kept unchanged.
|
| 4. First posted message here.
|
| 5. At 30-Nov-05, I connected the 10" monitor to my Althon PC
| (MP-7VIP-DR-LE motherboard) w/ winFast S610 AGP display card
|
| (called it NVIDIA GeForce 2DDR in previous messages) w/ ME & XP
| Professional installed in C: & D: respectively. Display
|
| driver used that available from XP.
|
| 6. Replied messages here.
|
| 7. I booted the Althon PC into XP. Then I tried changed display setting
| from 1024x768 to 800x600, display output turned into
|
| a mess.
|
| Tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 60Hz vert. freq.,
| PnP monitor (messy output)
| Tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 70Hz vert. freq.,
| PnP monitor (messy output)
| Tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 72Hz vert. freq.,
| PnP monitor (messy output)
| Tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 75Hz vert. freq.,
| PnP monitor (messy output)
|
| Note: above setting was changed by connecting PC with my Samsung
| SyncMaster 151B LCD monitor then swapped connection to 10"
|
| monitor after setting effective.
|
| During the test, I've called the shop on phone, they reminded me to
| make sure vert. freq. was at 60Hz.
|
| 8. Discussed case with Phil here.
|
| 9. At 1-Nov-05, I tried connect the 10" monitor to my 3rd PC, also a
| PII PC (P2L97 motherboard) w/ WinFast 3D L2300 AGP
|
| display card w/ XP Home installed. Display driver used that available
| from XP.
|
| 10. I tested below WinXP display settings, tests failed.
|
| Tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 60Hz vert. freq.,
| PnP monitor (messy output)
| Tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 70Hz vert. freq.,
| PnP monitor (messy output)
| Tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 72Hz vert. freq.,
| PnP monitor (messy output)
| Tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 75Hz vert. freq.,
| PnP monitor (messy output)
|
| Note: this PC was connected to NEC MultiSync V520 while changing
| display setting.
|
| 11. I went to the shop again by 1-Nov-05 evening, the staff tested my
| 10" monitor at their PC, no problem at all at 800x600,
|
| 60Hz vert. freq.
|
| I checked from XP display properties, they used Matrox Millennium 550G
| display card with dual display output, one connected
|
| to original Philips 105S monitor, another to this 10" monitor.
|
| I asked them why will that happened. They had no idea. One guy
| suggested me re-installed display driver (may be it's not
|
| update). What a suggestion !!!
|
| Finally they gave me another Topcon 10" monitor (called it NEW 10" MON
| below).
|
| 12. I tested the NEW 10" MON at my Althon PC with below display
| setting:
|
| 800x600, 32 bit color, 60Hz vert. freq., PnP monitor (messy output)
|
| 13. Suddenly, I remembered this PC also has ME installed. So I booted
| into ME & ran the tests again. Test failed with below
|
| settings:
|
| Tested WinME display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 60Hz vert. freq.,
| SyncMaster 151B monitor (messy output)
|
| 14. At this point, I almost gave up. I tried it again in my PII PC w/
| WinFast 3D L2300 display card using below setting:
|
| Tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 16 bit color, 60Hz vert. freq.,
| PnP monitor (normal output)
|
| Bingo!
|
| 15. I changed the setting to 32 bit color, I could see normal output
| too!
|
| 16. I repeated the test again at Althon PC w/ XP booted. Firstly I used
| 800x600, 16 bit color, test successful. Then I
|
| changed the color to 32 bit with no problem.
|
| 17. While my PII PC w/ WinFast 3D L2300 display card still had 800x600,
| 32 bit color, 60Hz vert. freq., PnP monitor setting
|
| effective, I plugged the NEW 10" MON again to this PC. Bingo! Display
| output was normal, no need to change setting to 16 bit
|
| color first.
|
| 18. Test finished.
|
| Up to now, I still can't provide a explanation for this strange
| behaviour. I only know that lower the color depth first for
|
| this 10" monitor first is a safe setting.
|
| PS: I'm not sure if I had tested WinXP display setting: 800x600, 16 bit
| color, 60Hz vert. freq., PnP monitor (messy output) at step 7. But even
| if I did, I'd tested it after using 32 bit color setting.
|
 
E

emil_lam

Phil Weldon 寫é“:
Thanks very much for posting your further tests and the successful results.
That will be a big help for others with similar problems.

Could you restate what does work?

WinXP display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 60Hz vert. freq., PnP
monitor
WinXP display setting: 800x600, 16 bit color, 60Hz vert. freq., PnP
monitor

These settings worked on both my Althon & PII PC (not included that
mentioned at step 1 because that PC got disk read problem before XP
even started after my failed tests at 29-Nov-05 night).

I haven't tested these settings in ME installation yet because it's
late night now here. At first I thought setting 16 bit color triggered
the result. Later I doubt this "finding" because after step 17. I did
rebooted the PII PC again with NEW 10" MON connected from start to end
of reboot without changing color depth at all and nothing abnormal
appeared in graphics output at all. So I couldn't explain the result of
step 12.
I get the impression that only the lower color depth works (16 bit rather
than 32 bit). Is this correct? I should have asked you to describe 'messy'

I thought so at first but found 32 bit also worked (described in steps
15-17) later.
better. Evidently the problem is with bandwidth rather than sync, and your
'messy' meant fuzzy and ghosty with strange contrast rather than crawling
streaks and a disorganized image. Is this a correct statement?

Sorry for my poor English (not my mother language). I meant I saw
duplicated & fuzzy ghost images of windows desktop screen overlapping
each other across the screen.
 
P

Phil Weldon

'emil_lam' wrote, in part:
| > Could you restate what does work?
|
| WinXP display setting: 800x600, 32 bit color, 60Hz vert. freq., PnP
| monitor
| WinXP display setting: 800x600, 16 bit color, 60Hz vert. freq., PnP
| monitor
|
| These settings worked on both my Althon & PII PC (not included that
| mentioned at step 1 because that PC got disk read problem before XP
| even started after my failed tests at 29-Nov-05 night).
_____

As 'Chuck' posted in this thread, the key factor may be a setting to
'interlace' rather than 'non-interlace.' That would fit | your description
of the image, and it could be that 'interlace' has now been selected.

Glad it is working for you. How good is the text image?

Phil Weldon

..
..
..
 
E

emil_lam

Chuck 寫é“:
The key just might be the 800x600 interlace vs non interlace setting on the
video card. The last time I got into this sort of thing, the video card
settings (Whatever the ATI video card was at the time) did not include a
setting for interlace/non interlace until it was set to TV compatable
resolutions.
I don't know because I've no idea of how to change interlace setting
for my video cards, or if they are available for user configuration. Do
you mean some video cards will change to interlace mode automatically
for some TV compatible resolution like 800x600 ? Can't get your meaning.
 
E

emil_lam

But I've no idea of how to change the interlace setting unless the
video cards do it automatically for me.

Anyway, after changing the resolution, more icons & window content
could be displayed on screen compared with 640x480. Image was clear &
I'm happy with that.
 
C

Chuck

I'm glad the problem is gone.
The interlace vs. non interlace issue was one that was most prevalent at the
800x600 resolution and analog monitors of old design or limited screen size.
A 10" monitor falls into one and possibly both. Another possible issue had
to do with the video card output signals and timing. I'm not sure how to
explain this, but some displays can "talk" digitally to the video card and
it's drivers. This can cause the video card to setup/tweak timing to match
the display. If an incompatable timing was setup, this might explain some
of your problems and results. If the display uses an older setup scheme,
such as an .inf file, the tweaking is generally done within it.
 
N

Not Gimpy Anymore

emil_lam said:
But I've no idea of how to change the interlace setting unless the
video cards do it automatically for me.

Anyway, after changing the resolution, more icons & window content
could be displayed on screen compared with 640x480. Image was clear &
I'm happy with that.

Probably the monitor worked at 800 by 600 56 Hz refresh - that was a
common refresh rate when Win95/98 was around. Also sounds like the
monitor does not have "plug-n-play" (EDID) capability, so you have to
set it manually. Try setting refresh to 56 Hz. 'Course it will have some
flicker, but that's the price of using the old cheapie....

NGA
 

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