CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

lostmandan · Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:42 am Post subject:

Yes, definitely familiar. Are your menus (OSD) in sync with out-of-sync background?

I have been quiet on here lately, but I am still trying to do some research on this. I had emailed Curt and he mentioned that he could swap me a good deflection board, but I was not sure if he has seen this issue or if it would simply be a test to see if it fixes what I am seeing.

Mr. Green, can you comment on your deflection board part numbers and ink stamp for comparison?

Mine is:
PWC-3709A
72137094
"1X8-152AJ" (could be "1X0" - stamp is somewhat hard to make out)

Also, can you confirm the presence of the "PD" and "DP" daughterboard (or lack thereof)? I have noticed that photos on this site do *not* show this module. I cannot find any information on it, but wonder if it is common between boards or not. Also I wonder if a projector with this extra daughterboard can also work with a deflection board that does not have the daughterboard.

If anyone has any insight then, by all means, please jump in.
Also, if someone is running a PG-9100 in 1080p (above 65KHz horizontal) would you mind letting us know what the details of your deflection board are? At this point I am more curious about this than anything else.

Thanks,
Dan

Mr. Green · Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 4:28 am Post subject:

Ok, sorry my camera REALLY sucks. The projector is hanging form the ceiling again so pictures aren't as easy. I too have the PWC-3937. I couldn't see where you got the 72139371 number off that board.

I actually took that scrambled mess picture back when I had a TV in that room so I could "fix" the Playstation settings when it did that. I don't remember if the menu's worked or not. I'm hosting dinner on Monday so I can't take the time to play with it right now, but I am off all week next week and I'll definitely give it another try. Here's some photos. Let me know what numbers you need and where to find them. I'll take the cover off and get you the numbers tomorrow.

lostmandan · Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 5:09 am Post subject:

That is definitely the same def board as I have. Can you confirm the ink stamp number (along the left edge of the board shown in 'other view pd dp board.jpg')? It looks to be something like '1X8' or '1X0'.

Have a good Thanksgiving dinner!

- Dan

Mr. Green · Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 4:53 am Post subject:

Oh, I see it now. I was looking at the little board. I'll take a look after thanksgiving. It actually shows in one of the pictures, but it's blurred just enough that I can't see it.

Thanks, have a good dinner yourself!

grogthegreat · Joined: 16 May 2007 Posts: 166 Location: San Diego, CA

I also have a 9PG+ that I had running at 1080p from a PS3 going through a HDFury. It would sync and display fine although it was too soft for my taste. My deflection board does not have that daughter-board. I'm also curious if the two boards are swappable.

-Greg D.

Mr. Green · Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 8:45 pm Post subject:

Ok,

Here's what you wanted... My system board is very clearly 1X3 153AJ. I also included the spec's of the 2nd daughter board, even though I have no clue what it is/does.

I'm going to switch it to 1080P right away just to see if it garbles the system menu's too... I'll let you know how it goes. Shocked

<gulp!>

Quick question... are games (well I'm using downloaded demo's) 1080P? When I play a demo, it won't use my Blu-ray input (that I use for 1080i), but the HDTV input I made for high def TV. If I'm playing a demo and I try to switch it to my Blu-ray input it says "invalid input".

Mr. Green · Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 4:11 am Post subject:

As far as the PS3 1080p distortion affecting menu's... it doesn't, other that a bit of a flicker.

Mr. Green · Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 6:18 pm Post subject:

Hello again.

I've spent the morning playing around with it and no matter what I do, I get the scrambled mess when using 1080P.

Anyone get any further with this?

I'm going to try again when I get my f'n 25 ft vga-bnc cable (supposedly shipped 4 weeks ago). I'll retry after I hook it up to the box 1040 I've been aching to hook up.

LostManDan, where ya at?

Elaine Benes · Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 1416

The only solution to "scrambled mess" is replacing the system board.

But are you sure its "scrambled mess" ? That problem is a very specific issue which is manifest by the internally generated menu's being scrambled so you can't do a signal entry or anything. I've even seen it where the menu's were scrambled but the signal could be displayed(but of course you couldn't DO anything with the signal without any menu's...).

lostmandan · Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 6:42 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the updated info!

From what I can tell, the PWC-3709(B) is the V.POSI board (Vertical Position circuitry of some sort).

I have been looking closely at the images of the deflection boards you posted, the one posted in the Layout details on this site (http://www.curtpalme.com/NECPG_Layout1.shtm), and the one attached to this email.

It looks as though there are a few variations:

A) With "DP/PD" daughterboard (like your, like mine)
B) Without "DP/PD" daughterboard (connectors directly on DEF board)
C) Without "DP/PD" daughterboard, and *different* component population (see attached picture)

The '72139074' number indicates the PCB is the same (Rev 4), but for some reason NEC decided not to populate some components on some board (notably 'VR008' and 'C402'). There may be others.

I would imagine that there were some changes over time. I believe this would correspond to ink stamp values in some way or another.

The following summarizes a few aspects of these boards:

Cheers,
Dan

lostmandan · Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 6:42 pm Post subject:

Greg,

Are you in a position to recover any of this information from your PJ? It would be helpful to fill in some blanks. If possible, the ink stamp, 7213907x number, presence of the "DP/PD" daughterboard, and presence of the components shown in the attached photo would be great!

** Also, if there is anyone else who is reading this topic and would be kind enough to let us know if their information then it would be very helpful too!

Cheers,
Dan

Mr. Green · Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 6:44 pm Post subject:

That's the odd thing. The scrambled mess only affects the image coming from the PS3. The projectors menu's look perfectly fine except they occasionally flicker.

It's not giving the "unregistered signal" error, so does that mean it is locking to 1080P, but just not resolving it enough to view?

Give me a couple minutes and I'll post a picture with the menu... it'll look like garbage since the sun is out now, but you'll get the idea...

Mr. Green · Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 6:57 pm Post subject:

Ok, here's a couple photos. They look like crap because the sun is glaring through right now.

You can see the diagonal mess in the background of picture 2 and you can see how the test pattern has some jaggies on it. Both were taken with the PS3 ouptputting 1080p.

lostmandan · Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 7:14 pm Post subject:

Correct, I do not believe this is the 'dreaded scrambled mess' because the on-screen display (menus, anything generated by the system board) is in sync.

In terms of only seeing this at 1080p from the PS3 - I am not sure if this indicates some divergence between your unit and my unit or not. I have noticed that any source that outputs a horizontal frequency above ~65KHz on my unit ends up with video displayed out of sync. Any signal with a horizontal frequency below this threshold is perfect.

The suggestion I would make is to check the horizontal and vertical signal information reported in Signal Info part of menu for each of the following cases:
1) With source (displaying correctly) at 1080p (or close to it)
2) With the source (PS3 in this case) displayed out of sync
3) If possible, 720p (or equivalent) using 65KHz+ horizontal rate. I acheived this by using the VGA out from a PC and power strip at 1280x1024 (and adjusting the vertical refresh until the horizontal jumped just above the point of failure.

What I noticed was (in each case):
1) In this case the horiz and vert frequencies reported were correct.
2) In this case the horiz was reported at ~1/2 of what it should have been (ie: 33KHz instead of 66KHz). Vertical reported fine (give or take 0.1 Hz).
3) In this case I also noticed the horiz was reported at ~1/2 of what it should have been (ie: 33KHz instead of 66KHz)

I used an oscilloscope and probed the test points at the H sync input and H sync output on the deflection board and noticed that the H sync input was always proper (even above 65KHz), but the H sync output magically divided by two on the output. In other words, the Signal Info was actually reporting the correct H sync rate because something was dividing by 2 on the deflection board.

At this point I am really hoping to collect various cases from people who also have these PJs and assemble information about ink stamps, presence of daughterboards/components, PCB revisions, and 1080p support to get an idea of what the pattern is.

If I can confirm that a few people with the "DP/PD" daughterboard are seeing the same issue at ~65KHz, then I conclude my unit is also working "properly" although not to the spec of 90KHz (as per service manual). Then the question is "what needs to change to make it perform to spec?".

Thanks again for the time and effort to investigate! Cheer, Dan

Mr. Green · Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 7:24 pm Post subject:

I PM'd a couple guys to put their input in. They have 9PG+'s too. Hopefully, they'll chime in.

lostmandan · Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 7:50 pm Post subject:

Ok, that is really good! I hope they will have a few moments to share their experiences.

Is there a 'master list' of ink stamps and how they relate to everything? For example, the majority of the parts in my PJ have '1W0' stamps. Most of these parts are boards that don't really get swapped too often I would imagine. For example, Mother PWB, Gain Control PWB.

I have talked to a couple of folks and they recommend getting in touch with Doug B. as he was key person at NEC for quite a number of years and has a wealth of knowledge about all of the NEC units. But I had also heard that he was not doing well, and that is very unfortunate. If true, he has much more important things to take care of. I would love to have the opportunity to talk to him and see what his opinion would be.

- Dan

Mr. Green · Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 7:58 pm Post subject:

I was hoping he'd chime in as he's been a wonderful help in getting my projector running. He's not one of the PM's I sent though.

I had not heard he wasn't well. Sad

I hope he's ok. I just looked and he hasn't logged on since Aug 10! Shocked

Mark_A_W · Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 9:26 pm Post subject:

Mr Green, your projector needs a new deflection board.

Give it a break and run 1080i. It's 15 years old or so now...

Mr. Green · Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 9:31 pm Post subject:

New deflection board eh?

Just so I know, is it from the last set of pictures I posted? How can you tell it's the deflection board or what tells you the board is bad?

Does it have to be replaced or can it be repaired with new parts? Everyone keeps talking about replacing "caps" whatever that means.

Keep in mind it only does that with 1080P. With 1080i the grid is solid.

I'm really happy with 1080i, I just wanted to see the two resolutions for myself. I've heard it's softer which I won't like. I wanted to compare the 1080p flicker vs. the barely noticable scanlines from 1080i. For me, it's more of a it's supposed to be able to do 1080p, why won't it?

Mark_A_W · Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 9:41 pm Post subject:

Because the menus are fine, so it's probably not the system board.

The Sync is screwed, and that's done on the deflection board.

I'd just upgrade to a LC projector, or run 1080i. I wouldn't spend any on the Plus.