Sony PVM-2730QM issues

[Decider-VT]

I bought a Sony PVM-2730QM broadcast monitor a year or so ago for the express purpose of quality retro gaming. When it arrived the picture quality was nothing short of fantastic, although some RGB images via the SCART input tended to be positioned too far to the left. I read around online and it seemed that decasing the beast was the only way I'd be able to access some of the internal calibration controls to correct the picture. As only a couple of consoles suffered from the image shift, I decided to leave it. Eventually I had to put the monitor back into its flight case and into storage, where it remained until this evening.

After rescuing my PS3 from storage, I connected it to the PVM via an official PS1 SCART cable and adjusted the necessary settings on the PS3 to get a nice RGB image. After playing Heavy Rain for a while I noticed that a horizontal white line had appeared at the top of the screen. It was distracting but I put it down to an overscan issue and tried to forget about it. As time passed, the line became larger and started to blur in red, green and blue slightly. A while after that it became two lines near the top of the screen and also became impossible to ignore. I dug out the user's guide but the troubleshooting section was laughably brief and suggested that I should contact my nearest Sony dealer- somehow I doubt they'd have a solution for me now.

I decided to leave the monitor on without a signal being supplied, and after a while a white light began flashing and flickering quite noticably, although this isn't really visible during normal use.

I have a horrible feeling that it's dying but I'm hoping that somebody here may be able to suggest a solution to the problem- possibly a degaussing. The other alternative is to decase the monitor (hard work with the size of it) but if I did, I'm not sure of what I could adjust to correct the fault. Can some saintly AV or arcade enthusiast suggest a solution, or is it simply beyond hope and repair?

[Decider-VT]

Hmm, probably stumbling around in the dark here but here are a couple of images of the problem:

[Oldgamingfart]

I think these lines are normal and are sometimes used to set the vertical height correctly. You could try to 'zoom out' the lines by adjusting the vertical height/ size control, and maybe the horizontal as well (to compensate for the stretched picture).

If you find the picture flickers or jumps around violently as you adjust it, the control itself is worn and will need to be replaced.

[Decider-VT]

Thanks- I decased the monitor last night btt I couldn't find an accessible pot for any vertical adjustments of the picture. Most of the pots accessible from a little board on the back adjusted things like convergance of the RGB colours to increase sharpness but none of them adjusted horizontal or vertical shifting or altered the size of the image. There are a few more present on the right side of the monitor after unscrewing the little board and swinging it out- I may attempt to adjust these but I'm also wary of being electrocuted!

I'm not so sure if these lines are normal though- they appear around half an hour after the monitor is first turned on, then they multiply over time and gradually travel further down the screen. They disappear if I turn the monitor off and back on again a minute or so later. This evening around four lines appeared- thin and distinct at the sides but a blurred mess in the middle.

[Oldgamingfart]

Indeed I think it might be best not to adjust the mystery controls, as most of them would've been precision aligned at the factory. There is a service manual located here, but it'll cost you.

So long as the lines don't look like this, the CRT itself is OK. The pic there shows flyback lines and it usually means the tube's had it.
I reckon you probably have some bad capacitors here 'n' there unfortunately. This model is probably getting on a bit now so it's to be expected.

Also an interesting forum posting here mentions 'beam current feedback measurements' may be responsible for the lines. If you have any auto colour balance or picture modes try turning them off.

[Decider-VT]

I don't think that the monitor has any particular colour balancing modes that I'm aware of (or able to access). There are various switches located next to the inputs on the back -labelled "Superimpose" and so forth. I've turned everything on and off but it doesn't seem to make a difference.

Unfortunately the flyback lines you posted look a bit too familiar but there are also horizontal red, green and blue "splotches" present at the very top of the screen. That forum post linked to sounds a little bit similar to what I'm experiencing but the lines present on my set aren't completely horizontal. I suspect some creaky electronics too- probably time to start looking for a reasonable repair place or a replacement set on eBay. I may have a peek at that service manual, though.

Thanks again!

[Lyris]

I'm not an expert on CRT, but I had a Panasonic 4:3 CRT which had R,g,b, stripes at the top of the active picture area when I put it into 16:9 squish mode. They were totally normal.

[Decider-VT]

Unfortunately I'm running it in 4:3 mode! I may test it with some other equipment as this only seems to be happening with the 360 and PS3 over RGB SCART.

[Lyris]

Most broadcast CRTs had an option to reveal the blanking area of the image, it's not that, is it?

[Decider-VT]

I'm not sure. I can't seem to access any of the calibration functions via the controls on the fascia or the remote. I believe that there may be a service menu but I don't know how to access it. No mention of any advanced functions is present in the standard user manual so I assume that they're detailed in the service manual.

The fault only seems to develop over time, though- I'd assume that a selected option would display the result immediately after powering on, so I'm not sure if that's it.

[Lyris]

Give Sony Professional a call, for the Pro products you should be able to get a straight answer.

[Decider-VT]

I'll try them on Tuesday but as a third-hand owner I'm not sure if they'll be willing to assist. I've paid for the service manual though- just waiting for a download link to be e-mailed over to me.

[Oldgamingfart]

Also it's worth mentioning that if you do carry out any adjustments, you need to let the set warm up for around half an hour before doing so.
The component tolerances will change slightly and eventually settle down in that time (especially important when adjusting geometry).

[Decider-VT]

Thanks. Just got back from work to find a download link for the service manual PDF- 83 pages to read through, wish me luck.