I also use an older 720p 32" Samsung LCD (1360 X 768) as a computer monitor in my basement shop (hdmi connection). Although the picture is near perfect, the lower resolution means the icons and such are pretty large and it's hard to use while sitting too close to the screen. I have a wireless keyboard/touchpad combo (Logitech K400) which allows me to use the computer from a distance (~10 feet) but the screen is too small for decent home theater use. I'm waiting for the UHD (4K) TV's to incorporate HDMI 2.0 and / or Display Ports to allow 60hz refresh rates from my computer. I'll have to upgrade the video card at that time also to allow 3840 X 2160 native resolution. Newegg has a few sub $100 cards that fit the bill nicely. There are no hdmi 2.0 graphics cards as yet, so Display Port looks to be the only option. Seiki's first line of UHD (4K) TV's opened a lot of people's eyes to using 4K as a monitor. Their 39" 4K was as low as $299 and the 50" was as low as $395 with PM at Staples. These sets limited the refresh rate to 30hz when using the 4K resolution, but at 1080p you can choose 60 or even 120hz refresh. Their build quality is not top notch and buying an extended warranty is a good choice.
I wonder if I can do this with a plasma, I have a Panasonic plasma at the shop the mainboard died in a lightning strike. they are nearly impossible to find, and when you do, expensive! not worth it. Also the noise probably came from the high data rate to the LVDS connector from the higher refresh rate, because you didnt have all your grounds hooked up as you said it was the incorrect cable. any time you increase the speed of signaling, you get ground bounce and the less grounds they are, the worse it is.
I think plasma does use LVDS, but unfortunately the sustain boards and/or power supply are usually what goes bad. Not sure if the data format is the same on the LVDS either. I was wondering that too though, since I have lots of dead plasmas. I was wondering about the grounds as well. I'm looking forward to getting the right cable.
hi @Maxxarcade ..i have a philips 32inch tv 32pfl5203/98 ...t-con board on this tv died long ago and i sent it for repair and never got it back...so is there any way i could use the lcd screen from this tv?? or is it just a trash like it has been for years without t-con board?? this is the first lcd tv we got but barely worked for a year n then died...would be great if i could make it work again in anyway...thnx
If you fabricated some type of frame and housing, you could actually install a utx board and have a sweet all in one htpc. With maybe a decent long range wireless keyboard and touch pad. This had me thinking now!
I have a 19 inch all the parts I took out it had a cracked scree can I hook up a portable mini monitor? Can you let me know I been looking at it its like a 8"inch portable monitor it has sub hook ups the portable monitor get power from my car the the cig plug .. Can you help me out
My lil monitor has like 2 foil plasticky strips if I take one off one side of pic turns the old tv parts I have from the Emerson I need to find out how to hook up my lil monitor if it can be done I'm new to this
Hi there, very cool project, enjoyed watching ever second of this!. I recently had this idea to take apart an 32 lcd TV my kids broke the screen. so I started looking at the parts and thought maybe I could somehow use the parts and my old desktop computer monitor to make a working tv, the monitor I have is flat screen lcd but the only signal in is VGA , so my question for you is without taking apart the monitor, Is there some kind of lvds converting cable that can output from the controller I salvaged from the TV and input VGA into the monitor screen? or if you had any other ideas this would be of an awesome help, thank you for your time, Dustin
that Compaq is close to the emachine one i have. i hate they only gave 256Mb ram. wish they gave little more. need to find some more ddr non ecc for it so can actually use it sometime. what is that keyboard with mouse touch pad? also is this really any different then using the vga, hdmi/dvi that tv's already have?
The only difference vs. the regular TV VGA, is that it can turn on automatically with the power cord like a standard arcade monitor. No need to mess with the remote, different inputs, etc.
I have a similar Compaq case I keep mentioning to several people. Mine is a S5400NX that came with a pretty nice P4. The original board died thanks to the wonderful Bestec power supply that was in it, and I've taken the idea from your HTPC video where you used that MOCA-AR board and I'm going to use the case, that motherboard and a GeForce 7800 GTX to build a computer out of. I thought that was interesting. :)
They are some darn good cases, I have on exactly like the one Max showed in the video and in my opinion are great cases to use especially if you are on a budget and just don't care about fancy looking cases.
I REALLY need your advice. I have a Sandisk cruzer glide that I had plugged into my laptop. I was careless and dropped my laptop. The laptop and everything is fine, but my usb drive isn't I tore into it and found that the drop had completely severed the usb connector off of the board. There is a whole bunch of important files on it that I can't afford to lose. Please help and reply ASAP. Thanks, annacomputerwiz
Ya, I'm hoping to find a board like this that will work at 15 and 25 Khz some day. There are multi-res LCD's made for arcade use, but they cost a fortune.
It' great to see someone reuse old equipment like you do, also the way you don't Poo Poo anything that is older than 3 years, it makes a nice change from seeing videos of mouth breathers finding assorted ways to destroy old technology. Good work, nice to see something created instead of destroyed.
@james42519 awww it wasn't that bad of a machine! Nice reliable model valuable of all office tasks. Keyboards is looking like the ones you get with Sony Vaio all in one computers.
Hey if you do end up using that Compaq case with some newer hardware I can say its well worth doing so, they have good airflow for a brand name case and I have been using my case with a core 2 quad and a GTX 560 SE with no problems.
So this one doesn't look like it's smart enough to put black bars on the screen to crop the image when displaying in a nonstandard aspect ratio. Still kind of neat though, and it can be a great inexpensive way to breathe life into LCD TVs with dead motherboards.
Do you have a video on how to connect a arcade tube monitor to a pc thru vga? Im doing a mame project and i am wondering if it can just be wired to a vga port. Thanks
supersupra89t Back when I had a MAME cabinet, I used an ArcadeVGA card from Ultimarc. I think they still make them. You might also want the video amplifier or PC-Jamma adapter.
NIce fix! I have a 27" BenQ 1080p monitor my friend recently had an accident with. Approx. 2 months ago there was a lightning strike; he plugged out his computer but forgot the monitor, resulting in the monitor going crazy (not dying, strangely enough) and his graphics card (hooked up to it via HDMI) dying. It is now just flashing the menu system, all the digital inputs are gone (says no input) but the VGA works. However, it is NOT usable as you have the flashing menu + its turning itself off randomly. He already got a new one, and gave it to me. Would this board perhaps work for that panel (I can dig up more indepth information if needed) or is this meant for TV use only? Also, would replacing the power supply in such a display with a normal DC adaptor work, or are there too many different voltages going across inside? (..meaning you would have to grab multiple adapters) By my looks both boards inside it are nothing to save, and eBay only shows one result of someone selling the exact replacement boards, but, shipping to US only.
This board should work fine. You might need to get a new inverter, but those are usually less than $10 too. Also search Ebay for the model number of the panel. Sometimes there are sellers with pre-configured kits using boards like these, complete with inverters and cables.
TCN0101 Yep, there are boards with DVI and HDMI, but the ones with jumpers are a bit harder to find. You can always have the seller make you a kit for your specific screen though.
+Jose Servin It should. Depending on the panel part number you might can get pre-programmed controllers for them that have other features such as DVI and HDMI input as well as audio options. Best bet is to look on eBay for a controller with this phrase: LCD controller (panel model # here). Look at the options to see what fits your price range and what features you want with it. Those type of kits should have everything included and set up to make it plug and play. I got a complete kit for an Acer Aspire One 11.6" netbook 1360x768 display. (Don't remember the LCD part number for the screen and I have it in the original laptop screen casing so I can't just open it up and look.) Mine is a deluxe model featuring stereo audio control, VGA, DVI, and HDMI that supports stereo audio input. I have it hooked to my PC via HDMI as a communications and system monitor screen. Skype and system monitoring tools reside on this screen. Been going strong at 1360x768 60Hz for 4 months now.
This is neat! :) That ARM chip (pronounced the same as the limb) is indeed a SoC (System on Chip) same as goes into phones and many other embedded products.
Very interesting! This kind of project may be extended, for example, using an Arduino, which may control the keyboard, add a remote controller and manage the stand-by mode.
It had a bad main board. And even if it did work, there's too much latency, no auto power on, and other issues that make it impractical for use in an arcade game. Some TV's are decent with their own VGA, but not this particular one.
What type of input signals doe these boards usually take? I'm curious if they can do 15.75khz RGB from older arcade boards in addition to the typical VGA signals.
I think most only go down to 640x480 (31.5 Khz). I've been looking for the same thing, because I hate having to use those picky Gonbes converter boards on everything. Real arcade LCD's are super expensive :-(
Maxxarcade Yeah, that GBS-8220, while affordable is pretty lousy. It still amazes me that companies artificially limit their monitors to VGA signals or above. I have a monitor here that has a separate SCART RGB input, you'd think it would also take 15.75khz video from the VGA input too..... nope.
NJRoadfan Yep, I have some monitors that have composite inputs for security cameras, as well as VGA. I got one to work at 26 Khz, but have never found one that does 15.7. I think the ones that have those extra inputs actually run the signal through a separate encoder IC. Maybe eventually I'll have a look inside one of the tri-sync arcade LCD's to see what chipset they are using.
Maxxarcade The monitors in question are a Samsung Syncmaster 930MP and a 940MW. Both use a Genesis branded controller. I have also since Genesis controllers in many Dell LCDs, some of which can do 15.75khz input (undocumented of course).
NJRoadfan I wish I knew more about programming, cause I'd love to know how much is software limitation vs. hardware limitation. I haven't even been able to find a datasheet for the HX6820-A controller used on these universal boards.
***** At first I experienced that too...until I found out I am running 60Hz on 75Hz monitors which makes everything slightly off coloured and blurry,so yeah.At 75Hz I cannot tell the difference between DVI-D and VGA.
this may be unrelated to the control board in the video but I have this same TV in its stock configuration and vga actually looks better than any other input since overscan that can't be disabled and bad scaling result in a terrible picture.
Ya, me too! I'm doing a couple more of these tonight, as part of my follow-up video. It's not directly computer related, but it's kinda nice since I can't afford to buy much PC hardware to mess with at the moment.
I also use an older 720p 32" Samsung LCD (1360 X 768) as a computer monitor in my basement shop (hdmi connection). Although the picture is near perfect, the lower resolution means the icons and such are pretty large and it's hard to use while sitting too close to the screen. I have a wireless keyboard/touchpad combo (Logitech K400) which allows me to use the computer from a distance (~10 feet) but the screen is too small for decent home theater use. I'm waiting for the UHD (4K) TV's to incorporate HDMI 2.0 and / or Display Ports to allow 60hz refresh rates from my computer. I'll have to upgrade the video card at that time also to allow 3840 X 2160 native resolution. Newegg has a few sub $100 cards that fit the bill nicely. There are no hdmi 2.0 graphics cards as yet, so Display Port looks to be the only option. Seiki's first line of UHD (4K) TV's opened a lot of people's eyes to using 4K as a monitor. Their 39" 4K was as low as $299 and the 50" was as low as $395 with PM at Staples. These sets limited the refresh rate to 30hz when using the 4K resolution, but at 1080p you can choose 60 or even 120hz refresh. Their build quality is not top notch and buying an extended warranty is a good choice.
Hay! you sound like Nicolas Cage.
It is too difficult it is better that we get a new TV
Those controller boards look quite neat. Do you have a link for them?
Found a whole bunch of various ones on ebay and aliexpress. Just look up lvds controller display board or similar. Most between $10-$30.
i have a compact just like that machine but it wont start anymore :( it has a p4 at 2.6 ghtz factory instead of the celeron
I wonder if I can do this with a plasma, I have a Panasonic plasma at the shop the mainboard died in a lightning strike. they are nearly impossible to find, and when you do, expensive! not worth it. Also the noise probably came from the high data rate to the LVDS connector from the higher refresh rate, because you didnt have all your grounds hooked up as you said it was the incorrect cable. any time you increase the speed of signaling, you get ground bounce and the less grounds they are, the worse it is.
I think plasma does use LVDS, but unfortunately the sustain boards and/or power supply are usually what goes bad. Not sure if the data format is the same on the LVDS either. I was wondering that too though, since I have lots of dead plasmas.
I was wondering about the grounds as well. I'm looking forward to getting the right cable.
hi @Maxxarcade ..i have a philips 32inch tv 32pfl5203/98 ...t-con board on this tv died long ago and i sent it for repair and never got it back...so is there any way i could use the lcd screen from this tv?? or is it just a trash like it has been for years without t-con board?? this is the first lcd tv we got but barely worked for a year n then died...would be great if i could make it work again in anyway...thnx
I know generally the quality of those built-in speakers are junk, but why not get a cheap amp and put a 1/8" stereo jack on back for nice simplicity?
If you fabricated some type of frame and housing, you could actually install a utx board and have a sweet all in one htpc. With maybe a decent long range wireless keyboard and touch pad. This had me thinking now!
Holy fuck that compaq desktop... I used to have the same one when I was younger. Was my very own first desktop PC!
I have a 19 inch all the parts I took out it had a cracked scree can I hook up a portable mini monitor? Can you let me know I been looking at it its like a 8"inch portable monitor it has sub hook ups the portable monitor get power from my car the the cig plug .. Can you help me out
My lil monitor has like 2 foil plasticky strips if I take one off one side of pic turns the old tv parts I have from the Emerson I need to find out how to hook up my lil monitor if it can be done I'm new to this
Hi there, very cool project, enjoyed watching ever second of this!. I recently had this idea to take apart an 32 lcd TV my kids broke the screen. so I started looking at the parts and thought maybe I could somehow use the parts and my old desktop computer monitor to make a working tv, the monitor I have is flat screen lcd but the only signal in is VGA , so my question for you is without taking apart the monitor, Is there some kind of lvds converting cable that can output from the controller I salvaged from the TV and input VGA into the monitor screen? or if you had any other ideas this would be of an awesome help, thank you for your time,
Dustin
that Compaq is close to the emachine one i have. i hate they only gave 256Mb ram. wish they gave little more. need to find some more ddr non ecc for it so can actually use it sometime. what is that keyboard with mouse touch pad? also is this really any different then using the vga, hdmi/dvi that tv's already have?
The only difference vs. the regular TV VGA, is that it can turn on automatically with the power cord like a standard arcade monitor. No need to mess with the remote, different inputs, etc.
Where can i find lg pinout info
I have a LG 50UF8300
I have a similar Compaq case I keep mentioning to several people. Mine is a S5400NX that came with a pretty nice P4. The original board died thanks to the wonderful Bestec power supply that was in it, and I've taken the idea from your HTPC video where you used that MOCA-AR board and I'm going to use the case, that motherboard and a GeForce 7800 GTX to build a computer out of. I thought that was interesting. :)
They are some darn good cases, I have on exactly like the one Max showed in the video and in my opinion are great cases to use especially if you are on a budget and just don't care about fancy looking cases.
I REALLY need your advice. I have a Sandisk cruzer glide that I had plugged into my laptop. I was careless and dropped my laptop. The laptop and everything is fine, but my usb drive isn't I tore into it and found that the drop had completely severed the usb connector off of the board. There is a whole bunch of important files on it that I can't afford to lose. Please help and reply ASAP. Thanks, annacomputerwiz
That's definitely not good... Did it damage the board too, or just break the solder connections?
Throw one of these things on the back of your audio system and put some visualizers on it :P
when you said "old tv parts" i thought tube tv...
one once said it dosent meter if its black or white :P
Apparently VGA and DVI is suppose to be phased out in a year or so.
Would like 15 KHz RGB SCART on one of those :D SCART is arcade cabinet's friend!
Ya, I'm hoping to find a board like this that will work at 15 and 25 Khz some day. There are multi-res LCD's made for arcade use, but they cost a fortune.
cAN SOME MAKE A GINATTER OUT OR A IN VITTER DC DC AC POWER SPLAER
Please post link to the driver board.
I'm just curious. Do they make these for DVI interfaces as well? Honestly I;m not even sure how to phrase a search to find the right thing...
Yep, they have ones with DVI and HDMI. I'll be talking more about that in my followup video.
It' great to see someone reuse old equipment like you do, also the way you don't Poo Poo anything that is older than 3 years, it makes a nice change from seeing videos of mouth breathers finding assorted ways to destroy old technology. Good work, nice to see something created instead of destroyed.
@james42519 awww it wasn't that bad of a machine! Nice reliable model valuable of all office tasks. Keyboards is looking like the ones you get with Sony Vaio all in one computers.
Do they make universal LCD controller boards that can work with the TV's original speakers too?
***** Yep.
Maxxarcade
Is there a list somewhere of panels that are compatible with the boards or do you have to ask the seller?
Why dont you put a potentiometer between the brightness pin and 3.3v/gnd? It should work
I could, but there hasn't been a need to adjust it so far.
Hey if you do end up using that Compaq case with some newer hardware I can say its well worth doing so, they have good airflow for a brand name case and I have been using my case with a core 2 quad and a GTX 560 SE with no problems.
So this one doesn't look like it's smart enough to put black bars on the screen to crop the image when displaying in a nonstandard aspect ratio. Still kind of neat though, and it can be a great inexpensive way to breathe life into LCD TVs with dead motherboards.
It has aspect control, but I left it on wide.
Maxxarcade
Oh. I was wondering, after watching a video about a similar product, does this one have DVi/HDMi capability at all or is it just VGA?
***** This one is VGA only, but there are other with DVI and HDMI as well. I haven't seen too many jumper type ones though.
awesome you are my hero!! nice vid too!!
Do you have a video on how to connect a arcade tube monitor to a pc thru vga? Im doing a mame project and i am wondering if it can just be wired to a vga port. Thanks
supersupra89t Back when I had a MAME cabinet, I used an ArcadeVGA card from Ultimarc. I think they still make them. You might also want the video amplifier or PC-Jamma adapter.
Great Video on how to re-purpose a LCD TV.
NIce fix! I have a 27" BenQ 1080p monitor my friend recently had an accident with. Approx. 2 months ago there was a lightning strike; he plugged out his computer but forgot the monitor, resulting in the monitor going crazy (not dying, strangely enough) and his graphics card (hooked up to it via HDMI) dying. It is now just flashing the menu system, all the digital inputs are gone (says no input) but the VGA works. However, it is NOT usable as you have the flashing menu + its turning itself off randomly. He already got a new one, and gave it to me. Would this board perhaps work for that panel (I can dig up more indepth information if needed) or is this meant for TV use only? Also, would replacing the power supply in such a display with a normal DC adaptor work, or are there too many different voltages going across inside? (..meaning you would have to grab multiple adapters) By my looks both boards inside it are nothing to save, and eBay only shows one result of someone selling the exact replacement boards, but, shipping to US only.
This board should work fine. You might need to get a new inverter, but those are usually less than $10 too.
Also search Ebay for the model number of the panel. Sometimes there are sellers with pre-configured kits using boards like these, complete with inverters and cables.
Ah okay, thanks. Though, do you know of any boards with this functionality that also supports DVI?
TCN0101 Yep, there are boards with DVI and HDMI, but the ones with jumpers are a bit harder to find. You can always have the seller make you a kit for your specific screen though.
I see. Thanks for the help !
Sir can this also run laptop monitors I have two of them and want to put them to use in stead of having them collect dust.
+Jose Servin It should. Depending on the panel part number you might can get pre-programmed controllers for them that have other features such as DVI and HDMI input as well as audio options. Best bet is to look on eBay for a controller with this phrase: LCD controller (panel model # here). Look at the options to see what fits your price range and what features you want with it. Those type of kits should have everything included and set up to make it plug and play. I got a complete kit for an Acer Aspire One 11.6" netbook 1360x768 display. (Don't remember the LCD part number for the screen and I have it in the original laptop screen casing so I can't just open it up and look.) Mine is a deluxe model featuring stereo audio control, VGA, DVI, and HDMI that supports stereo audio input. I have it hooked to my PC via HDMI as a communications and system monitor screen. Skype and system monitoring tools reside on this screen. Been going strong at 1360x768 60Hz for 4 months now.
This is neat! :) That ARM chip (pronounced the same as the limb) is indeed a SoC (System on Chip) same as goes into phones and many other embedded products.
Where do you plan on mounting this display?
Why not just run a small vol. pot from the regulator to the brightness pin.
Thought about that, just haven't needed to. I'm hoping to do another video like this soon to cover the information I missed (which was quite a bit).
I finally found the manual and got into the service menu. The backlight adjustment was in there.
Maxxarcade
Great, do a follow up video. Cheers.
Very interesting!
This kind of project may be extended, for example, using an Arduino, which may control the keyboard, add a remote controller and manage the stand-by mode.
Hi maxxarcade your knowledge is priceless,I will like to use your expertise asap,you are really good.
3:10 you can clearly see that the TV already has vga so why take it apart
It had a bad main board. And even if it did work, there's too much latency, no auto power on, and other issues that make it impractical for use in an arcade game. Some TV's are decent with their own VGA, but not this particular one.
That cover looks kinda funny with only one VGA connector :)
At least it has good ventilation now.
Yea, lol
cool stuff!
I'm trying to do something like that I use old parts flat tvs dvd ect.
What type of input signals doe these boards usually take? I'm curious if they can do 15.75khz RGB from older arcade boards in addition to the typical VGA signals.
I think most only go down to 640x480 (31.5 Khz). I've been looking for the same thing, because I hate having to use those picky Gonbes converter boards on everything. Real arcade LCD's are super expensive :-(
Maxxarcade Yeah, that GBS-8220, while affordable is pretty lousy. It still amazes me that companies artificially limit their monitors to VGA signals or above. I have a monitor here that has a separate SCART RGB input, you'd think it would also take 15.75khz video from the VGA input too..... nope.
NJRoadfan Yep, I have some monitors that have composite inputs for security cameras, as well as VGA. I got one to work at 26 Khz, but have never found one that does 15.7. I think the ones that have those extra inputs actually run the signal through a separate encoder IC.
Maybe eventually I'll have a look inside one of the tri-sync arcade LCD's to see what chipset they are using.
Maxxarcade
The monitors in question are a Samsung Syncmaster 930MP and a 940MW. Both use a Genesis branded controller. I have also since Genesis controllers in many Dell LCDs, some of which can do 15.75khz input (undocumented of course).
NJRoadfan I wish I knew more about programming, cause I'd love to know how much is software limitation vs. hardware limitation. I haven't even been able to find a datasheet for the HX6820-A controller used on these universal boards.
From whre do you get all the Specsheets?
Google :-)
at 7:05 the M symbol is Mediatek.
Love this video sir. Im going to try this for the use of a monitor for the videos to watch.
Really awesome project!
Why vga?
Unless one have a really bad VGA cable,it is fine and does not look worse than DVI,HDMI nor Displayport at only 720p.
That what my stuff at work uses.
There are boards with DVI and HDMI, but they cost a bit more, and I don't think they are jumper programmed.
***** At first I experienced that too...until I found out I am running 60Hz on 75Hz monitors which makes everything slightly off coloured and blurry,so yeah.At 75Hz I cannot tell the difference between DVI-D and VGA.
this may be unrelated to the control board in the video but I have this same TV in its stock configuration and vga actually looks better than any other input since overscan that can't be disabled and bad scaling result in a terrible picture.
I think you should of got a control board that had DVI input.
The machine I'm using it for only has VGA.
man, i love projects like this. so cool.
Ya, me too! I'm doing a couple more of these tonight, as part of my follow-up video.
It's not directly computer related, but it's kinda nice since I can't afford to buy much PC hardware to mess with at the moment.
Awesome project!
i love the amplifier series
Watch it early at 240p :P
Great video!