Adj Monitor Refresh Rate

On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 07:53:19 -0600, "Buffalo"
put finger to keyboard and composed:

Strange, I was sure the folks at PowerStrip told me their program couldn't have
effected the EDID in my monitor, and now it seems that their 'paid' version can
reprogram the EDID in the monitor.

See
http://entechtaiwan.net/forums/viewt...abb5 c89f759c

One person writes:

"It would be great if you could give us a primer on the various EDID
formats accepted by the update EDID function? (.dat/.bin/.txt)"

An Entech support person (Rik Wang) responds with:

================================================== ===================
bin = native edid file format

dat = proprietary text representation used by Phoenix and VSC; these
use the same file extension but they are completely incompatible with
each other

txt = simply textual respresentation of the bin file

PowerStrip prefers bin files, but should be able to handle all of
these.
================================================== ===================

Assuming I understand the formats, then here are your .bin and .dat
files:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/EN910E/

If after editing the pstrip.ini file you still cannot update your
monitor's EDID, then try either the .bin or .dat file above.

FYI, I used DOS's debug.com to create your .bin as follows:

debug en910e.dbg

The .dbg file contains a list of debug commands.

EN910bad.bas is a Qbasic program that I wrote to compute the checksum
(2CC2) of your bad EDID block.

Have you tried to extract the corrupted EDID from your monitor using
"Monitor Asset Manager 1.26"?
http://entechtaiwan.net/util/moninfo.shtm

It produces a binary dump of the 128 byte block.

For an example, see ...
http://entechtaiwan.net/forums/viewt...640e 766e80ae

Alternatively, here is a "utility program to read EDID data stream for
PnP Windows® 95/98/Me/2000/XP":
http://www.viewsonic.com/drivers/edid.exe (4.21MB 7/11/2002)

Someone posted this EDID update procedure for ATI cards:
http://www.rage3d.net/board/showthre...752579&page=22

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

Shisen Franc,
is there anything you dont know??
You obviously enjoy the field you dabble in, how else
could it be.
I often wonder if you are an over-weight biker type looking bloke,
or whether you are a 5ft 8in glasses-wearing dweeb type of person.....
either way, you sure know your stuff.(maybe you can post a pic of franc)
(do you have a site?)
I enjoy reading every one of your posts.

"Franc Zabkar" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 10 Jun 2007 09:10:07 -0600, "Buffalo"
put finger to keyboard and composed:

The makers of PowerStrip said that there was no way their software could
have caused the problem and they had no solution or suggestions for a
work-a-round.

Short version:

I believe I have reproduced your EDID corruption problem. In
Powerstrip's pstrip.ini file, I can see two EDID blocks, neither of
which match the EDID block in my registry. Both appear to be corrupt.
I believe that your solution is to rebuild Powerstrip's EDID info
using the data from your registry, and to then update your monitor's
EDID using Powerstrip's Update EDID option.

Long version:

My configuration is Windows 98SE, Powerstrip 3.74, SiS Xabre 400 AGP
card, AOC LM721A 17" LCD monitor.

Here are my registry data:


"EDID"=hex:00,ff,ff,ff,ff,ff,ff,00,05,e3,81,a7,b8, 8a,00,00,16,0e,01,03,68,22
,\


1b,78,2a,a6,9c,a1,5a,4b,98,24,16,4c,57,bf,ef,00,81 ,80,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,\


01,01,01,01,01,01,01,30,2a,00,98,51,00,2a,40,30,70 ,13,00,78,2d,11,00,00,1e,\


00,00,00,ff,00,30,38,30,34,35,4a,41,30,33,35,35,31 ,32,00,00,00,fd,00,37,4b,\


1e,53,0e,00,0a,20,20,20,20,20,20,00,00,00,fc,00,4c ,4d,37,32,30,2f,4c,4d,37,\
32,30,41,0a,00,fa

Here is one of my pstrip.ini EDID blocks:

EDID.Data.03.00=00,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,00,05,E3,81,A 7,B8,8A,00,00
EDID.Data.03.01=FF,FF,FF,00,E3,A7,8A,00,0E,03,22,7 8,A6,A1,4B,24
EDID.Data.03.02=FF,FF,05,A7,00,0E,68,78,9C,4B,16,B F,81,01,01,01
EDID.Data.03.03=FF,00,A7,00,03,78,A1,24,BF,80,01,0 1,01,2A,00,70
EDID.Data.03.04=FF,E3,00,03,2A,4B,57,80,01,01,30,0 0,13,00,00,30
EDID.Data.03.05=FF,A7,0E,78,4B,BF,01,01,01,00,00,1 E,30,41,32,37
EDID.Data.03.06=FF,8A,68,A1,57,01,01,2A,30,00,00,4 1,00,1E,20,FC
EDID.Data.03.07=00,00,78,24,80,01,2A,70,1E,30,35,3 7,20,FC,4C,FA

I notice that the first 16 bytes are identical, but all the others,
apart from the very last one, are different. If you refer to the
EDID/DDC spec, you will notice that the last byte (FA) is a checksum
of the previous 127 bytes. In the first case the checksum is correct,
in the second it is incorrect, which indicates that Powerstrip's data
are corrupt. Furthermore, the second last byte should indicate the
number of additional 128-byte blocks. In the first case there are
none, but in the second case there are 4C, ie 76 decimal. Clearly this
is nonsense.

You can also view the EDID blocks using the Phoenix utility, but you
will need to edit the data so that it looks like this:

EDID BYTES:
0x 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F
------------------------------------------------
00 | 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 05 E3 81 A7 B8 8A 00 00
10 | FF FF FF 00 E3 A7 8A 00 0E 03 22 78 A6 A1 4B 24
20 | FF FF 05 A7 00 0E 68 78 9C 4B 16 BF 81 01 01 01
30 | FF 00 A7 00 03 78 A1 24 BF 80 01 01 01 2A 00 70
40 | FF E3 00 03 2A 4B 57 80 01 01 30 00 13 00 00 30
50 | FF A7 0E 78 4B BF 01 01 01 00 00 1E 30 41 32 37
60 | FF 8A 68 A1 57 01 01 2A 30 00 00 41 00 1E 20 FC
70 | 00 00 78 24 80 01 2A 70 1E 30 35 37 20 FC 4C FA

Save the above as a file with a .dat extension.

Phoenix EDID Designer is happy to view this corrupt EDID (as long as
the data are in uppercase shrug), but it produces some nonsensical
results, eg Mfg Week 255, Mfg Year 2245, Version 255, Number of
extensions 76.

Note that I did not use Powerstrip to modify my display configuration.
I only used it to "read data from registry", "read data from stored
EDID", or "read data directly from monitor". Note also that while
Powerstrip does not recognise its own EDID blocks as corrupt, it does
complain that "EDID data is corrupt" if I make changes to the EDID
parameter at this registry key:


HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\MONITOR\AOCA781\PCI_VEN_10 39&DEV_0330&SUBSYS_0C65101
9&REV_01_000800

References:

VESA E-EDID Implementation Guide

http://www.stellae.fr/wiki/_media/ef...tion_guide_ves
a.pdf?id=electronics%3Aefika_en&cache=cache

Powerstrip
http://entechtaiwan.net/files/pstrip.exe

Phoenix EDID Designer
http://file.softsea.com/System_Utility/Phoenix_1_3.zip

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

Franc Zabkar wrote:
On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 07:26:59 +1000, Franc Zabkar
put finger to keyboard and composed:

If you refer to the EDID/DDC spec, you will notice that the last
byte (FA) is a checksum of the previous 127 bytes.

Sorry, the spec states that the last byte "is programmed such that a
one-byte checksum of the entire 128-byte EDID equals 00h".

- Franc Zabkar

Frank,
Sorry for not responding sooner, but I was busy.
Wow, you are really doing some research. I tried to search in Google, but I
don't have the technical smarts that you have.
It will take me awhile to digest your info and then figure out how to do it,
step by step.
Right now it seems confusing to me, but given some time, it should start to gel.
I will try to do this in the evening as I have to help a friend move today and
tomorrow.
Thanks again.

Franc Zabkar wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 07:53:19 -0600, "Buffalo"
put finger to keyboard and composed:

Strange, I was sure the folks at PowerStrip told me their program
couldn't have effected the EDID in my monitor, and now it seems that
their 'paid' version can reprogram the EDID in the monitor.

This is the correspondence I had with entechtaiwan.
"
[snip]
To:
Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2007 3:14 PM
Subject: PowerStrip Build 584 problem report


Lost the ablilty to change refresh rate. My monitor is stuck at 60Hz (at any
setting in Win2000 or Win98se), regardless of what I set it to in Display
Properties or PowerStrip3.74.
This all happened when I dl'd and installed PS3.74 and when I choose Cancel
(first time opening when it said something about default and whether I
wanted to keep those values).
The PC ran super slow and it took about 10min to shut itself down and
reboot. It seems like it took away the monitor presets (microprocessor?). I
uninstalled PS3.74 to no avail.
Is there any way to get my monitor settings back? (flash the chip?)etc.

Envision EN-910e 19" CRT monitor
Win2000SE dual boot with Win98SE (for game playing)
Radeon 8500LE ATI driver ver:8.221.0.0
AMD Athlon 2200+
1GB ddr ram

Thanks


PS:I have since uninstalled PS3.74 and reinstalled it, uninstalled both the
monitor drivers and vid adapter drivers and reinstalled both.
This must have done something to the monitor itself, as it has the same
problem in Win98SE.
I did not adjust any rates before this problem happened.
PS#2: I notice that while the PC is booting up in DOS, the V-freq is 70Hz.
When it goes into Win98se or 2000Pro, it is 60Hz.PS#3: Can your PS3.74 erase
the memory, or whatever, from the monitor?"

Their reply.

"1. When you chose Cancel, you told PowerStrip to simply do nothing - to not
support your graphics card. Its a graphics card, not a monitor utility, and
it does nothing to your monitor.

2. Your monitor - working properly or not - would have no effect on the
speed of your computer.

3. Is there any way to get my monitor settings back? (flash the chip?)etc.
No.

4. PS#2: I notice that while the PC is booting up in DOS, the V-freq is
70Hz. When it goes into Win98se or 2000Pro, it is 60Hz.
That is not unusual. Texty modes are 70Hz. Windows defaults to 60Hz.

5. PS#3: Can your PS3.74 erase the memory, or whatever, from the monitor?
No."

[snip]

Do you agree with their reply?
Either way, is there any way I can reset my EDID without paying almost $30
for the paid version of PowerStrip?
I mean with'in my tech ability.
Thanks again.

Buffalo wrote:
Franc Zabkar wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 07:53:19 -0600, "Buffalo"
put finger to keyboard and composed:

Strange, I was sure the folks at PowerStrip told me their program
couldn't have effected the EDID in my monitor, and now it seems that
their 'paid' version can reprogram the EDID in the monitor.

This is the correspondence I had with entechtaiwan.
"
[snip]
To:
Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2007 3:14 PM
Subject: PowerStrip Build 584 problem report


Lost the ablilty to change refresh rate. My monitor is stuck at 60Hz
(at any setting in Win2000 or Win98se), regardless of what I set it
to in Display Properties or PowerStrip3.74.
This all happened when I dl'd and installed PS3.74 and when I choose
Cancel (first time opening when it said something about default and
whether I wanted to keep those values).
The PC ran super slow and it took about 10min to shut itself down and
reboot. It seems like it took away the monitor presets
(microprocessor?). I uninstalled PS3.74 to no avail.
Is there any way to get my monitor settings back? (flash the
chip?)etc.

Envision EN-910e 19" CRT monitor
Win2000SE dual boot with Win98SE (for game playing)
Radeon 8500LE ATI driver ver:8.221.0.0
AMD Athlon 2200+
1GB ddr ram

Thanks


PS:I have since uninstalled PS3.74 and reinstalled it, uninstalled
both the monitor drivers and vid adapter drivers and reinstalled both.
This must have done something to the monitor itself, as it has the
same problem in Win98SE.
I did not adjust any rates before this problem happened.
PS#2: I notice that while the PC is booting up in DOS, the V-freq is
70Hz. When it goes into Win98se or 2000Pro, it is 60Hz.PS#3: Can your
PS3.74 erase the memory, or whatever, from the monitor?"

Their reply.

"1. When you chose Cancel, you told PowerStrip to simply do nothing -
to not support your graphics card. Its a graphics card, not a monitor
utility, and it does nothing to your monitor.

2. Your monitor - working properly or not - would have no effect on
the speed of your computer.

3. Is there any way to get my monitor settings back? (flash the
chip?)etc. No.

4. PS#2: I notice that while the PC is booting up in DOS, the V-freq
is 70Hz. When it goes into Win98se or 2000Pro, it is 60Hz.
That is not unusual. Texty modes are 70Hz. Windows defaults to 60Hz.

5. PS#3: Can your PS3.74 erase the memory, or whatever, from the
monitor? No."

[snip]

Do you agree with their reply?
Either way, is there any way I can reset my EDID without paying
almost $30 for the paid version of PowerStrip?
I mean with'in my tech ability.
Thanks again.


Just tried installing PowerStrip3.74 again (using Win2000Pro, same as
originally) again using TotalUninstall (actually I used this the first time
when I developed the problem) and once again it froze up (actually slowed it
up so much that it took over 1/2 hour to shut it down). Very similar to the
first experience , except this time my EDID was already corrupted.
I feel it is perhaps a problem between TotalUninstall and PowerStrip.

I will email Entechtaiwan and give them this info as they should be made
aware of a possible conflict that may cause their program to 'corrupt' a
monitor's EDID, even their 'free' trial version.
This has caused me many hours of researching etc and I wouldn't want others
to suffer the same..

Buffalo wrote:


Just tried installing PowerStrip3.74 again (using Win2000Pro, same as
originally) again using TotalUninstall (actually I used this the first time
when I developed the problem) and once again it froze up (actually slowed it
up so much that it took over 1/2 hour to shut it down). Very similar to the
first experience , except this time my EDID was already corrupted.
I feel it is perhaps a problem between TotalUninstall and PowerStrip.

Never the two need meet.

1) In 'Total Uninstall' do the pre-install scan the check the 2nd of the
three radio-buttons 'Install several applications (Exit)', then click the
exit but at the bottom and total install will not be running at all so
cannot cause any conflict.

2) Install ProgramX (e.g. 'PowerStrip')

3) After install is finished relaunch 'Total Uninstall' and you will be able
to do the post-install comparison scan. If the installer reboots the
machine, 'Total Uninstall' will be relaunched automatically.

I will email Entechtaiwan and give them this info as they should be made
aware of a possible conflict that may cause their program to 'corrupt' a
monitor's EDID, even their 'free' trial version.
This has caused me many hours of researching etc and I wouldn't want others
to suffer the same..

So, there is really no need to e-mail Entechtaiwan about this.


--
Nah-ah. I'm staying out of this. ... Now, here's my opinion.

Please followup in the newsgroup.
E-mail address is invalid due to spam-control.

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 07:26:59 +1000, Franc Zabkar
put finger to keyboard and composed:

I believe I have reproduced your EDID corruption problem. In
Powerstrip's pstrip.ini file, I can see two EDID blocks, neither of
which match the EDID block in my registry. Both appear to be corrupt.

After further examination, I'm wondering whether I've introduced a red
herring.

This is the EDID block as extracted from my registry:

00 FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 05 E3 81 A7 B8 8A 00 00
16 0E 01 03 68 22 1B 78 2A A6 9C A1 5A 4B 98 24
16 4C 57 BF EF 00 81 80 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01
01 01 01 01 01 01 30 2A 00 98 51 00 2A 40 30 70
13 00 78 2D 11 00 00 1E 00 00 00 FF 00 30 38 30
34 35 4A 41 30 33 35 35 31 32 00 00 00 FD 00 37
4B 1E 53 0E 00 0A 20 20 20 20 20 20 00 00 00 FC
00 4C 4D 37 32 30 2F 4C 4D 37 32 30 41 0A 00 FA

This is the same block as extracted from pstrip.ini:

00 FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 05 E3 81 A7 B8 8A 00 00
FF FF FF 00 E3 A7 8A 00 0E 03 22 78 A6 A1 4B 24
FF FF 05 A7 00 0E 68 78 9C 4B 16 BF 81 01 01 01
FF 00 A7 00 03 78 A1 24 BF 80 01 01 01 2A 00 70
FF E3 00 03 2A 4B 57 80 01 01 30 00 13 00 00 30
FF A7 0E 78 4B BF 01 01 01 00 00 1E 30 41 32 37
FF 8A 68 A1 57 01 01 2A 30 00 00 41 00 1E 20 FC
00 00 78 24 80 01 2A 70 1E 30 35 37 20 FC 4C FA

I notice the following pattern in the PS EDID:

Line 1: byte #1 from registry, byte 2, 3, ... 16
Line 2: byte 2, 4, 6, ... 32
Line 3: every 3rd byte
...
Line 8: every 8th byte

Is this how Entech cripples its unregistered version of Powerstrip???
Or is there some logical reason for this pattern?

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 18:51:28 -0600, "Buffalo"
put finger to keyboard and composed:

This is the correspondence I had with entechtaiwan.

snip

"1. When you chose Cancel, you told PowerStrip to simply do nothing - to not
support your graphics card. Its a graphics card, not a monitor utility, and
it does nothing to your monitor.

I can't see how PS could have corrupted your monitor if you did not
ask it to Update EDID. As for PS not being a monitor utility, I'd
direct the Entech support person to Entech's own forums.

Using PowerStrip to write an EDID file onto a blank monitor:
http://forums.entechtaiwan.net/viewt...ht=update+edid

Update EDID on HDTV:
http://forums.entechtaiwan.net/viewt...ht=update+edid

Displays that support updating the EDID w/ PowerStrip:
http://forums.entechtaiwan.net/viewt...ht=update+edid

2. Your monitor - working properly or not - would have no effect on the
speed of your computer.

I have no reason to doubt this. I would think that the monitor is
enumerated at bootup and that's all.

3. Is there any way to get my monitor settings back? (flash the chip?)etc.
No.

The registered version of PS is supposed to support the Update EDID
option. See the included release notes.

4. PS#2: I notice that while the PC is booting up in DOS, the V-freq is
70Hz. When it goes into Win98se or 2000Pro, it is 60Hz.
That is not unusual. Texty modes are 70Hz.

In DOS mode, my graphics card reverts to 720x400 @ 70Hz.

Windows defaults to 60Hz.

5. PS#3: Can your PS3.74 erase the memory, or whatever, from the monitor?
No."

That would mean writing a block of zeroes. The checksum for such a
block would be valid (ie zero), so if Powerstrip does nothing more
than verify the checksum before updating the EDID, then I don't see
why not.

[snip]

Do you agree with their reply?
Either way, is there any way I can reset my EDID without paying almost $30
for the paid version of PowerStrip?
I mean with'in my tech ability.
Thanks again.

Now I'm confused. My understanding is that the unregistered version of
PS cannot write to the monitor.

Anyway, I'm wondering whether this utility will fix your problem:
http://www.geocities.com/jgeneedid/EDID_Writer.zip

I have edited your own data in line with the included EDID example
(nec1880.txt):
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/EN910E/EN910E.txt

You can run it from DOS mode as follows:

ddcw -c en910e.txt ---- reads and compares the monitor's EDID
ddcw -f en910e.txt ---- updates the EDID

BTW, I have been unable to get this program to read the EDID from
either of my two monitors on my two machines, both old and new. :-(

I was, however, able to get the following DOS program to read the
EDID:
http://john.fremlin.de/programs/linu...t-edid-dos.zip

The following command will write the EDID to a 128-byte file:

get-edid en910e.bin

You can view this file as follows:

debug en910e.bin
-d 100
-q

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 20:09:56 +0930, "Alec" put finger
to keyboard and composed:

I often wonder if you are an over-weight biker type looking bloke,
or whether you are a 5ft 8in glasses-wearing dweeb type of person.....

I'm a 50 year old, 70kg, 1.77m electrical engineer. I've only started
wearing glasses on the odd occasion. I cut my teeth on minicomputers
in the 80s, and DOS machines in the early 90s. I had a 3rd party
maintenance business offering on-site chip-level repair and support.
Due to the unavailability of proprietary manuals, parts, and
diagnostic software, I learnt how to improvise, reverse engineer, and
hack. Those were the days when a CPU consisted of three 15"x15" boards
and cost US$30K. That's about it.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 18:51:28 -0600, "Buffalo"
put finger to keyboard and composed:

is there any way I can reset my EDID without paying almost $30
for the paid version of PowerStrip?

There is a shareware product called WinI2C/DDC:
http://www.filetransit.com/view.php?id=34317

Unfortunately it requires Win2K or above, and the registered version
costs US$495. ouch

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.