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help.. I'm getting "#?%&/()&%" after a whi

General discussion about LCD Smartie.

Moderators: _X7JAY7X_, caesar, IFR, mattcro, limbo, Fast351

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glepa
Posts: 5
Joined: July 13th, 2005, 12:05 pm

help.. I'm getting "#?%&/()&%" after a whi

Post by glepa »

Hi, im very new to the LCD arena. I have a new HTPC with silverstone LC03 cabinet with build in LCD from silverstone.
I have installed smartie on WinXP sp2, and everything seems fin when im a the pc. But if i leave the pc running for awhile the LCD display is just displaying alot of !"#?%&/()&%?#"#?%?#" and it will only correct itself if i terminate smartie and start it again.

Any ideas what im doing wrong?

:?:
limbo
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Post by limbo »

Please give some information about this:

Which port are you using for connection? (Com / Parallel)
How many screens are enabled?
Does the same characters appear in the virtual display of Smartie?
glepa
Posts: 5
Joined: July 13th, 2005, 12:05 pm

Post by glepa »

Which port are you using for connection? (Com / Parallel)
Parallel
How many screens are enabled? 3
Does the same characters appear in the virtual display of Smartie? No, it shows the screens that are active

btw: tnx for the fast reply, ill be back in a week here. Got to go se a show with the kids here...hmm can't use all of holiday to tweek on the HTPC.. :lol:
_X7JAY7X_
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Post by _X7JAY7X_ »

Could you have something that is trying to use the Parallel port as well?



J
IFR
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Post by IFR »

Yeah I get that too when i leave the same screen on for a while but I can fix it when I refresh the screen
glepa
Posts: 5
Joined: July 13th, 2005, 12:05 pm

nope

Post by glepa »

this pc is a clean install, so im sure there is no other stuff using the port.

IFR: well that seems a bit manual job to me.. would be great to have the screens running with no problems..
limbo
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Post by limbo »

I can't say what is going wrong with :smt102
can you send me your config.ini for inspection?
I need to try it with my LCD , just in case that is something wrong there!
limbo
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Post by limbo »

I have checked your "config.ini" nothing suspicious there.

I also have replaced my config.ini with yours and my display is running up to three hours long (till now) without any failure.

I suspect that something going wrong with the hardware...
please:
:arrow: check your wires
:arrow: use a different 5v power source
:arrow: try to use the LCD Smartie without any pluging loaded (I can't believe that a plugin can mess all the screens but just check it)
may give you a clue!

Waiting for results :wink:
and still running your config file (I 'll leave it overnight this way)
limbo
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Post by limbo »

After 12 or more hours running with your config.ini (and without failure) i'm going back to my configuration.
glepa
Posts: 5
Joined: July 13th, 2005, 12:05 pm

yep

Post by glepa »

Hi there, thanks for testing.
I have tested some more here and the problems goes away if i restart smartie.

I have fund some reference to problems like i have when the parallel port is set to ECP (http://forums.snapstream.com/vb/archive ... 22043.html and i have now set it to Normal and i will test som more before getting back to you.
The display in the Silverstone was giving me fits initially. Apparently, especially if you search the forums, others have seen the problems too. My display would start out running fine, but at random times hours or days later, turn to garbage. Stopping and restarting LCDSmartie would recover it for awhile. It's a problem with a few displays I guess.

The mitigation seems to be to set the Parallel port to NORMAL in the BIOS, NOT ECP or EPP. Since doing so, I haven't had a corrupted display.
in the same URL i did find a new plugin to smartie so that i can se what my beyond TV is up to.. i love this software even more..:-)[
limbo
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Post by limbo »

Good Luck with it

Waiting for a result :wink:
glepa
Posts: 5
Joined: July 13th, 2005, 12:05 pm

yep

Post by glepa »

That did it... changing the parallel port setting in BIOS from ECP to normal made the LCD running 24 Hour without any errors, and still running... :shock:

Thanks for input in the process of finding the "bug"
:D
IFR
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Post by IFR »

good to hear that is working now
I might try to the same although the problem is not bothering me
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