I know this isn't a computer monitor forum, and I've asked questions of this nature before, so I apologize. My computer monitor is a 19" Sony CPD-420GS. I picked it up at the Salvation Army a few months ago for $10. The tube is in good shape, but this monitor has a personality of its own. Like most old Trinitron computer monitors, it takes a few minutes to fully warm up, however this one usually looks like crap for about 30 minutes before everything looks good. However, sometimes I turn it on and the quality is excellent in under a minute. Sometimes, it looks like crap all day. Sometimes, it starts good and then gets crappy.

When it looks good, the white balance is a little more blue-tinted and picture looks very bright, crisp, and clear. When it looks like crap, the white balance is more reddish and it looks OK, but only mediocre at best. That's not the problem I have with it right now, but I'd love to know what you guys think about that.

The main problem I'm having right now is that the monitor lost Horizontal. I was using it earlier today when the screen kinda flinched a few times and then it turned into a very bright, vertical line going down the middle. I said a few choice words, then instantly hit the power button to avoid burn-in. Can you guys tell me what causes a loss of Horizontal, and where to start/what to check? I really want to get this monitor going again. When I turn on the monitor, it degausses and then the power light starts blinking yellow.

I'd also appreciate it if you guys would tell me what you think about how sometimes it looks great, but usually it looks kinda crappy. It's not the tube getting weak, because sometimes it look great right off the bat without taking long at all to warm up. Do you guys think there's bad caps in there? I've noticed the neck board smells like urine and there's a (12-pin I believe) IC right above the socket. The PCB area around the IC looks very burnt and brown. I will post pictures, the exact number of pins on the IC, and the number off the IC tomorrow when I get the chance to crack it open and take a look.

Sorry for posting this in the vintage section, but this is the greatest electronics repair forum I have ever found online. Everyone here is really knowledgeable and kind, I've been searching but haven't been able to find another community as good as this one. I've asked questions about this monitor before on other so-called "electronics" forums but nobody ever replies.

Thanks,
-karmaman

Time for a visit to the thrift store again. Monitor with CRTs are a dime a dozen any more.

Of course, that's what I thought too, except my mom freaked out as soon as I told her I was off to the thrift shop. "You're not bringing any more crap in here, you already have like 5 screens in your room". Aaargh! I'd just go find another Trinitron but that's not an option, my parents want me to save up and get an LCD.... screw that! I don't like LCD's, nothing beats a Trinitron IMO. I don't know why my mom gets so pissed that I have a bunch of electronics laying around. I offered to throw away the old Trinitron and get a new one but she said no.

http://www.eserviceinfo.com appears to have a service manual for your monitor.

Just sneak one home :naughty: ....I do that often enough with other equipment. :para:...parents never know.....:D

Just sneak one home :naughty: ....I do that often enough with other equipment. :para:...parents never know.....:D

I'm tellin'! Yer in BIG trouble now, mister.

Go for the service manual karmaman. Good Luck! :thmbsp:

:para:...parents never know.....:DSpeaking as a Parent, let me just say...

Don't be so sure. :smoke:

Go for the service manual karmaman. Good Luck! :thmbsp:

Speaking as a Parent, let me just say...

Don't be so sure. :smoke:

Mine have no idea....

We kids are GOOD at hiding stuff that will never be noticed! :D

Mine have no idea....

We kids are GOOD at hiding stuff that will never be noticed! :D
Just keep telling yourself that. :D

I caught flack from time to time from my parents for having too much junk here. But, my Mother would always tell people "at least I know where he is when he's got his head stuck in a radio or TV". I remember my Dad telling me once to clean my room and all I did was shove everything under the bed. He went in there and pulled everything back out and gave me a good tongue lashing and the cleaning of my room turned into an all day project.

I don't know about the monitor; but, I've seen a few Sony TV's with crappy pictures that were caused by loose connections on the CRT socket board. It was usually the socket itself.

As far as no horizontal deflection; I'd look at the horizontal output and horizontal yoke return circuit. There's probably a cap or resistor that has given up. Look for any capacitors that are cracked, swollen, or burned looking. These HV caps are usually blue, brown, or yellow in color.

Thanks for the replies everyone, I'm going to spend some quality time with this monitor tomorrow, test every cap I can and all the resistors too. The service manual looks like it will be very, very helpful, but I'm not even going to try and read it until I get to the library tomorrow and print the whole thing (51 Pages!). I feel really old saying this (no offense) but I don't like reading books/manuals/things of that nature on a computer screen..... can't stand it. It needs to be on paper for me to comprehend and understand it fully.

I would save up and get an LCD, but it's going to be at least 4 months before I can come up with the money to buy a decent one, and I want my huge monitor back ASAP. Plus all LCD's are chintzy, plasticy POS's IMO. Flimsy plastic stands and "Made In China" plastered all over the place. I was helping the computer guy at my school unpack some very nice new Dells, since the school is starting to replace all our old computers. I unboxed at least 30 LCD's and they felt so weak, you pushed the plastic on the back and it bent it.... on $200 monitors? That's unacceptable. They were 19" UltraSharps, which run about $230 each. My Trinitron on the other hand was made at the Sony Rancho Bernardo plant, 30 minutes away from where I live. It's a solid, heavy beast. The plastic is thick and heavy, you can treat it as roughly as you want without even remotely caring about damaging it, because you can't. They don't make quality like this anymore.

Any thoughts about why the neck board smells like urine? It's a foul smell that can only be described as urine, but I know for a fact it's not actually urine because it's JUST the neck board and the insides of the monitor were very clean, not even that much dust on the chassis. The only thing I can think of is that IC that has charred the PCB around it. Bad caps maybe? Last time I was in the monitor, about a week ago, I looked around for swelled/leaking caps, but found none. I guess this is going to take more than a visual inspection. Tomorrow I will search for bad resistors and resolder the entire chassis, see if that leads anywhere. The bad thing about this monitor is that I tried testing the caps on it with my multimeter, and they ALL read open. I'm going to have to remove them to get readings off them.... lots of work. I might buy a desoldering iron for this.

My HP 15" cheapo LCD has 16732 hours on it, and it still works fine. Never had a problem with it. had it about 2.5 years.

I have no doubt they will last as long as most CRT's, if not longer, and they are nice. But the old CRTs feel so much better built....

I have to agree with you. All of mine died, and I needed the desk space, that's why I didn't get a new one.

Try craigslist. I sold a Dell Trinitron 21" for $35 in 15 minutes. The picture was faded a bit but the buyer didn't care. I put that toward a new flat screen monitor. The reason I sold it is because I use my computer as the TV and when I moved the HT subwoofer under the monitor during a rearrange, the magnet caused major screen distortion. LCDs are unnaffected by this so I sprang for a 22" from costo and love it. I believe 17" ones can be had under $200 and a little larger isn't a whole lot more if you shop around. Also they draw 1/3 the electricty of a tube monitor which will eventually show up as a small but real savings on your electric bill.

That’s why I never buy computer monitors at thrift shops; you’re just getting someone else’s problems… Unless it’s something rare, like the monitor for the Commodore 64.

If you do want to replace it with another Trinitron, I have a 17" Sony monitor in great condition. Never mind that I paid $650 for it new, I will sell it for $65. I probably still have its box, packing materials, and manual as well.

I agree. Picking up these new LCD TV's and monitor's may be good for the back; but, at least I know my '76 19" Zenith color TV is built well since it almost breaks my back to move it.

I have about a four year old HP flat screen CRT monitor that still works fine for the most part. The only problem is the picture is bowed in on the sides when you take the computer out of standby. Turning the monitor off and back on solves the problem. I have no idea who made this monitor for HP; but, I'll continue to use it as long as it works.

That smell you're getting from your CRT board could very well be the result of leaking caps. Just remember to clean off any residue that you may find.

I've been looking around on Craigslist for a few weeks now, someone gave away a 21" Dell Trinitron FD in "great shape, bright clear picture" a week ago. It broke my heart that it was in central San Diego, about an hour away. No way to get there, I could take the bus, but that would be an all-day excursion that I would have to make on a Saturday, risky and difficult, plus if my parents find out I am S C R E W E D. I'll have to keep checking until something turns up within walking distance.

A friend and I rode our bikes 25 miles to pick up some free computer stuff we found free on Craigslist a few months ago. One of the greatest days of my life. It felt so good when we finally got back, plus we rode through some beautiful scenery on the way there. We scored 2 brand new microphones and three headsets, plus some computer books and an UPS. Good stuff.

I carried the 19" home from the thrift shop, 4 city blocks, told my mom I found it by the side of the road. That was before she flipped and told me no more electronics. I'd be willing to carry a Trinitron from the other side of town if that's what it takes. For now though, I'm going to try and fix this one, and hit up the thrift shops every other day. I don't think she'll make me throw it away if I show up with it.

Just sneak one home :naughty: ....I do that often enough with other equipment. :para:...parents never know.....:D

David just carries it in on his shoulder and no one notices.

David just carries it in on his shoulder and no one notices.

:para: :D

Alright guys, I took a good look at the monitor today. I focused only on the neck board, I will check the chassis tomorrow if necessary. The smell of urine was coming from a 10uf 200V Rubycon cap, on the multimeter it tested 9.6uf, so it's borderline. Most caps seem to test a few uf higher than they are supposed to on my multimeter, this one didn't. It was not leaking or bulged. Maybe this is the cap that was causing the crappy image quality? I also found a resistor on the neck board that measure 10M, according to the service manual it should be 22M. Is it possible that this resistor is what caused the problem? I haven't found any other bad resistors on the neck board, so hopefully I can just change the bad one and swap the cap and I will get a decent picture. The neck board was pretty complicated, I hope I don't have to mess with anything on the rest of the chassis.

Eh... I would at least test parts on the chassis.

You said the image collapsed to a line. That means something in the horizontal or vertical sections went.

I know on a 21 inch viewsonic I found, the horizontal had collapsed and upon opening it I immediately spotted a fried transistor on the main board.

I'll test parts on the chassis tomorrow if changing that resistor on the neck board doesn't help, which I have a feeling it won't. I'd rather not mess with the chassis since it looks like it will be a pain the posterior to get the actual pcb out of the metal cage it's in, but every second I have to stare at my backup 17" makes me want to fix that Trinitron more and more. It seems so round (since the Trinitron is vertically flat) and so small.

Also it collapsed into a Vertical line, so no Horizontal deflection.

Changing the resistor on the neck board had no effect, and Rat Shack didn't have any 10uf 200v capacitors, heading to Fry's tomorrow. What's funny is that the resistor read 150 (incorrect) yesterday, but 220 today (correct). I changed it anyway.

I tackled the chassis today. I found a .2 ohm resistor that reads anywhere from .4 to .7, it fluctuates wildly, and another 2.5M resistor that read .4. I will try swapping these out tomorrow once I buy replacements from Fry's, but I'm losing hope on this monitor. I really doubt those two are the problem, as they were some of the first I tested and they were bad. By the way, I test all of these after removing them from the board, 9/10 times I get funky readings if I don't remove them from the board first.

I think your horizontal transistor went. If it's anything like the viewsonic I had, it'll be a smallish three pin transistor mounted to a biggish heatsink, and the board around the pins will have darkened significantly.

If you can find no burned spots, your monitor might be savable. Don't give up on it so quickly. Since you obviously like it so much, you'll regret pitching it, epecally if you learn later how you could have fixed it.

I can't believe I hadn't Googled "sony 420gs". I Google everything and anything, I like to have all my questions answered and the internet does just that. Anyway, found two bits of interesting information. First off, the chassis (D98 according to the service manual) is the same as that in the Dell Trinitron P990. The Dell P990 looks exactly the same, except for the second VGA input on the front. Secondly, I found a forum posting where someone was asking about how much a flyback for one of these puppies cost. However, he also mentioned Q901 and Q902 were replaced in a previous repair. I don't have access to either the monitor or the repair manual right now, but according to google Q901 is a IRFI9634G and Q902 is a FS7KM-18A. They are both 3-pin power regulators. I will try swapping these out. Are they cheap/available at Radio Shack or maybe Fry's (Fry's, for those who don't know, is a huge electronics store, they have 2 rows of electronic components)?

I have a 17" Trinitron monitor that had bad solder joints, it took a few tries to fix it but I finally did.
That was a few years ago when a CRT monitor was still worth something, I had also bought it new so I didn't want to toss it, now I'd probably just pick up a used one somewhere.

Monitors, especially better monitors with all their boards and shields are a huge pain in the butt to work on!

I just replaced my 21" Sony with an HP LCD 16:9 monitor I got for Christmas (a couple weeks early :yes:) I don't regret it at all as I reclaimed a bunch of desk space and it only weighs maybe 5 lbs compared to the Sony's 68 lbs!

You'd be welcome to the 21" Sony if there was a way to get it to you, it's cosmetically challenged but works well.

Thanks for the offer Eric, I'll consider it if I can't get my Trinitron going. I guess this is a great monitor because it is a pain to work on. I had to desolder 3 metal cages just to be able to work on the neck board, and there are 5 large heatsinks in there, along with a few small ones for random components. The monitor weighs somewhere around 50-60 pounds. Built like a tank.

So do you guys think any electronics store will carry Q901 and Q902?

If they don't carry it, order it online. Fry's is your best bet as Radio shack carries mostly phones, and a few electronic components...

I will check if Fry's has it tomorrow. I just got home, and according to the schematic, Q901 is responsible for HV REG OUT and Q902 is responsible for HV OUT. Would that be directly related to deflection? They are both on a heatsink next to the flyback.

HV would probably be High Voltage, since you have a line across the screen you have high voltage and the horizontal is working. a flat line scross the screen means your vertical isn't working, could be a bad cap, transistor, IC or solder joint.

Horizontal is not working, I get a vertical line going down the screen. Or at least, I did for a few seconds before I shut off the monitor. Now, it degausses and then the power light starts blinking.

EDIT: BTW, Q901 and Q902 don't look burned or damaged in any way.

Bad news.... found some bad caps and swapped them, also did a lot of cleaning to the neck board, there was a load of brown crap all over the place (dried flux I believe). Now, when I try to power on the monitor, I get no degauss, no HV, and no heater voltage. The power light turns green and starts blinking. I'm positive I got all the wires hooked up right.

Help? I knocked a SMT resistor off the board by accident, the value was 0.01MF, 50V. Surface Mount pisses me off, that thing was smaller than a crumb. I was unable to get it back on, then I lost it, so I bridged the two connections with solder. Could that be it? This was on the neck board.

Bad news.... found some bad caps and swapped them, also did a lot of cleaning to the neck board, there was a load of brown crap all over the place (dried flux I believe). Now, when I try to power on the monitor, I get no degauss, no HV, and no heater voltage. The power light turns green and starts blinking. I'm positive I got all the wires hooked up right.

Help? I knocked a SMT resistor off the board by accident, the value was 0.01MF, 50V. Surface Mount pisses me off, that thing was smaller than a crumb. I was unable to get it back on, then I lost it, so I bridged the two connections with solder. Could that be it? This was on the neck board.

That surface mount part is actually a capacitor rated at .01 uF @50 volts. You can replace it with a standard .01 uf cap rated with a voltage rating of at least 50 volts. When you bridged the connection, that created a short that could very well be causing your new problem. Maybe you'll get lucky and it didn't take anything else with it.

You're not the only one that gets PO'd at SMT devices. A great deal of consumer electronics is 95% (or more) SMT. The only economical way for repair is a new board. I recently repaired a newer JVC TV that had two open SMD resistors on the neck board. These resistors were, IMHO, too small for their task. I just took two through hole standard resistors and tacked them to the PC board and it worked fine. IMHO, SMT technology has no place in high voltage, high current, or high temperature applications.

aargh!

The capacitor was indeed making the monitor act funky. I replaced it with a normal through-board one and the monitor now degausses and I get HV. BUT that was not the problem. It's now doing the same thing it was before: degausses, then the power light starts blinking yellow (because horizontal collapsed). I feel like crying (metaphorically, not literally). I replaced 6 caps in there, 3 were borderline and 3 were way off the correct readings. One was bad on the neck board, two were bad on the chassis, two more on the chassis were borderline, and one on the neck board was borderline. These are all quality caps too, there were mostly Rubycons and Nichicons in there. Nothing looks burnt or damaged in there, trust me I looked. I've become quite familiar with this monitor (literally spent all weekend working on it). I still haven't checked ALL the caps in there, probably half maybe. All HV caps (there were only 3 brown caps in there) checked out fine. So did the huge filter cap.

Q902 and Q901, both are three pin devices on a heatsink, don't look burnt or damaged in any way. Should I rule these out, or could they be bad anyway?

I will try and test the rest of the caps in there today. Any suggestions? You guys are my only hope. I really don't want to pitch this monitor, I really like it and it's got dual inputs, one VGA in the front. It comes in handy all the time because my friend regularly brings his Xbox 360 over and we play on xbox live. I doubt I'll find another computer monitor with a front input, let alone one that's also a Trinitron.

Like I said before: Don't give up.

Bad caps alone won't cause the horizontal to fail to my knowledge. it's usually a bad cap that makes whatever controls the horizontal fail.

You're also lucky to actually have access to a FREE service manual. Most times you don't get that lucky.

If you're getting frustrated, stop working on the monitor for a day or two.

If you can find replacements, it wouldn't hurt to replace Q901 and Q902. Replacing them won't hurt anything as long as they're replaced with the same part, and at the very least, you can rule them out.

Hey guys, there's a pretty big transistor, Q505, that shares a heatsink with Q901 and Q902. According to my multimeter it is shorted, now I haven't taken it off the PCB to test for sure, but every other transistor gave me correct readings without taking it off the PCB (won't have time to fully test it until tomorrow). According to the schematic, Q505 is responsible for H OUT. I'm very hopeful that this is the problem. Fixing this monitor has engulfed me for the last 5 days, it's all I do with my spare time, and I have finals this week :/ probably not very good to be working on a monitor instead of studying. Anyway, if Q505 IS shorted, and it's responsible for H OUT, it would probably be causing the problems I am having right now, amirite?

EDIT: According to the service manual, Q505 is a 2SC5530-01, a Hitachi part. There is no NTE cross for it. I know for a fact Radio Shack won't have it (they never have anything) and I don't think Fry's has it either. Can you guys recommend a replacement that will work? It is a Bipolar NPN transistor, not sure of voltages or anything. I also have a 15" Trinitron in the attic, any chances it might have the same part and I can pull it off there? Will check tomorrow and let you guys know. I'm feeling hopeful right now! There's no way I can pitch this monitor now, I've put about $14 worth of new capacitors in it!

BTW MRX37, thanks a million for the link to the repair manual. Without that, I would have pitched it by now.

Hey guys, there's a pretty big transistor, Q505, that shares a heatsink with Q901 and Q902. According to my multimeter it is shorted, now I haven't taken it off the PCB to test for sure, but every other transistor gave me correct readings without taking it off the PCB (won't have time to fully test it until tomorrow). According to the schematic, Q505 is responsible for H OUT. I'm very hopeful that this is the problem. Fixing this monitor has engulfed me for the last 5 days, it's all I do with my spare time, and I have finals this week :/ probably not very good to be working on a monitor instead of studying. Anyway, if Q505 IS shorted, and it's responsible for H OUT, it would probably be causing the problems I am having right now, amirite?

EDIT: According to the service manual, Q505 is a 2SC5530-01, a Hitachi part. There is no NTE cross for it. I know for a fact Radio Shack won't have it (they never have anything) and I don't think Fry's has it either. Can you guys recommend a replacement that will work? It is a Bipolar NPN transistor, not sure of voltages or anything. I also have a 15" Trinitron in the attic, any chances it might have the same part and I can pull it off there? Will check tomorrow and let you guys know. I'm feeling hopeful right now! There's no way I can pitch this monitor now, I've put about $14 worth of new capacitors in it!

BTW MRX37, thanks a million for the link to the repair manual. Without that, I would have pitched it by now.

Q505 sounds like it's VERY likely to be your problem. :yes:

Input the part number into google and see if you can order it online.

The 15" trinitron is unlikely to have that specific transistor in it. It might, but don't get your hopes up.

If you can get a replacement, test the resistors and caps around that transistor. It's likely that a bad resistior or cap made the transistor fail, and you wouldn't want to put in a new one just to watch it fail 5 minutes after you power the monitor up.

EDIT: you're welcome, and I'm glad I could help.

Being the owner of a 19 inch Viewsonic flat screen CRT monitor that had intermittant HV failure when I first found it, I know fixing a monitor is not fun, but it's damn rewarding when you fix it.

EDIT 2: I think this is your part. (http://www.bluestar-online.com/2SC5530_p/2sc5530-01.htm?gclid=CMrT9rfAs5ACFQ6NHgodr0oAFQ)

That is indeed the part. Thanks MR37. For some reason, I was unable to find it just by googling. We're leaving on vacation in a few days and won't be back for two weeks, so sadly it'll have to wait until next year. I'm just going to try and get it out of my mind for a while, otherwise for the entire two weeks it'll be eating away at me. I will definitely order the part from bluestar if I don't find one in the 15" Trinitron (which, like you said, seems unlikely, but I will check anyway).

EDIT: I have to order at least two, bringing the total price to $10, and then the shipping is $9 (!). For something that could easily be mailed in an envelope?! There's no way my parents will let me buy this, they'll me to toss the monitor :( Better start searching locally, or call bluestar and see if they can take a money order so my parents won't find out how much I paid.

Yeah. Leave it be for a couple weeks. Also, tell your parents that the monitor means a lot to you, hence why you've put so much time and effort into fixing it. If you're calm and offer to compromise by throwing out something else you can bear to part with, or working off the cost of the parts, they might help you out.

Best of luck to you. Hopefully you'll get it fixed, and it'll serve you well. My flatscreen's served me well, especally since the lighting in my computer room makes a non flat screen reflect light like crazy.

When you replace the transistor, resolder all the connections around the transistor. If there is a small transformer (not the flyback) connected to this transistor, resolder that. That little transformer is the horizontal drive transformer and these were bad to have loose connections and blow the HOT in Sony TV's of the period.

I know what you mean about having to order two parts and pay $9 shipping! Most of the places I order from have at least a $25 minimum order with at least $8 shipping. I usually have to order more than I really need just to get one $4 part! The good thing is that you'll have a spare in case the first one blows or if you need another one later.

Anyway, do well on those exams and have a Merry Christmas and a safe vacation!

The main problem I'm having right now is that the monitor lost Horizontal. I was using it earlier today when the screen kinda flinched a few times and then it turned into a very bright, vertical line going down the middle. I said a few choice words, then instantly hit the power button to avoid burn-in. Can you guys tell me what causes a loss of Horizontal, and where to start/what to check? I really want to get this monitor going again. When I turn on the monitor, it degausses and then the power light starts blinking yellow.

After re-reading everything, I'd be willing to bet the horizontal drive transformer has loose connections that caused the picture to flinch and then collapse to a vertical line and then blow the HOT. Like I said before, this was a very common problem on Sony TV's. Look on the schematic and trace the base pin of the horizontal output transformer back to a coil winding. That will be the secondary winding of the horizontal driver transformer. Resolder it's connections even if they look good.

If that IC on the neckboard is mounted on a heatsink, resolder it. Those get hot and are also bad about having loose connections.

Will do. Thanks Radiotvnut, Merry Christmas to you too! I'm leaving this monitor alone until I come back. Just looking at the chassis gives me a headache.

Someone else on another forum (not nearly as good as this one) said the HOT probably blew because of bad soldering on the Horizontal Drive transformer and/or a shorted FET near the HOT. Radiotvnut, you said bad soldering on the H Drive was typical in Sony TV's of this era. I forgot to mention this is monitor was manufactured December 1999. Don't know if that helps. Anyway, I will check that out when I get back, I'm printing all this and leaving is on my desk so I'll know where I left off when I get back.


Merry Christmas everyone, talk to you next year.

Hey everyone, thought I'd do a followup on this.

After some heated arguments, I ended up giving the Trinitron to a friend who's going to fix it once he gets enough $$$. My dad told me to toss it when he found out it would take $20 to get a part that isn't even guaranteed to solve the problem (someone on another forum told me there might be a shorted FET on there too).

I got a 19" LG Flatron LCD. So far, I've been loving it. The clarity is astounding, the brightness is great, and the colors are pretty good. Sometimes I miss my Trinitron for it's black levels and viewing angles, but overall I much prefer my new LG over the Trinitron. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that LCD's are crisp and sharp beyond my wildest dreams, something I didn't anticipate when I grudgingly accepted that I would have to get an LCD. I swear, most CRT monitors looks kinda blurry to me now. I guess I was just too stubborn on sticking with CRT's for computer monitors. Nothing will ever beat them for TV though.

BTW, if anyone on here has a high rez (>1280x1024) LCD and is running it on VGA, please do yourself a favor and get a DVI cable. My new LG runs at 1440x900 and when running on VGA, things look kinda fuzzy and shadowy and just not that great. With DVI, the clarity is second to none and the colors are more vibrant. The difference was so huge, even my mom noticed it from across the room as she walked in after I got a DVI cable.