LCDSmartie 5.3 display gets jumbled after short time

[KnIgHtCoM]

Hey everybody, I just bought a SilverStone SST-FP54 vfd display. I'm running version 5.3 of LCDSmartie through the DLPortIO driver. I am having problems with the text showing up on the display getting jumbled after a short period of time. The time varies, but it can be as short as 10 seconds.

I have tried scroll interval timings setting it to 100 and 300. I have also tried setting the timing multiplier to and 5. I am not using any plugins, though I have tried the winamp spectrum analyzer plugin and it works for like 5 seconds and the screen gets scrambled.

If I restart LCDSmartie, the display shows up correctly but get jumbled again after a short time. It is driving me crazy and I don't know how to fix it. I have also tried the CanIO driver that comes with Crystalfontz and have the same results. I have tried both ECP and EPP modes.

Is it the software or is it something wrong with my hardware? I am running on WinXP Pro SP2. Someone please help! It would be much appreciated.

[IFR]

assuming that it works fine for few seconds I wouldnt say its a hardware problem. Probably a configuration or driver problem.

[Stef]

I have the same SilverStone VFD panel and the same problems that you. In my system display works longer - few hours, sometimes 2 days and then ... bum - unreadable. Restart Smartie helps. I use 5.3 version, mayby new beta 5.3.2 helps.

[GLO]

I have a Silverstone LC03v with VFD display and they recommend using LCD Smartie, but yes, it gets stuffed after a few minutes.

What is the fix????

Can someone please post links or the files to use that dont corrupt after a few minutes?

Thanks

[limbo]

Did you tried the latest version of Smartie? 5.3.2 beta1

You can also contact Silverstone for any known hardware bug[/url]

[GLO]

havent notified Silverstone yet, and havent tried the new beta.

Only found out today that LCD Smartie has been revived (hooray!)

Will test shortly, but i must say its been frustrating when every asks about my super cool HTPC, then when they ask about the display, i have to say, its not working, and all the wow factor dissappears.

[Ngare]

I have the exact same problem except with different hardware: http://www.shopeio.com/inventory/detail ... cter%20Lcd
Did anyone come up with a solution of any kind?

[GLO]

i have had some success using the ferro-magnets.

Its works for a few hours but then i loose one line of the display then may some more mumbo jumbo!

[limbo]

It seems like a HW problem then

Can you try to move the lcd away from any interference source?

[GLO]

i have tried a replacement LCD also, with similar results.

my rig is: Asus P4P800 E-Deluxe mobo, P4 3.0c cpu, Zalman CNPS-70000cu cooler, 1024Mb Corsair TwinX3200 ram, Plextor PX712A DVD Burner, Silverstone LC93vfd case.

[ppamment]

This has started happening to me occasionally aswell. The bottom line of the display shuts off completely, and the top line just displays constantly changing junk. Restarting Smartie fixes the problem...

[chill1999]

I am wondering if this is an issue with the speed of the processor - I have the Silverstone display as well connected via the Parallel port. LCD Smartie never gave me trouble when I had it running on a PIII 1GHZ. Now it is on an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ on a new motherboard. Since then my display eventually turns to garbage (usually sooner than later).

Restarting LCDSmartie ALWAYS fixes the problem, at least for a few minutes.

I have tried version 5.4 beta 3 and the same thing occurs.

I have tried running it with a single screen showing only the date and time (no plugins). It seemed to run better but eventually turned to garbage.

I've tried EPP, ECP, and ECP+EPP modes on my motherboard settings. None of these settings seemed to change anything as far as the operation of LCDSmartie.

I've tried changing the timing multiplier in the HD44780.dll Startup Parameters to 5. That didn't seem to do anything.

Now I am testing the following Startup Parameters: LPT1,0,0,0 (I had in there $378,0,1,0 before, and am now trying some different settings).

I am not sure of what the Startup Parameters all mean. I do know that so far my attempts to change m (timing multiplier, the second parameter) seem to not help the problem.
Changing a1 (1x16 addressing) from 1 to 0 is something I just tried.
Changing a2 (KS0073 addressing) from 0 to 1 screws up the display immediately (so I am obviously leaving this set to 0).

I'll post more info on this later. So far I've been running with LPT1,0,0,0 for the last 10 minutes (which lately seems like a record) and so far no garble.

[chill1999]

I have been running LCDSmartie version 5.4 beta 3 for more than 24 hours now and have had no jumbled characters (before I could scarcely go one hour). I am using a Silverstone VFD display.

I made the following change yesterday to HD44780.dll Startup Parameters:

LPT1,0,0,0

I am not sure if changing from $378 to LPT1 did the trick or if changing 1x16 addressing from 1 to 0 did it, but I am leaving these as it seems to have corrected my issues.

Good luck!

[chill1999]

BAD NEWS: After about 30 hours the garbling started. The problem became bad again and I couldn't seem to run for more than an hour without display corruption.

GOOD NEWS:
Groobies has posted what may be a solution. So far so good with me. It seems Speedfan has a conflict of some type. I removed both the DriverLinx PortIO software and Speedfan from my system and am testing but so far it is working.

Link to Groobies' post:
http://forums.lcdsmartie.org/viewtopic.php?t=753