Garbled display after a few days. Windows 7

[m4hill]

Hi, i'm having a problem with my display. HD44780 4x40

Lcd smartie works fine for a few days, then the display starts to deteriorate and won't work properly until i turn the power off to the computer and unplug the power socket for a few seconds before switching the whole thing back on.

After this, it will work flawlessly for a few days and then i have to repeat the procedure.

I'm guessing its something to do with either my power connections or lcd smartie is not sending the correct reset commands after the computer wakes from sleep mode. Or my display is defective?

It is a HD44780 4x40 lcd display with a parallel connection. The printer port is set to the basic options in the bios, and windows has detected the port as a standard printer port.

LCD smartie v5.4
Windows 7 64 bit using the vista x64 method and fixed driver
4gb ram
intel dual core 3600
gigabyte e7aum-ds2h mb

Thanks in advance,
Martin

[mattcro]

How is the LCD powered? From a spare disk drive connector? If so, make sure you have the ground from the power connector properly connected to the LCD ground. It's best to keep the parallel port cable fairly short - perhaps less than 50cm.

Does simply exiting and restarting Smartie resolve the corruption? Or does it take a complete system restart to get the display working properly?

EDIT: I missed the fact that your problem appears after waking from sleep. I understand there is an issue with Smartie not correctly resetting/reinitialising displays when the PC wakes up. This was fixed for serial displays in version 5.4.1, but I don't know about parallel port displays...

[m4hill]

Lead is only about 18cm long.

Restarting Smartie has no effect. Its a full power off, then unplug power cord from wall for a few seconds job then power back on.

I'll check my ground connections and if it ok, i guess it's no more sleep!

Thanks for your help.
Cheers
Martin