Faulty Gp2x Or Tv-out Cable?

[macgyver61]

I know there have been dozens of threads about TV Out problems, but I wasn't able to find one which matched my own situation very closely, so hopefully someone can help a little with this -

In short, when I connect my GP2X to the TV I get perfect sound, but no watchable picture - it's a mess of grey distorted lines. If I look very closely I can just about see enough to recognize that I'm looking at the GP2X menu screen, and the grey mess does react to button presses, so I know it's definitely my GP2X signal, it's just that it's very badly distorted.

What I've tried already -
1. Squeezing, twisting, bending, jiggling, pushing and pulling the cable and its connectors in all manner of bizarre and not-so-bizarre ways.
2. Multiple different TVs all equipped with S-video inputs.
3. Connecting to standard SCART connectors.
4. Both PAL and NTSC sets (and both PAL and NTSC selections on the TV Out menu)
5. 3 different S-video cables.
6. S-video to composite converters.

And just to note, it's an early-days MK1 GP2X (latest firmware) with a not-so-early-days cable which hopefully didn't come from the very-dodgy first batch.

I think that's enough to narrow it down to the GP2X or cable, but does anyone have any suggestion as to which it's likely to be? Anyone seen this caused by a faulty cable? £10 isn't a fortune to try another cable, but I'd rather not waste any more money if it's a hardware problem.

Or, being rather optimistic, has anyone else experienced and solved this problem?

Thanks for any help anyone can give, as well as any quality jokes anyone can make relating to the 'squeezing, twisting and jiggling' line above...

 

[Blah]

It is most likely the cable. The first few batches were especially crappy. They've changed to another manufacturer so its pretty much sorted now.

 

[macgyver61]

Thanks for the reply - I'll order up another one and hope for the best.

 

[rokdcasbah]

i have a mk1 and a very new tv-out cable and i can confirm that the display works, the fit is good, needs no jiggling nor does it get loose, etc. only time i get noise is when the batteries are dying. and they will die, since you're going to have to clock a lot higher to use the tv-out

 

[macgyver61]

I got a new TV-Out cable from gp2x.co.uk (I was surprised there was no GP2X logo on it - I thought I read that all the newer ones had the logo, not that it really matters) but unfortunately the problem remains the same, so I assume I've had a dodgy GP2X all along and just not realised. Looks like if I want Atari ST games on my TV I'll need to go hunting in the attic for the genuine article. Thanks for the responses.

 

[rokdcasbah]

before you give up all hope, try this fix:
http://archive.gp2x.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi?0,0,0,0,23,1255

i remember it helping quite a few people. it's worth trying even if it doesn't seem like a connection issue.

edit: you've got pal/ntsc set properly, right? i don't know what sort of problems that would cause, and i'm guessing you didn't need to be told that, but it was worth a shot...

 

[macgyver61]

I really appreciate the advice (and if anyone has any other suggestions, I'd welcome them) but I've already tried the fix you referred to and, as for NTSC and PAL - I've tried PAL on PAL TVs and NTSC on NTSC TVs, as well as NTSC on PAL and PAL on NTSC...so I don't think it's a standards problem. The worst is that if I memorize the button sequence to play a video, the picture is recognizable (but nowhere near watchable) so the fault probably isn't that huge, but I'm no engineer. Anyway, I've tried to contact gp2x.co.uk to see what any repair options might be. Thanks again for your help.

 

[wiggythebrave]

Have just spotted this, and it sounds exactly like the problem I had......It turned out that my EXT port was faulty.

I sent my 1st edition back to GBAX to test the EXT port, I can only guess it was faulty as they sent be a replacement.

Hope this is of use.

 

[macgyver61]

Yes, that is useful to know. I contacted GBAX and they said they couldn't help me, so I'll try again. Thanks a lot.

 

[macgyver61]

For all the millions who've been holding their breath waiting on the resolution to this thread...

It was indeed a faulty GP2X ext port. Although my GP2X was out of guarantee, gbax took into account that the fault had been there since day 1, that I'd simply not reported it as I thought it was a faulty cable and was on the other side of the world, and they replaced it for me. Very decent of them - although, obviously I didn't get one of the high-overclock-guaranteed models, meaning I have now lost the ability to overclock to over 270Mhz and can only make 260Mhz without stability issues. Still, that should be enough for almost everything.

Anyway, the mildly useful information here seems to be - if you buy a TV Out and get perfect sound, but can only see a garbled-greyscale-mess on-screen then there's a reasonable chance it's your console and not the cable or TV that's at fault. Of course, I wish I'd known that before buying 2 TV Out cables, 2 S-video cables and 2 composite coverter/adaptors...but all's well that ends well.