Installation

It was just a case of plugging in the parallel plug, then connecting the molex power cable and then the pin plug on the LCD module itself. Incidentally, you have to plug the power cable in the right end of the molex pass-thru cable otherwise it doesn’t receive power which I thought was odd, but not a problem. Plugging in the pin plug was also a problem because you can put it in one of two ways. Only one way works, but plugging it in the wrong way doesn’t harm the display.

Installing the power cable was easier for me as I have huge gapping holes at the back of my case where I removed things I shouldn’t have. For others passing the molex connecter back into their case maybe a problem. Taking out an expansion blanking plate allows the cable to go in. It would have been nice for XSPC to provide a blanking plate that has a hole to allow the cable to go through.

As there is no software supplied with the module, you have to download an interface program from the internet. I choose LCD Smartie because it’s free and well designed. You also have to install port95nt so that LCD Smartie can ‘talk’ to your display. Its available from the Smartie LCD site, do a Google for it.

One little problem with this display is its interfacing port choice. Because it uses a parallel port instead of the smaller more efficient USB plug, its possible compatibility is reduced. Many gamer/enthusiast motherboards (e.g. DFI boards) nowadays are phasing out legacy parallel and serial ports, meaning that this device would be useless to them. The screens possible shelf life is greatly affected by this as a result.

To attach it to the in PC mount, you have to slide it into the hole (which is a tight squeeze) and then fold over the aluminium fingers. You better make sure that you get this right because these fingers will snap off after a few tries. I found that the display wasn’t held in perfectly but it sufficed.