VLSystem L.I.S Blue Platinum LCD Review
Date : Friday, 07 February 2003
By : Stygian
Provided By : VLSystem

Introduction

LCD's are nothing new to computing. For a while, they have been used on servers, their two or four line display outputting critical information such as CPU utilization, HDD space usage, memory usage and the like. The ability to monitor such fundamental statistics about a computer without having to resort to using a monitor has been a very useful feature. In the past few years, we've seen the emergence of consumer-level LCD's for the case modders out there. Their usage is similar to that of their forerunners, but has also expanded to include other things that a case modder would desire. Not only can basic stats be output to the LCD, but also temperatures and other hardware-monitoring stats can be displayed. In fact, with the right software, the LCD can be made to display a wide range of data, limited only by a person's imagination. In addition as being a valuable tool, a LCD can also add to the overall appearance of a modded case. In the recent past, however, LCD's could be somewhat tricky to install. Today, I'll be looking at a display from VLSystem, a Korean company whose product promises to be easy to install while producing quality results.

Specifications

There are three-different versions of the L.I.S LCD being offered, and the only differences between each are the bezel and backlight colours and the power consumption. (Each colour LCD draws a different amount of current at a different voltage) The blue-backlit display comes with a silver-coloured bezel while the red and green backlit ones come with a black bezel. (The shade of black appears to be different for each, but I'm not sure.) The one I received was the blue-backlit, silver-coloured, aptly named the "Blue Platinum". Personally, I like this combo the best - it should fit well with a wide range of aluminum cases, and beige goes quite well with it, as well. And, blue rocks :)

Additional specs available from VLSystem's site.

The display came well-packaged, with close to an inch of foam on the side, protecting the display and controller board from damage during shipping. The unit fit snugly in, so there was no room for its movement within. When you're spending money on such a nice display, you'll want the security in knowing the packaging superb. As you can see, included along with the display and its cables are a user manual and installation CD containing a version of VLSystem's L.I.S LCD driver software. The version of the software on the CD I had was outdated, but the specifications page for the Blue Platinum has a link to an updated version. The same link also contains a more detailed explanation of installation, for those that need it.


Nice packaging.
LCD is packaged well.
Clockwise, starting from top left: Power/Data cables, LCD unit, user manual, install CD.

The first thing you notice after unpacking this display is that it's pretty much all put together. There's little installation required beyond having to plug in two cables. This reduces the time spent during installation and increases the time you'll spend having fun with this thing. The LCD receives data and power from the same cable. One end connects to the controller PCB while the other end has two connectors, one female serial connector and a USB connector. Data is transmitted through the serial port while the unit receives power (5VDC) through the USB connection. A little weird, and this is the first time I've seen such an implementation, but it's ideal as both connections are at the back of the case, and you won't have to fiddle with power connectors from your PSU. The downside to this, of course, is if you have no available USB ports on the back of your case. The entire cable is about 1-m long.


Manual provides basic instructions.
The 4-conductor cable provides both power and data.
Two buttons on the unit.

The LCD module, the controller board and the switches are all attached to a bracket that can be mounted in a 5.25" drive bay. Brass screws hold the acrylic faceplate to the drive bracket, and also hold the LCD module and controller board in place. Upon inspection, I found that the nuts holding the screws in place were somewhat loose - not good thing, I thought. However, it turns out that the LCD PCB and the front of the drive bracket were already slightly bent from the stress from the screws, and in any event, the LCD module was in no danger of falling out completely. This 'problem' perhaps could have been solved by putting a nut on each side of the LCD's PCB. There are only two buttons on the front, one for power and the other for activating the backlight. The buttons fit in nicely with the package, both of them being metal. The labels are on the underside of the acrylic faceplate, and as such, they are protected as well as the LCD display itself.


A 20x2 display.
Buttons fit in nicely.
The LCD can be mounted into a 5.25" drive bay.

The LCD supports a 20 characters x 2 lines display and it is driven by VLSystem's own controller module. Because the display, a Hitachi HD44780-compatible, is a parallel unit, controller must convert the serial data signal from the PC into a parallel one that the LCD is compatible with. Also on the controller board is a small resistor that controls the contrast of the characters on the display; it can be adjusted with a small screwdriver. A small jumperset is used to tell the controller board what the colour of the LCD's backlight is, so the proper voltage can be supplied to the display. The jumper should be set to the correct colour of your display, I.E., it should be set to 'B' for this blue display. The jumper should already be set the correct setting for the LCD colour, but it is always a good idea to check anyways, since an incorrect setting could result in the backlight not functioning, or worse yet, a damaged display. Both the power and backlight switches are also connected to the controller board.


Back of the unit.
The controller board.
Power, backlight switches connected to controller PCB.

The power and backlight switches are simple toggle ones, and they are connected to the controller board on 2-pin leads, so they are easy to remove should you want to use a different means to control, say, the backlight, for instance. As you might be able to see in the below middle pic, the controller board, while being connected to the LCD via a parallel interface, is supported above the LCD module with some foam inserts. Overall, a fairly well-thought out design, physically, for this LCD.


Switches.
A slight bending in the drive bracket and PCB.
Connector for data and power.

Installation

Because of its all-in-one design, there's very little to do with installation, physically. You'll most likely spend the majority of your time with the software. Installation just involves connecting the cable to the 4-pin connector on the LCD unit, then connecting the other end's connectors into the serial and USB ports on the back of your computer. The drive bracket housing the LCD can then be installed in any 5.25" drive bay. As you'll note, the cables will have to be routed out through an open, spare expansion slot. No pass-through slot cover is provided, and it would have been nice if one was, just to keep the cables in line. With that said, installation is quick and painless, and shouldn't take more than a few minutes.


Can be housed in a 5.25" drive bay.
A slight bending in the drive bracket and PCB.
Tray Icon.

You can now boot up your computer, and install the LCD driver software. As mentioned before, you'll probably want to download the latest version from VLSystem's site to make you have a version where any known problems have been fixed. After installation, when the software has been started, its tray icon should show up in the systray. By default, the software places a link to the program in the startup menu, so if you want, you can easily stop it from running at startup. The setup page isn't too complicated; if the LCD doesn't work, make sure the COM port settings are configured correctly (19200bps 8-bit(full) 1-stop bit) as per VLSystem's specs for this unit.


VLSystem's own LCD software.
Setup page; The software supports a range of LCD's. (20x2 was used)
CPU/Memory info.

Each tab in the software corresponds to a different set of info that can be output to the LCD, and also has settings for that feature. For example, the CPU/RAM page will cycle through CPU utilization, Memory usage and Swap file usage in the specified time interval that you want. When you have this page/tab up, this is what will be displayed on the LCD. This feature is useful for situations where you are using a fullscreen program and can't monitor CPU utilization/Mem usage any other way. It's also useful should you have a server that isn't directly connected to a monitor. Winamp support is also included in this software, but to use it you must move or copy the winamp plugin files from the LCD software directory into Winamp's plugin directory, not a hard task if you've played with winamp plugins before. There's a few options with the winamp plugin: You can have the equalizer take up the top line, while the running time and scrolling song title are displayed below, or you can have the equalizer take up the entire LCD. There's also an option where the top line displays an EQ for the left channel, and the bottom shows the EQ for the right channel. All of these options are configured with the winamp plugin, not the LCD software. I found this a little weird. In the left below picture you'll also notice there seem to be two plugins for the LCD software; one, when run, will display the EQ on the screen as shown, while the other will not. I prefer the latter, as I don't like having the EQ on my monitor when it's on the LCD.


Winamp Plugin.
Winamp plugin setup.
MBM5 shared memory support.

MBM support is something that can't be left out of an LCD software program, and VLSystem's hasn't let us down here. Most people that would be interested in this LCD would probably also be interested in monitoring their system temperatures, so the two almost go hand-in-hand. This program supports reading values from the MBM5 shared memory, and can output Temps, Voltages or Fan speeds. Again, the cycle time between displayed values can be set to your liking.


System info.
"User" page.
New mail notification.

The system info page is a useful one, having the ability to output a variety of useful data, including OS version, uptime, drive space and even the application currently in focus on the screen. The "User" page could probably be the most useful feature of this software, however. Its name isn't too descriptive, but what it allows you to do is display information from all the other sections. Up to 8 sets of information can be displayed, and each is a sub-section of one of the feature tabs. For example, one section could be the "Temperatures" section of the MBM5 feature. With this feature, you can select exactly what info you want output from the various features of the software. You again set the cycle time between each set of data. Lastly, you can have the software check for new e-mail and notify you when it arrives.

One thing I did notice with this software was that it sometimes wouldn't save my settings, especially the cycle times on various pages. This was with the latest version as of the writing of this review, 1.3. However, I didn't notice any other problems or did it crash on me while I was using it.

Testing

I couldn't wait to test this thing out, so that explains why some pics are of the unit not installed into a 5.25" drive bay! I also apologize for the poor quality in the pictures; I tried my best to adjust the contrast of the LCD but this is as best as it could get. I think the blue colour of the backlight may have affected the contrast of the display, as the characters didn't stand out as much as I expected them to. Also note that any differences in backlight colour are purely because of my camera, not because of the LCD.


VH Rocks :)
.

The first thing I did was send a few test strings to the LCD to make sure I had set it up correctly... and yes, I had. It's that simple! The Time and Date feature is displayed nicely, but I thought it was unnecessary to include the word "Now" before the terms. The Winamp feature looked particularly nice, and of course it was the first thing I wanted to test out.


Time and Date.
Winamp.
.

Ah, system information, the love of all geeks out there. Well, at least I know I enjoy reading the stuff. I found it nice to watch the memory usage as I got into Morrowind or a game of UT2003. Normally, I wouldn't be able to monitor these stats in realtime because these games operate in fullscreen.


CPU/Memory info.
Go AMD! (heh).
Windows 2000? Is this guy still stuck in that "Millenium Craze"-Phase?.

Other interesting information can be displayed, such as uptime and HDD usage, both of which would be of interest to someone operating a server.


Bet you can't beat that uptime!
Good ol' Maxtor... I wish you hadn't cut your warranty period.
A nice 4GB partition for my OS.

MBM data such as temperatures are always something good to keep an eye on, and you'll be able to do so easier when they're displayed on this LCD. I didn't really find the E-mail check feature too useful, but it has its merits.


MBM is very useful.
Do I have E-mail? The suspense is killing me!
I am connected to the Internet, it says.

Conclusion

I found VLSystem's Blue Platinum LCD to be a very good product, one where looks and functionality were hand-in-hand with one another. The easy setup, and fairly useful software compliment each other, and the LCD will fit nicely into your aluminum Lian-Li case. Heck, I found it even goes quite well with beige cases. The ability to display a wide range of useful information from CPU utilization to MBM5 temperatures is something that no enthusiast or case modder can resist. This LCD is available in two other colours, red and green, so you can take your pic so that the colour of this display will match the colour of any cold cathodes in your case. Some negative aspects were the contrast of the LCD; I didn't find it to be all that great with the backlight in operation, but it's not horrible. Also, the included CD isn't too useful; it's much better to grab the latest version of the software off of VLSystem's site. Additionally, if you don't like VLSystem's software, there are many freeware software programs that support the HD44780 controller; just do a Google search for it, and you'll find many other programs that may be to your liking. The user guide isn't too detailed either, but this is offset by the easy installation, something that shouldn't be very hard for anyone who'd think about purchasing one of these LCD's. Lastly, the LCD can be pricey for some at around ~$150 CDN. However, if you have the money, it is worth it, IMO. If you're looking for one of these in Canada, check out either Bigfoot Computers or Lux Design. It is also available from Xoxide if you are in the US.

Pros

Cons

I want to thank the Wolfman for working with VLSystem to get me one of these units for review. This review simply wouldn't have been possible without the cooperation of both of them. Thanks!

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