> > I've been trying to get the 21" monitor I've been using
> > on my Indy for three years to work on my new Ultra 2.
> > The monitor is labled as model GDM-20D11. The graphics card
> > in the Ultra is from a Sparc 5 I had, a TGX I believe.
> > When I plug the monitor into the Ultra, the monitor never
> > powers up, just stays dark.
> > and a lot of other resolutions/frequencies, no luck.
> > It just never powers up. I do see more pins in the
> > cable that comes from the Sun monitor.
> I have not tried a monitor swap, so the following is pure guesswork:
> are you using the 13W3 cable whiuch was on the indy, to connect the
> monitor to the Sparc? The Sun 13W3 pinouts are different to SGI 13W3 --
> the sync and monitor ID connections are on different pins. Perhaps the
> monitor simply isn't getting a sync signal to wake it up.
I've used an SGI monitor (RGB) on a Sun with no problems at all
(except finding the 13W3<->RGB cable). The issue is that the
Sun speaks at a fixed Sync rate (also making the Sun Monitors
mostly useless for anything else, like a PC). Try breaking
out to 4 cable RGBi and back.
For future expandabilty, I'd recommend multi-sync rather than
vendor's mono-sync monitors. But it's a pain to get headless
machines from vendors - Alpha's WITH heads were cheaper than
without (exactly the same config otherwise) we ended up giving
away 20 Alpha monitors to clear the halls). SGI's refusal to
sell Indys and Indigos without monitors and graphics cards
cost them a number of sales, where clients needed simple
servers in racks; it also introduced Suns into otherwise
SGI-only networks. Nice strategy, Guys.
chuck
by