VGA Display Problems
2 messages in this thread
I'm having a strange problem I can only hope someone here has encountered
before. I have an A2000 w/A2386SX-25 BB, a VGA Card (Cirrus Logic)
connected to a CBM 1942 monitor, and IDE card w/200M Maxtor Drive. I'm
having a problem with a inconsistent display from the BB that requires
frequent reboots before obtaining a usable VGA display. It seems to be
related to starting the machine cold vs. after a few minutes of use.
When I boot the machine cold in the morning, the BB beeps as if operating
normally, but there is nothing displayed on the VGA side. Using PCReset
6-8 times seems to randomly bring up the machine in different video modes,
sometimes with text garbage, sometimes a distorted bright green or other
color (all of which stay frozen on the screen and prevent display of
useful output).
This morning the BB bootup text displayed fine after probably 7
Ctrl-Alt-Delete boots but when Windows began to run the display was
garbage. Rebooting once more produced a usable Windows display, finally.
A couple of times the VGA is *almost* completely correct, except it's
moved about 1/4 – 1/2 inch to the left (off the edge of the screen).
PCPrefs is set to enable monochrome emulation for now (for keyboard
emulation). The setup *does* work (without any configuration changes)
often after several minutes.
Does this sound like a flaky VGA Card or bad BB setup? Is there any way
to tell for sure or research this further? Can anyone help?
*** jd
John:
I used to have that problem too. It hasn't come back since I replaced the 286
BB with the 386SX one. One of the things I found out was that many VGA cards
look to see if a monitor is connected at startup. If it doesn't see a monitor,
it assumes that it can take the day off. So be sure that the monitor is on
prior to starting the computer.
It didn't help all the time, but it seemed to boot up wrong less frequently.
Paul