big trouble in monitor city

[John Brown]

Got a new 2 TB hard drive for my 2008 homebuilt pc. Partitioned in
Win7 into 3 Primaries and 2 data. Macrium backed up all partitions on
old drive and Macrium restored to partitions on new drive, By friday
night I had everything working perfectly. But then I decided to
replace 2 SATA data cables that might be a little flaky.

I began by unhooking my samsung flat screen to give myself some room
to work. Put it on my bed for safety. Left its power cable plugged in
live on floor by the pc. Replaced the 2 SATAs without TOO much trouble
(eyes and numb fingers aren't what they were in 2008)

Hooked up the DVI cable (came with monitor, all I ever used) and
plugged power cable into monitor live (I've done it that way a hundred
times) Booted pc nothing on screen.

Found dc adaptor voltage volts on power cable reading 8V on its can
says 14v.

To Walmart get another Samsung flatscreen. It doesn't have DVI jack
only DVA and HDMI. My graphics card has those but I never never had
tested them. Plugged in HDMI cable, no help. PC is apparently booting
and running memtest in the floppy but I can't see it on screen. To
Walmart for a VGA cable no help,

Ordered new graphics card from NewEgg hasn;t arrived.
Saw a DVI to VGA cable on Amazon, hasn't arrived yet.

Hooking the old monitor up, with its DVI cable and the dc adaptor came
with new monitor, it tries to come up and I THINK I can see a flash of
that memtest on screen, can't be sure.

HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPP!!!!!

Anyone have an idea what's happening? fixes?

[g***@aol.com]

Post by John Brown
Got a new 2 TB hard drive for my 2008 homebuilt pc. Partitioned in
Win7 into 3 Primaries and 2 data. Macrium backed up all partitions on
old drive and Macrium restored to partitions on new drive, By friday
night I had everything working perfectly. But then I decided to
replace 2 SATA data cables that might be a little flaky.
I began by unhooking my samsung flat screen to give myself some room
to work. Put it on my bed for safety. Left its power cable plugged in
live on floor by the pc. Replaced the 2 SATAs without TOO much trouble
(eyes and numb fingers aren't what they were in 2008)
Hooked up the DVI cable (came with monitor, all I ever used) and
plugged power cable into monitor live (I've done it that way a hundred
times) Booted pc nothing on screen.
Found dc adaptor voltage volts on power cable reading 8V on its can
says 14v.
To Walmart get another Samsung flatscreen. It doesn't have DVI jack
only DVA and HDMI. My graphics card has those but I never never had
tested them. Plugged in HDMI cable, no help. PC is apparently booting
and running memtest in the floppy but I can't see it on screen. To
Walmart for a VGA cable no help,
Ordered new graphics card from NewEgg hasn;t arrived.
Saw a DVI to VGA cable on Amazon, hasn't arrived yet.
Hooking the old monitor up, with its DVI cable and the dc adaptor came
with new monitor, it tries to come up and I THINK I can see a flash of
that memtest on screen, can't be sure.
HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPP!!!!!
Anyone have an idea what's happening? fixes?

Can you get anything on the monitor with no data cables plugged it?
(Setup screens, "no device connected" etc)
That at least proves the monitor is basically working.
Is there an on board adapter on that machine, typically VGA?
That would usually eliminate driver problems on an external card once
the OS loads.
Any beeps?
If you dislodged a memory stick all sorts of strange things might
happen depending on how that BIOS handles catastrophic errors.
I would reseat all the cards and SIMMs. Use ESD protection methods if
you are up in the frozen north with indoor humidity down below 40-50%.
(Wrist strap if you have one but at least ground yourself to the metal
frame before you reach inside)

[John Brown]

Post by g***@aol.com

Post by John Brown
Got a new 2 TB hard drive for my 2008 homebuilt pc. Partitioned in
Win7 into 3 Primaries and 2 data. Macrium backed up all partitions on
old drive and Macrium restored to partitions on new drive, By friday
night I had everything working perfectly. But then I decided to
replace 2 SATA data cables that might be a little flaky.
I began by unhooking my samsung flat screen to give myself some room
to work. Put it on my bed for safety. Left its power cable plugged in
live on floor by the pc. Replaced the 2 SATAs without TOO much trouble
(eyes and numb fingers aren't what they were in 2008)
Hooked up the DVI cable (came with monitor, all I ever used) and
plugged power cable into monitor live (I've done it that way a hundred
times) Booted pc nothing on screen.
Found dc adaptor voltage volts on power cable reading 8V on its can
says 14v.
To Walmart get another Samsung flatscreen. It doesn't have DVI jack
only DVA and HDMI. My graphics card has those but I never never had
tested them. Plugged in HDMI cable, no help. PC is apparently booting
and running memtest in the floppy but I can't see it on screen. To
Walmart for a VGA cable no help,
Ordered new graphics card from NewEgg hasn;t arrived.
Saw a DVI to VGA cable on Amazon, hasn't arrived yet.
Hooking the old monitor up, with its DVI cable and the dc adaptor came
with new monitor, it tries to come up and I THINK I can see a flash of
that memtest on screen, can't be sure.
HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPP!!!!!
Anyone have an idea what's happening? fixes?

Can you get anything on the monitor with no data cables plugged it?
(Setup screens, "no device connected" etc)
That at least proves the monitor is basically working.
Is there an on board adapter on that machine, typically VGA?
That would usually eliminate driver problems on an external card once
the OS loads.
Any beeps?
If you dislodged a memory stick all sorts of strange things might
happen depending on how that BIOS handles catastrophic errors.
I would reseat all the cards and SIMMs. Use ESD protection methods if
you are up in the frozen north with indoor humidity down below 40-50%.
(Wrist strap if you have one but at least ground yourself to the metal
frame before you reach inside)

Nothing on new monitor but a blue light, cant see any other things to
play with on it. Athough the old monitor had a little menu of stuff
you could do below the screen area.
My usual practice is to turn off pc power but leave ac plugged in for
the benefit of its grounding plug. I used to rig a grounding wire to
an ac outlet but it was a pain.
I believe the pc DOES boot to Windows if i remove the memtest floppy
from its drive, because I think recognize the sounds its making. Then
tried to shut off with ctl-alt-del twice, didn't do the trick. Maybe
there's an Enter required after that to answer 'yes' or something.
Finally held the on button down to exit. Wished I'd tried to program
myself a voice message when it was successfuly booted!

I don't know what a 'board adaptor' is? Sounds kinda promising?

Graphics board isASUS GT 430 (Fermi) Video card ENGT430/DI/1GD3(LP) -
Newegg.com

https://www.newegg.com/asus-geforce-gt-430-engt430-di-1gd3/p/N82E16814121397?item=N82E16814121397
That's really the only board in there.

Motherboard is Abit IP35 Pro XE. They stopped making boards 6 months
after I built the pc in 2008. Display runs to 'FF' which I think is
normal. 90% sure. When it was ok I could see stuff on screen prior to
that in the sequence.

Didn't reseat memory but pushed on them didn't want to ask for more
trouble at this point. the little latches appear secure.

Yes northern NY in 40's with forced-air-heat cranking, not super dry
but I can almost draw a spark if shuffle feet determinedly.

[Frank Slootweg]

John Brown <***@nycap.rr.com> wrote:
[...]

Post by John Brown
Nothing on new monitor but a blue light, cant see any other things to
play with on it. Athough the old monitor had a little menu of stuff
you could do below the screen area.
My usual practice is to turn off pc power but leave ac plugged in for
the benefit of its grounding plug. I used to rig a grounding wire to
an ac outlet but it was a pain.
I believe the pc DOES boot to Windows if i remove the memtest floppy
from its drive, because I think recognize the sounds its making. Then
tried to shut off with ctl-alt-del twice, didn't do the trick. Maybe
there's an Enter required after that to answer 'yes' or something.
Finally held the on button down to exit. Wished I'd tried to program
myself a voice message when it was successfuly booted!

As you're posting from a Windows system, it seems that you have
another PC. If so, and if you've set up Network Shares between the two
computers, you might try to connect from the second PC to the share of
the 'broken' one. If you can connect, you know that the 'broken' PC has
indeed booted and you 'only' have a display problem.

I used that method when my wife's laptop had a display problem (blank/
black display).

About the display problem(s): (Still assuming you have two PCs,) Can
you connect the old/'broken' display or/and the newly purchased one to
the second PC, so you know which display(s) is/are (not) working?

[...]

[Nomen Nescio]

Post by John Brown
Got a new 2 TB hard drive for my 2008 homebuilt pc. Partitioned in
Win7 into 3 Primaries and 2 data. Macrium backed up all partitions on
old drive and Macrium restored to partitions on new drive, By friday
night I had everything working perfectly. But then I decided to
replace 2 SATA data cables that might be a little flaky.

The moral of this story is don't fuck with it if it's working.

[Paul]

Post by John Brown
Got a new 2 TB hard drive for my 2008 homebuilt pc. Partitioned in
Win7 into 3 Primaries and 2 data. Macrium backed up all partitions on
old drive and Macrium restored to partitions on new drive, By friday
night I had everything working perfectly. But then I decided to
replace 2 SATA data cables that might be a little flaky.
I began by unhooking my samsung flat screen to give myself some room
to work. Put it on my bed for safety. Left its power cable plugged in
live on floor by the pc. Replaced the 2 SATAs without TOO much trouble
(eyes and numb fingers aren't what they were in 2008)
Hooked up the DVI cable (came with monitor, all I ever used) and
plugged power cable into monitor live (I've done it that way a hundred
times) Booted pc nothing on screen.
Found dc adaptor voltage volts on power cable reading 8V on its can
says 14v.
To Walmart get another Samsung flatscreen. It doesn't have DVI jack
only DVA and HDMI. My graphics card has those but I never never had
tested them. Plugged in HDMI cable, no help. PC is apparently booting
and running memtest in the floppy but I can't see it on screen. To
Walmart for a VGA cable no help,
Ordered new graphics card from NewEgg hasn;t arrived.
Saw a DVI to VGA cable on Amazon, hasn't arrived yet.
Hooking the old monitor up, with its DVI cable and the dc adaptor came
with new monitor, it tries to come up and I THINK I can see a flash of
that memtest on screen, can't be sure.
HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPP!!!!!
Anyone have an idea what's happening? fixes?

It sounds like the monitor wall adapter was on its way out.

And plugging it in hot, may have been the last insult it needed.

Barrel connectors are not "polarization guaranteed", which means
if you use the wrong wall adapter, there can be trouble.

Adapter types: AC, Unregulated DC, Regulated DC
Barrel: Center Plus, Center Minus

That is why, you generally verify things with a multimeter, when
bodging together a power solution. There is a newer method for adapter
power (for laptops) that adds further details to the saga.

*******

With monitor cables disconnected, press the Samsung power button,
and pretend you want to adjust brightness and contrast with the buttons.
If the OSD display for brightness and contrast appears, that proves
the panel works, the backlight works, the microcontroller in the monitor
works. What it does not test, is DP, HDMI, VGA.

I would test with VGA, to prove "something works". That is
THE best connector for "I think my monitor is dead" testing.

You can use an old PC from the junk room, don't need an OS,
just need to press the BIOS setup key and get the BIOS screen
to deliver stimulus to the VGA output to test the Samsung. Even
a laptop VGA stimulus is better than nothing. (There is a hot key
so you can rotate from driving the panel, to driving the VGA with signal.)

I keep a "fleet" of adapters.

HDMI to VGA
DP to VGA

DP to HDMI (active, used when an [old] video card does not have DP++ output)
DP++ to HDMI I don't own one of these passive adapters. Would work on any modern vid card.
A passive adapter is unlikely to correct any digital design sins on a vid card.

The DP to HDMI, originally purchased for the non DP++ output of an
Optiplex 780, has also made a dandy adapter for other purposes.
The Acer monitor I bought, does not "like" the HDMI signal from the
HD6450 video card, but using Active DP to HDMI, the adapter HDMI output
runs the Acer monitor just fine.

Adapters are getting a little harder to find, and the era of "peak adapter availability"
has passed. I warned people a couple years ago, to stock up. You NEED
shit like this, at test time, when your hair is falling out. I no longer
consider the stocking of this stuff, to be a waste of money. Test is Good.

*******

There is nothing magical about Safety Ground for ESD work.

The concept you want, is "equipotential".

Steps:

1) remove socks and shoes. A human can't make sparks in bare feet.
2) Wear short pants.
3) Sit in a chair. Lay the (all cables removed) PC in your lap.
Now, the chassis metal is touching your legs.
4) Hold vid card faceplate with one hand. Hold chassis metal with the other hand.
Fit vid card to slot.

Even without an ESD strap, for 1001V rated electronics, that should
be good enough handling procedure.

Equipotential is Step 4. Holding both items with your hands,
brings them to the same potential, so no sparks jump from
edge card, to slot pins. The vid card should be stored in its ESD
bag, when it is not being used. Same goes for RAM -- ESD container when
RAM not being used.

There were some NVidia chipset gamer motherboards arriving, with one of
two video card slots, blown. The NVidia chips had a defect in their
ESD protection, and I can tell from the problem descriptions, the
chips must have been less than 1001V rated. Some people were reporting,
that upon installing a vid card, a slot would be blown. Or it would
show signs of being blown, on a second insertion cycle. The evidence suggests
an excessive sensitivity to ESD. It would be for such a product, I
would wear an ESD wrist strap (chassis to wrist) during step 4, just to be a little safer.
That's to reduce the chance I remove one of my hands while
doing "equipotential". Commercial ESD straps, have a 1 megohm resistor in series
inside the strap. It's not "just a piece of wire" !

When I write descriptions like this, I'm trying to be practical.
People seldom acquire lab-grade wrist straps, so I'm going to stop
pretending, and write procedures they can use. Bare feet and short pants,
help, for PCs held in your lap while fitting cards. Equipotential is
more important than thinking a chassis ground is magical. Standing
in my static-generating slippers (plastic soles), and plugging a vid card in without
discharging myself, a grounded PC would not help in the least. Even
1001V silicon could be blown, in such a situation. I need to be grounded.
Touching chassis and vid card faceplate, helps.

Paul

[John Brown]

Post by Paul

Post by John Brown
Got a new 2 TB hard drive for my 2008 homebuilt pc. Partitioned in
Win7 into 3 Primaries and 2 data. Macrium backed up all partitions on
old drive and Macrium restored to partitions on new drive, By friday
night I had everything working perfectly. But then I decided to
replace 2 SATA data cables that might be a little flaky.
I began by unhooking my samsung flat screen to give myself some room
to work. Put it on my bed for safety. Left its power cable plugged in
live on floor by the pc. Replaced the 2 SATAs without TOO much trouble
(eyes and numb fingers aren't what they were in 2008)
Hooked up the DVI cable (came with monitor, all I ever used) and
plugged power cable into monitor live (I've done it that way a hundred
times) Booted pc nothing on screen.
Found dc adaptor voltage volts on power cable reading 8V on its can
says 14v.
To Walmart get another Samsung flatscreen. It doesn't have DVI jack
only DVA and HDMI. My graphics card has those but I never never had
tested them. Plugged in HDMI cable, no help. PC is apparently booting
and running memtest in the floppy but I can't see it on screen. To
Walmart for a VGA cable no help,
Ordered new graphics card from NewEgg hasn;t arrived.
Saw a DVI to VGA cable on Amazon, hasn't arrived yet.
Hooking the old monitor up, with its DVI cable and the dc adaptor came
with new monitor, it tries to come up and I THINK I can see a flash of
that memtest on screen, can't be sure.
HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPP!!!!!
Anyone have an idea what's happening? fixes?

It sounds like the monitor wall adapter was on its way out.
And plugging it in hot, may have been the last insult it needed.
Barrel connectors are not "polarization guaranteed", which means
if you use the wrong wall adapter, there can be trouble.
Adapter types: AC, Unregulated DC, Regulated DC
Barrel: Center Plus, Center Minus
That is why, you generally verify things with a multimeter, when
bodging together a power solution. There is a newer method for adapter
power (for laptops) that adds further details to the saga.
*******
With monitor cables disconnected, press the Samsung power button,

I should be so lucky to have 'JUNK' room. My old pcs disappeared into
dumpsters what with apartment moves. I didn't check my new Samsung dc
adaptor before plugging it into old Samsung. They were both labeled
14v. it did try to bring old monitor up bit it would cycle up and back
down(very quickly!). With cables plugged on I THOUGHT I could see the
mem test running on a floppy. maybe.

Post by Paul
and pretend you want to adjust brightness and contrast with the buttons.
If the OSD display for brightness and contrast appears, that proves
the panel works, the backlight works, the microcontroller in the monitor
works. What it does not test, is DP, HDMI, VGA.
I would test with VGA, to prove "something works". That is
THE best connector for "I think my monitor is dead" testing.
You can use an old PC from the junk room, don't need an OS,
just need to press the BIOS setup key and get the BIOS screen
to deliver stimulus to the VGA output to test the Samsung. Even
a laptop VGA stimulus is better than nothing. (There is a hot key
so you can rotate from driving the panel, to driving the VGA with signal.)

New Samsung has no controls only displays a blue light when power is
plugged in.

Post by Paul
I keep a "fleet" of adapters.

What are adaptors? Is this one?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0824JHSM4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Post by Paul
HDMI to VGA
DP to VGA

What is DP? Is it what I've been calling DVI?
Is it the big plug on this card?
https://www.newegg.com/asus-geforce-gt-430-engt430-di-1gd3/p/N82E16814121397?item=N82E16814121397

Does there exist an electronic adaptor that converts DVI to VGA?
I do have another vid card coming New Egg didin't seem to have a RUSH
damn them. Trying to order on my phone they won't accept the strangled
browser on this ancient Vista laptop. If I EVER get this fixed I gotta
get a better backup system.

Post by Paul
DP to HDMI (active, used when an [old] video card does not have DP++ output)
DP++ to HDMI I don't own one of these passive adapters. Would work on any modern vid card.
A passive adapter is unlikely to correct any digital design sins on a vid card.
The DP to HDMI, originally purchased for the non DP++ output of an
Optiplex 780, has also made a dandy adapter for other purposes.
The Acer monitor I bought, does not "like" the HDMI signal from the
HD6450 video card, but using Active DP to HDMI, the adapter HDMI output
runs the Acer monitor just fine.
Adapters are getting a little harder to find, and the era of "peak adapter availability"
has passed. I warned people a couple years ago, to stock up. You NEED
shit like this, at test time, when your hair is falling out. I no longer
consider the stocking of this stuff, to be a waste of money. Test is Good.
*******
There is nothing magical about Safety Ground for ESD work.
The concept you want, is "equipotential".
1) remove socks and shoes. A human can't make sparks in bare feet.
2) Wear short pants.
3) Sit in a chair. Lay the (all cables removed) PC in your lap.
Now, the chassis metal is touching your legs.
4) Hold vid card faceplate with one hand. Hold chassis metal with the other hand.
Fit vid card to slot.
Even without an ESD strap, for 1001V rated electronics, that should
be good enough handling procedure.
Equipotential is Step 4. Holding both items with your hands,
brings them to the same potential, so no sparks jump from
edge card, to slot pins. The vid card should be stored in its ESD
bag, when it is not being used. Same goes for RAM -- ESD container when
RAM not being used.
There were some NVidia chipset gamer motherboards arriving, with one of
two video card slots, blown. The NVidia chips had a defect in their
ESD protection, and I can tell from the problem descriptions, the
chips must have been less than 1001V rated. Some people were reporting,
that upon installing a vid card, a slot would be blown. Or it would
show signs of being blown, on a second insertion cycle. The evidence suggests
an excessive sensitivity to ESD. It would be for such a product, I
would wear an ESD wrist strap (chassis to wrist) during step 4, just to be a little safer.
That's to reduce the chance I remove one of my hands while
doing "equipotential". Commercial ESD straps, have a 1 megohm resistor in series
inside the strap. It's not "just a piece of wire" !
When I write descriptions like this, I'm trying to be practical.
People seldom acquire lab-grade wrist straps, so I'm going to stop
pretending, and write procedures they can use. Bare feet and short pants,
help, for PCs held in your lap while fitting cards. Equipotential is
more important than thinking a chassis ground is magical. Standing
in my static-generating slippers (plastic soles), and plugging a vid card in without
discharging myself, a grounded PC would not help in the least. Even
1001V silicon could be blown, in such a situation. I need to be grounded.
Touching chassis and vid card faceplate, helps.
Paul

THANK YOU FOR THE POWERFUL THOUGHT-OUT CRITIQUE!
Please see my questions inserted above trying to get on 'same page' as
you.

[Paul]

Post by John Brown

Post by Paul
With monitor cables disconnected, press the Samsung power button,

I should be so lucky to have 'JUNK' room. My old pcs disappeared into
dumpsters what with apartment moves. I didn't check my new Samsung dc
adaptor before plugging it into old Samsung. They were both labeled
14v. it did try to bring old monitor up bit it would cycle up and back
down(very quickly!). With cables plugged on I THOUGHT I could see the
mem test running on a floppy. maybe.

It's drawing too much current then. I suppose for this sort of
level of analysis, that's pretty well conclusive the old Samsung monitor
isn't going any further, until some of the innards are inspected. Not
likely a productive exercise (could be a leaking cap on power supply board).

Post by John Brown
New Samsung has no controls only displays a blue light when power is
plugged in.

What is the model number of the monitor ?

You need some means of adjusting brightness and contrast, for it to be a useful monitor.

If you have a model number, I'll see if there is a manual with a picture.

Post by John Brown

Post by Paul
I keep a "fleet" of adapters.

What are adaptors? Is this one?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0824JHSM4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

That might be a passive DVI electrical interface being placed on the MDMI pins.
I don't remember the details of when that works or doesn't work.

This is an [active] DP to HDMI. There is a chip inside the left hand blob.
It doesn't handle anything fancy, so is suited to yet-more test cases
here for me. None of my monitors have higher res than 1920x1080.

https://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=5_3930_4359&item_id=121734

Your new card does not have Displayport DP/DP++ so that won't be of
interest to you. It's just part of my sparse matrix of converters.

The manufacturers themselves have the technical capability to do
a full matrix of adapters, but for marketing reasons, some have
too little uptake to bother with. For example, there are lots of
passive DVI-D to HDMI, but for me, I'd want an active converter
as a "guarantee" it would produce HDMI :-) That's one of the reasons
I got my DP to HDMI adapter, as a guarantee I'd have a good HDMI
generator.

Post by John Brown

Post by Paul
HDMI to VGA
DP to VGA

What is DP? Is it what I've been calling DVI?

DP is DisplayPort. It is a competitor for HDMI, with the premise it offered
lower licensing fees than HDMI. That's why a vid card has one HDMI port
and three DP ports, as an example of its deployment. Both DisplayPort
and DVI are in Wikipedia.com.

Manufacturers *hate* licensing fees, and will fight you in court over
a penny per connector. The fight over a penny is an irrational process,
but I'm just explaining why there was such interest in spraying DP connectors
all over the faceplate.

Post by John Brown
Is it the big plug on this card?
https://www.newegg.com/asus-geforce-gt-430-engt430-di-1gd3/p/N82E16814121397?item=N82E16814121397

https://event.asus.com/vga/2010/engt430/

DVI-D (digital only) 2560x1600 = dual lane, can use single lane or both lanes
VGA ("D-Sub") 2048x1536 = the usual 400MHz max bandwidth VGA output
HDMI Specs unknown GT430

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce-gt-430.c603 It is HDMI 1.3a, ***@30p, 2560x1600 practical

Note: For this generation of cards, there was a bad practice of "you can use VGA or you
can use DVI-D but you can't use both". It was effectively a DVI-I interface,
split into two connectors to help fill up the faceplate :-/ Gamblers odds,
you would use an HDMI to VGA, if you needed two VGA connectors for your dual monitor setup.

Most of the HDMI to VGA adapters, are about half the price of this one.

https://www.newegg.com/startech-com-hd2vgae2-hdmi-male-to-vga-female/p/N82E16812400359

Post by John Brown
Does there exist an electronic adaptor that converts DVI to VGA?
I do have another vid card coming New Egg didin't seem to have a RUSH
damn them. Trying to order on my phone they won't accept the strangled
browser on this ancient Vista laptop. If I EVER get this fixed I gotta
get a better backup system.

For DVI to VGA, there would be single lane and dual lane. A single lane
DVI to VGA would handle up to 1920x1200 CRTRB. In other words, it would
convert *any* DVI to useful VGA on a small monitor. VGA does not scale
well anyway, so shooting for a 2560x1600 converter is silly and the
picture might have defects at such a high resolution. These take DVI-D
(A DVI-I where the analog signals are missing on the "cross" at the end).
DVI-D ships on newer cards that still have a DVI. They stopped making
video cards with both analog and digital on the DVI (the DVI-I flavor).
That's why these are active adapters, and can take a crappy NVidia with
only DVI-D on it and make a VGA for test.

https://www.newegg.com/startech-com-dvi2vgae/p/N82E16812400402

https://www.newegg.com/rocstor-y10a198-b1-dvi-d-to-vga-active-adapter/p/13N-00BK-00001

VGA has a bad connector design, which is why it cannot profitably run at
say 4K resolution. Sun Microsystems knew how to make a connector for analog
displays, which is what a VGA should have been. They used three coax for RGB
and the Hsync and Vsync are still uncontrolled impedance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB13W3

Modern cards have lots of HDMI and DisplayPort (DP++ flavor of DP), and active
adapters can make VGA from that. Which is only useful if all your monitors
have VGA and you like to test with VGA when the digital ports stop working.

As for visual quality, one of my concerns when first buying HDMI to VGA or
DP to VGA was "what is the quality like?". The salesman at the store said
there were no complaints about fuzzy output, and he was right. Just about
all of them can manage to do a good job. I guess if a chip "does it all",
it's pretty hard to foul up the design :-)

Post by John Brown
THANK YOU FOR THE POWERFUL THOUGHT-OUT CRITIQUE!
Please see my questions inserted above trying to get on 'same page' as
you.

[John Brown]

Post by Paul

Post by John Brown

Post by Paul
With monitor cables disconnected, press the Samsung power button,

I should be so lucky to have 'JUNK' room. My old pcs disappeared into
dumpsters what with apartment moves. I didn't check my new Samsung dc
adaptor before plugging it into old Samsung. They were both labeled
14v. it did try to bring old monitor up bit it would cycle up and back
down(very quickly!). With cables plugged on I THOUGHT I could see the
mem test running on a floppy. maybe.

It's drawing too much current then. I suppose for this sort of
level of analysis, that's pretty well conclusive the old Samsung monitor
isn't going any further, until some of the innards are inspected. Not
likely a productive exercise (could be a leaking cap on power supply board).

Post by John Brown
New Samsung has no controls only displays a blue light when power is
plugged in.

What is the model number of the monitor ?

model C27F396FHN
Came with instructions - 6 or so pages 17 languages microscopic print
and nothing useful I could see.

Post by Paul
You need some means of adjusting brightness and contrast, for it to be a useful monitor.
If you have a model number, I'll see if there is a manual with a picture.

Post by John Brown

Post by Paul
I keep a "fleet" of adapters.

What are adaptors? Is this one?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0824JHSM4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

That might be a passive DVI electrical interface being placed on the MDMI pins.
I don't remember the details of when that works or doesn't work.
This is an [active] DP to HDMI. There is a chip inside the left hand blob.
It doesn't handle anything fancy, so is suited to yet-more test cases
here for me. None of my monitors have higher res than 1920x1080.
https://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=5_3930_4359&item_id=121734
Your new card does not have Displayport DP/DP++ so that won't be of
interest to you. It's just part of my sparse matrix of converters.
The manufacturers themselves have the technical capability to do
a full matrix of adapters, but for marketing reasons, some have
too little uptake to bother with. For example, there are lots of
passive DVI-D to HDMI, but for me, I'd want an active converter
as a "guarantee" it would produce HDMI :-) That's one of the reasons
I got my DP to HDMI adapter, as a guarantee I'd have a good HDMI
generator.

Post by John Brown

Post by Paul
HDMI to VGA
DP to VGA

What is DP? Is it what I've been calling DVI?

DP is DisplayPort. It is a competitor for HDMI, with the premise it offered
lower licensing fees than HDMI. That's why a vid card has one HDMI port
and three DP ports, as an example of its deployment. Both DisplayPort
and DVI are in Wikipedia.com.
Manufacturers *hate* licensing fees, and will fight you in court over
a penny per connector. The fight over a penny is an irrational process,
but I'm just explaining why there was such interest in spraying DP connectors
all over the faceplate.

Post by John Brown
Is it the big plug on this card?
https://www.newegg.com/asus-geforce-gt-430-engt430-di-1gd3/p/N82E16814121397?item=N82E16814121397

https://event.asus.com/vga/2010/engt430/
DVI-D (digital only) 2560x1600 = dual lane, can use single lane or both lanes
VGA ("D-Sub") 2048x1536 = the usual 400MHz max bandwidth VGA output
HDMI Specs unknown GT430
Note: For this generation of cards, there was a bad practice of "you can use VGA or you
can use DVI-D but you can't use both". It was effectively a DVI-I interface,
split into two connectors to help fill up the faceplate :-/ Gamblers odds,
you would use an HDMI to VGA, if you needed two VGA connectors for your dual monitor setup.
Most of the HDMI to VGA adapters, are about half the price of this one.
https://www.newegg.com/startech-com-hd2vgae2-hdmi-male-to-vga-female/p/N82E16812400359

Post by John Brown
Does there exist an electronic adaptor that converts DVI to VGA?
I do have another vid card coming New Egg didin't seem to have a RUSH
damn them. Trying to order on my phone they won't accept the strangled
browser on this ancient Vista laptop. If I EVER get this fixed I gotta
get a better backup system.

For DVI to VGA, there would be single lane and dual lane. A single lane
DVI to VGA would handle up to 1920x1200 CRTRB. In other words, it would
convert *any* DVI to useful VGA on a small monitor. VGA does not scale
well anyway, so shooting for a 2560x1600 converter is silly and the
picture might have defects at such a high resolution. These take DVI-D
(A DVI-I where the analog signals are missing on the "cross" at the end).
DVI-D ships on newer cards that still have a DVI. They stopped making
video cards with both analog and digital on the DVI (the DVI-I flavor).
That's why these are active adapters, and can take a crappy NVidia with
only DVI-D on it and make a VGA for test.
https://www.newegg.com/startech-com-dvi2vgae/p/N82E16812400402
https://www.newegg.com/rocstor-y10a198-b1-dvi-d-to-vga-active-adapter/p/13N-00BK-00001
VGA has a bad connector design, which is why it cannot profitably run at
say 4K resolution. Sun Microsystems knew how to make a connector for analog
displays, which is what a VGA should have been. They used three coax for RGB
and the Hsync and Vsync are still uncontrolled impedance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB13W3
Modern cards have lots of HDMI and DisplayPort (DP++ flavor of DP), and active
adapters can make VGA from that. Which is only useful if all your monitors
have VGA and you like to test with VGA when the digital ports stop working.
As for visual quality, one of my concerns when first buying HDMI to VGA or
DP to VGA was "what is the quality like?". The salesman at the store said
there were no complaints about fuzzy output, and he was right. Just about
all of them can manage to do a good job. I guess if a chip "does it all",
it's pretty hard to foul up the design :-)

Post by John Brown
THANK YOU FOR THE POWERFUL THOUGHT-OUT CRITIQUE!
Please see my questions inserted above trying to get on 'same page' as
you..

Thanks again, Between you and Amazon I'm figuring some things out. My
old DVI cable has pins missing in he middle I count 18 pins
https://www.startech.com/en-us/faq/video-signal-converters-dvi-interface
which means for the 15 years I've been using it I've been running
analog video. The new monitor obviously wants digital. My vid card
does have all the pins and is supposed to deliver digital.but what if
my 25 year old pc (Abit IP35 ProXE motherbd) can't deliver the right
digital stuff to the board so it can make a digital output, Then I'd
need some kind of analog to digital conversion external to the vid
card.
I've already tried VGA and HDMI connections to the board. I don't know
for sure the new Samsung actually works. Well I've got some new parts
to try coming starting tomorrow. But I'm getting a bit discouraged.
I wondered what it would take to try to hitch the new Samsung to my
ancient Vista laptop I'm typing on? As a second monitor. I've never
tried to run a second monitor. If my homebuilt can't make it run mYBE
THE Laptop could?

[Paul]

Post by John Brown
Thanks again, Between you and Amazon I'm figuring some things out. My
old DVI cable has pins missing in he middle I count 18 pins
https://www.startech.com/en-us/faq/video-signal-converters-dvi-interface
which means for the 15 years I've been using it I've been running
analog video. The new monitor obviously wants digital. My vid card
does have all the pins and is supposed to deliver digital.but what if
my 25 year old pc (Abit IP35 ProXE motherbd) can't deliver the right
digital stuff to the board so it can make a digital output, Then I'd
need some kind of analog to digital conversion external to the vid
card.
I've already tried VGA and HDMI connections to the board. I don't know
for sure the new Samsung actually works. Well I've got some new parts
to try coming starting tomorrow. But I'm getting a bit discouraged.
I wondered what it would take to try to hitch the new Samsung to my
ancient Vista laptop I'm typing on? As a second monitor. I've never
tried to run a second monitor. If my homebuilt can't make it run mYBE
THE Laptop could?

This is the picture you want for classification. I can show a
full feature one, and a less-featured one, as examples.

Loading Image...

XXXXXXXX X X Full featured DVI-I
XXXXXXXX --- Has Analog and Digital
XXXXXXXX X X Digital has two lanes, for 2560x1600 resolution

<------> ^^^
Two lane Analog
digital section

XXX XXX Single lane DVI-D
XXX XXX --- Digital only, analog missing
XXX XXX Digital has one lane, for 1920x1200 resolution

<------> ^^^
One lane No analog
digital Ground blade only

You've likely been running digital, on one lane, with 1920x1200 max.
It does 1920x1080 without tricks, the 1920x1200 comes from reducing
the blanking interval.

When your new video card arrives and the right hand side of DVI has only
the blade, then there is no analog to be extracted with a passive
DVI-I to VGA adapter.

*******

Your laptop may have a VGA connector on the side of it.
If the monitor has a VGA, then all you need is a VGA cable.

Note that, the store stocks two VGA cables. One of the
cables is "only an extender" and when you get it home,
it's not enough to connect up a monitor :-/ I made that
mistake, that's how I know.

Male------Male (The VGA cable that comes in the monitor box)
Male------Female (A cable meant for extending a short cable)

LCD monitors with a VGA, may have a VGA cable in the box.
I was surprised to find my new Acer monitor had the VGA cable.
But the HDMI was missing, so I had to get one of those at the store.

The VGA cable in the box (assuming it is there), can be used
to connect the VGA laptop to the monitor. If the monitor does
not have a VGA input, there's a chance "you're screwed". I don't
know how well, going from VGA to a digital standard would work.
That's a converter I don't have.

Newer laptops could have DP, HDMI, USB4, Thunderbolt as examples
of alternatives to VGA. The cabling experience in such cases,
is going to be "interesting". (In the sense that the user
doesn't even know where the video comes out.)

To give an example of tricky, I had my laptop on the kitchen
table, and it has a headphone jack on the side. I bent down
to pick up something off the floor, turned my head to the
right... and I could see "red light" coming out of the headphone
jack. It turns out, the laptop has a dual mode TOSLink headphone
jack. I never would have guessed. You could run a dental fiber
cable, from the laptop to the AV receiver, for a form of digital
audio. (The laptop also had an SD slot, which was well disguised,
and only doing a thorough search located it. You don't glance
at the laptop and see that one.)

Paul

[John Brown]

Post by Paul

Post by John Brown
Thanks again, Between you and Amazon I'm figuring some things out. My
old DVI cable has pins missing in he middle I count 18 pins
https://www.startech.com/en-us/faq/video-signal-converters-dvi-interface
which means for the 15 years I've been using it I've been running
analog video. The new monitor obviously wants digital. My vid card
does have all the pins and is supposed to deliver digital.but what if
my 25 year old pc (Abit IP35 ProXE motherbd) can't deliver the right
digital stuff to the board so it can make a digital output, Then I'd
need some kind of analog to digital conversion external to the vid
card.
I've already tried VGA and HDMI connections to the board. I don't know
for sure the new Samsung actually works. Well I've got some new parts
to try coming starting tomorrow. But I'm getting a bit discouraged.
I wondered what it would take to try to hitch the new Samsung to my
ancient Vista laptop I'm typing on? As a second monitor. I've never
tried to run a second monitor. If my homebuilt can't make it run mYBE
THE Laptop could?

This is the picture you want for classification. I can show a
full feature one, and a less-featured one, as examples.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/DVI_Connector_Types.svg/181px-DVI_Connector_Types.svg.png
XXXXXXXX X X Full featured DVI-I
XXXXXXXX --- Has Analog and Digital
XXXXXXXX X X Digital has two lanes, for 2560x1600 resolution
<------> ^^^
Two lane Analog
digital section
XXX XXX Single lane DVI-D
XXX XXX --- Digital only, analog missing
XXX XXX Digital has one lane, for 1920x1200 resolution
<------> ^^^
One lane No analog
digital Ground blade only

GOTTA save this stuff somewhere!

Post by Paul
You've likely been running digital, on one lane, with 1920x1200 max.
It does 1920x1080 without tricks, the 1920x1200 comes from reducing
the blanking interval.

Thanks a lot for that! That's a load off my mind 90% knowing my vid
board HAS been producing digital.

Post by Paul
When your new video card arrives and the right hand side of DVI has only
the blade, then there is no analog to be extracted with a passive
DVI-I to VGA adapter.

Present vid card has the blade and 4 female holes around it ie DVI-I

Post by Paul
*******
Your laptop may have a VGA connector on the side of it.
If the monitor has a VGA, then all you need is a VGA cable.
Note that, the store stocks two VGA cables. One of the
cables is "only an extender" and when you get it home,
it's not enough to connect up a monitor :-/ I made that
mistake, that's how I know.
Male------Male (The VGA cable that comes in the monitor box)
Male------Female (A cable meant for extending a short cable)
LCD monitors with a VGA, may have a VGA cable in the box.
I was surprised to find my new Acer monitor had the VGA cable.
But the HDMI was missing, so I had to get one of those at the store.
The VGA cable in the box (assuming it is there), can be used
to connect the VGA laptop to the monitor. If the monitor does
not have a VGA input, there's a chance "you're screwed". I don't
know how well, going from VGA to a digital standard would work.
That's a converter I don't have.

I have VGA input and also HDMI on laptop.

Post by Paul
Newer laptops could have DP, HDMI, USB4, Thunderbolt as examples
of alternatives to VGA. The cabling experience in such cases,
is going to be "interesting". (In the sense that the user
doesn't even know where the video comes out.)
To give an example of tricky, I had my laptop on the kitchen
table, and it has a headphone jack on the side. I bent down
to pick up something off the floor, turned my head to the
right... and I could see "red light" coming out of the headphone
jack. It turns out, the laptop has a dual mode TOSLink headphone
jack. I never would have guessed. You could run a dental fiber
cable, from the laptop to the AV receiver, for a form of digital
audio. (The laptop also had an SD slot, which was well disguised,
and only doing a thorough search located it. You don't glance
at the laptop and see that one.)
Paul

Attempted connection new Samsung to laptop VGA. I was given a picture
of what I wanted displayed I thought I was to choose but I guess it
meant did I want to see both notebook AND monitor. No display on new
Samsung. Clicked some button choosing Monitor and shit: no display on
either screen! Couldn't even shut down pc except with the ON button.
Later I discovered there are hot keys Ctl Alt F1 orF3 chooses either
monitor or notebook. But at the time I thought maybe I'd locked myself
our of another display until I figured out Gateway's recovery system.
I guess I COULD try the HDMI cable but i'm ready to believe the new
Samsung is inopoerable. Tomorrow I'll attempt to return it. Saw one at
Staples about the same price Isus 27". If Walmart doesnt give me a
hard time I'll try that one. Still no controls on its face though
unless they're visible when it coes up.

Finally found my wayward usb keyboard in my computer room corner
(that's MY junk room I guess) so typing is slightly easier now. The
notebook keyboard completely frustrates me.

[Paul]

Post by John Brown

Post by Paul

Post by John Brown
Thanks again, Between you and Amazon I'm figuring some things out. My
old DVI cable has pins missing in he middle I count 18 pins
https://www.startech.com/en-us/faq/video-signal-converters-dvi-interface
which means for the 15 years I've been using it I've been running
analog video. The new monitor obviously wants digital. My vid card
does have all the pins and is supposed to deliver digital.but what if
my 25 year old pc (Abit IP35 ProXE motherbd) can't deliver the right
digital stuff to the board so it can make a digital output, Then I'd
need some kind of analog to digital conversion external to the vid
card.
I've already tried VGA and HDMI connections to the board. I don't know
for sure the new Samsung actually works. Well I've got some new parts
to try coming starting tomorrow. But I'm getting a bit discouraged.
I wondered what it would take to try to hitch the new Samsung to my
ancient Vista laptop I'm typing on? As a second monitor. I've never
tried to run a second monitor. If my homebuilt can't make it run mYBE
THE Laptop could?

This is the picture you want for classification. I can show a
full feature one, and a less-featured one, as examples.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/DVI_Connector_Types.svg/181px-DVI_Connector_Types.svg.png
XXXXXXXX X X Full featured DVI-I
XXXXXXXX --- Has Analog and Digital
XXXXXXXX X X Digital has two lanes, for 2560x1600 resolution
<------> ^^^
Two lane Analog
digital section
XXX XXX Single lane DVI-D
XXX XXX --- Digital only, analog missing
XXX XXX Digital has one lane, for 1920x1200 resolution
<------> ^^^
One lane No analog
digital Ground blade only

GOTTA save this stuff somewhere!

Post by Paul
You've likely been running digital, on one lane, with 1920x1200 max.
It does 1920x1080 without tricks, the 1920x1200 comes from reducing
the blanking interval.

Thanks a lot for that! That's a load off my mind 90% knowing my vid
board HAS been producing digital.

Post by Paul
When your new video card arrives and the right hand side of DVI has only
the blade, then there is no analog to be extracted with a passive
DVI-I to VGA adapter.

Present vid card has the blade and 4 female holes around it ie DVI-I

Post by Paul
*******
Your laptop may have a VGA connector on the side of it.
If the monitor has a VGA, then all you need is a VGA cable.
Note that, the store stocks two VGA cables. One of the
cables is "only an extender" and when you get it home,
it's not enough to connect up a monitor :-/ I made that
mistake, that's how I know.
Male------Male (The VGA cable that comes in the monitor box)
Male------Female (A cable meant for extending a short cable)
LCD monitors with a VGA, may have a VGA cable in the box.
I was surprised to find my new Acer monitor had the VGA cable.
But the HDMI was missing, so I had to get one of those at the store.
The VGA cable in the box (assuming it is there), can be used
to connect the VGA laptop to the monitor. If the monitor does
not have a VGA input, there's a chance "you're screwed". I don't
know how well, going from VGA to a digital standard would work.
That's a converter I don't have.

I have VGA input and also HDMI on laptop.

Post by Paul
Newer laptops could have DP, HDMI, USB4, Thunderbolt as examples
of alternatives to VGA. The cabling experience in such cases,
is going to be "interesting". (In the sense that the user
doesn't even know where the video comes out.)
To give an example of tricky, I had my laptop on the kitchen
table, and it has a headphone jack on the side. I bent down
to pick up something off the floor, turned my head to the
right... and I could see "red light" coming out of the headphone
jack. It turns out, the laptop has a dual mode TOSLink headphone
jack. I never would have guessed. You could run a dental fiber
cable, from the laptop to the AV receiver, for a form of digital
audio. (The laptop also had an SD slot, which was well disguised,
and only doing a thorough search located it. You don't glance
at the laptop and see that one.)
Paul

Attempted connection new Samsung to laptop VGA. I was given a picture
of what I wanted displayed I thought I was to choose but I guess it
meant did I want to see both notebook AND monitor. No display on new
Samsung. Clicked some button choosing Monitor and shit: no display on
either screen! Couldn't even shut down pc except with the ON button.
Later I discovered there are hot keys Ctl Alt F1 orF3 chooses either
monitor or notebook. But at the time I thought maybe I'd locked myself
our of another display until I figured out Gateway's recovery system.
I guess I COULD try the HDMI cable but i'm ready to believe the new
Samsung is inopoerable. Tomorrow I'll attempt to return it. Saw one at
Staples about the same price Isus 27". If Walmart doesnt give me a
hard time I'll try that one. Still no controls on its face though
unless they're visible when it coes up.
Finally found my wayward usb keyboard in my computer room corner
(that's MY junk room I guess) so typing is slightly easier now. The
notebook keyboard completely frustrates me.

The laptop has the hot key, to go through the operating modes
in sequence. Panel , External , Panel+External landscape
and then the sequence likely repeats. Repeated presses of the hot
key, goes through the modes. So after three presses, you should
be in the "original mode", whatever that was.

If you have the HDMI cable, and the laptop has HDMI output,
then you can repeat the same hotkey test. Cable up the HDMI,
make the laptop scroll through the modes and see if the
monitor will light up.

Monitors should have auto-detect, as well as manual mode.
Using a "selector button" on a multi-input monitor, causes
the monitor to "look" at a dead input for example, until
you manage to enable a signal on it.

whereas the thing running in auto-selector mode, if you
only use one input at a time, it *should* locate the
port with the signal.

Using the OSD, there may be options to program how the
LCD monitor behaves with regard to its ports.

My new monitor only has two ports, it's dirt cheap (a bit
over a hundred), and VGA and HDMI are the choices. And so far,
I haven't needed to read the manual -- it's doing auto-select
OK on its own. If I was driving the monitor with two
computers, and both VGA and HDMI had signal on it, then
there will be occasions where I will need to find and use
the button on the monitor (bottom right, under the panel)
to make a port selection.

Paul

[John B. Smith]

Post by Paul

Post by John Brown

Post by Paul

Post by John Brown
Thanks again, Between you and Amazon I'm figuring some things out. My
old DVI cable has pins missing in he middle I count 18 pins
https://www.startech.com/en-us/faq/video-signal-converters-dvi-interface
which means for the 15 years I've been using it I've been running
analog video. The new monitor obviously wants digital. My vid card
does have all the pins and is supposed to deliver digital.but what if
my 25 year old pc (Abit IP35 ProXE motherbd) can't deliver the right
digital stuff to the board so it can make a digital output, Then I'd
need some kind of analog to digital conversion external to the vid
card.
I've already tried VGA and HDMI connections to the board. I don't know
for sure the new Samsung actually works. Well I've got some new parts
to try coming starting tomorrow. But I'm getting a bit discouraged.
I wondered what it would take to try to hitch the new Samsung to my
ancient Vista laptop I'm typing on? As a second monitor. I've never
tried to run a second monitor. If my homebuilt can't make it run mYBE
THE Laptop could?

This is the picture you want for classification. I can show a
full feature one, and a less-featured one, as examples.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/DVI_Connector_Types.svg/181px-DVI_Connector_Types.svg.png
XXXXXXXX X X Full featured DVI-I
XXXXXXXX --- Has Analog and Digital
XXXXXXXX X X Digital has two lanes, for 2560x1600 resolution
<------> ^^^
Two lane Analog
digital section
XXX XXX Single lane DVI-D
XXX XXX --- Digital only, analog missing
XXX XXX Digital has one lane, for 1920x1200 resolution
<------> ^^^
One lane No analog
digital Ground blade only

GOTTA save this stuff somewhere!

Post by Paul
You've likely been running digital, on one lane, with 1920x1200 max.
It does 1920x1080 without tricks, the 1920x1200 comes from reducing
the blanking interval.

Thanks a lot for that! That's a load off my mind 90% knowing my vid
board HAS been producing digital.

Post by Paul
When your new video card arrives and the right hand side of DVI has only
the blade, then there is no analog to be extracted with a passive
DVI-I to VGA adapter.

Present vid card has the blade and 4 female holes around it ie DVI-I

Post by Paul
*******
Your laptop may have a VGA connector on the side of it.
If the monitor has a VGA, then all you need is a VGA cable.
Note that, the store stocks two VGA cables. One of the
cables is "only an extender" and when you get it home,
it's not enough to connect up a monitor :-/ I made that
mistake, that's how I know.
Male------Male (The VGA cable that comes in the monitor box)
Male------Female (A cable meant for extending a short cable)
LCD monitors with a VGA, may have a VGA cable in the box.
I was surprised to find my new Acer monitor had the VGA cable.
But the HDMI was missing, so I had to get one of those at the store.
The VGA cable in the box (assuming it is there), can be used
to connect the VGA laptop to the monitor. If the monitor does
not have a VGA input, there's a chance "you're screwed". I don't
know how well, going from VGA to a digital standard would work.
That's a converter I don't have.

I have VGA input and also HDMI on laptop.

Post by Paul
Newer laptops could have DP, HDMI, USB4, Thunderbolt as examples
of alternatives to VGA. The cabling experience in such cases,
is going to be "interesting". (In the sense that the user
doesn't even know where the video comes out.)
To give an example of tricky, I had my laptop on the kitchen
table, and it has a headphone jack on the side. I bent down
to pick up something off the floor, turned my head to the
right... and I could see "red light" coming out of the headphone
jack. It turns out, the laptop has a dual mode TOSLink headphone
jack. I never would have guessed. You could run a dental fiber
cable, from the laptop to the AV receiver, for a form of digital
audio. (The laptop also had an SD slot, which was well disguised,
and only doing a thorough search located it. You don't glance
at the laptop and see that one.)
Paul

Attempted connection new Samsung to laptop VGA. I was given a picture
of what I wanted displayed I thought I was to choose but I guess it
meant did I want to see both notebook AND monitor. No display on new
Samsung. Clicked some button choosing Monitor and shit: no display on
either screen! Couldn't even shut down pc except with the ON button.
Later I discovered there are hot keys Ctl Alt F1 orF3 chooses either
monitor or notebook. But at the time I thought maybe I'd locked myself
our of another display until I figured out Gateway's recovery system.
I guess I COULD try the HDMI cable but i'm ready to believe the new
Samsung is inopoerable. Tomorrow I'll attempt to return it. Saw one at
Staples about the same price Isus 27". If Walmart doesnt give me a
hard time I'll try that one. Still no controls on its face though
unless they're visible when it coes up.
Finally found my wayward usb keyboard in my computer room corner
(that's MY junk room I guess) so typing is slightly easier now. The
notebook keyboard completely frustrates me.

The laptop has the hot key, to go through the operating modes
in sequence. Panel , External , Panel+External landscape
and then the sequence likely repeats. Repeated presses of the hot
key, goes through the modes. So after three presses, you should
be in the "original mode", whatever that was.
If you have the HDMI cable, and the laptop has HDMI output,
then you can repeat the same hotkey test. Cable up the HDMI,
make the laptop scroll through the modes and see if the
monitor will light up.
Monitors should have auto-detect, as well as manual mode.
Using a "selector button" on a multi-input monitor, causes
the monitor to "look" at a dead input for example, until
you manage to enable a signal on it.
whereas the thing running in auto-selector mode, if you
only use one input at a time, it *should* locate the
port with the signal.
Using the OSD, there may be options to program how the
LCD monitor behaves with regard to its ports.
My new monitor only has two ports, it's dirt cheap (a bit
over a hundred), and VGA and HDMI are the choices. And so far,
I haven't needed to read the manual -- it's doing auto-select
OK on its own. If I was driving the monitor with two
computers, and both VGA and HDMI had signal on it, then
there will be occasions where I will need to find and use
the button on the monitor (bottom right, under the panel)
to make a port selection.
Paul

I'M AN IDIOT.
I was preparing to box up the monitor and, as a last minute check I
felt around the edges of the screen trying to find a hidden switch.
Moving to the back, with my bright flashlight I saw and irregularity
in the surface. I pushed on it and it gave, and also clicked. Looked
at the screen and there was my laptop mirror image! I l booted my
memtest floppy and then booted the hard drive. Boot drive had somehow
moved on the priority list, went into BIOS and fixed that and a few
moments later I was in XP.

I went back to check those 6 pages from the packing box I mentioned,
with all the languages and small print? The english was not TOO
helpful but if I'd just studied the pictures more closely, there was
an 'ON' switch plainly labeled.

I bought the monitor on the 2nd day of the problem, Walmart's was
packed, could hardly find a space to park, and I had a hell of a time
even finding out where the monitors were. (typical, I can never find
anything in a super store). Arriving home I guess I was in desperation
mode which in NOT condusive with good troubleshooting. Learned that
lesson 50 years ago but it never sticks.

Lots of returns going back to Amazon and NewEgg.

Anyway, Paul, thanks so much for all your determined help and I
learned a lot. Big entry in my system log (legal pads) starting
tomorrow along with a print-out of this topic. Hope this idiocy won't
turn you off from replying again the next time I'm in a spot.

[Paul]

Post by John B. Smith
Anyway, Paul, thanks so much for all your determined help and I
learned a lot. Big entry in my system log (legal pads) starting
tomorrow along with a print-out of this topic. Hope this idiocy won't
turn you off from replying again the next time I'm in a spot.

You do the actual work.

All we do out here is provide the hints.

Some of the visitors, do provide valuable information. One
person, without receiving any instruction in the matter,
rapidly flipped the switch on the ATX power supply, "on
and off fifty times". "And the power supply blew..."
Now, if someone else asks "can I flip the switch rapidly?",
the answer is No, and an anecdote follows :-) In fact, for
ATX supplies, after you turn it off, you should wait around
sixty seconds, for it to cool off (PTC inrush limiter).
Once the inrush limiter is ready, you can turn it on again.

It must be 20 years ago now, but one visitor managed to destroy
one computer after another, over a period of two months. I think
someone else in the particular group, on noticing this pattern, said
something like "maybe you're not meant for computers ?".
And the individual replied with an "Oh no, I know exactly
what I'm doing". The trail of carcasses in his room,
offered no hints.

Paul

[MummyChunk]

In article <voajoi1id5kk20all08nbhuruapp2v13ln
Got a new 2 TB hard drive for my 2008 homebuilt pc. Partitione

i

Win7 into 3 Primaries and 2 data. Macrium backed up al

partitions o

old drive and Macrium restored to partitions on new drive, B

frida

night I had everything working perfectly. But then I decided t
replace 2 SATA data cables that might be a little flaky

The moral of this story is don't f**k with it if it's working

The best advice ever given in this group


This is a response to the post seen at
http://www.jlaforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=657836070#65783607

[John B. Smith]

Post by Paul

Post by John B. Smith
Anyway, Paul, thanks so much for all your determined help and I
learned a lot. Big entry in my system log (legal pads) starting
tomorrow along with a print-out of this topic. Hope this idiocy won't
turn you off from replying again the next time I'm in a spot.

You do the actual work.
All we do out here is provide the hints.
Some of the visitors, do provide valuable information. One
person, without receiving any instruction in the matter,
rapidly flipped the switch on the ATX power supply, "on
and off fifty times". "And the power supply blew..."
Now, if someone else asks "can I flip the switch rapidly?",
the answer is No, and an anecdote follows :-) In fact, for
ATX supplies, after you turn it off, you should wait around
sixty seconds, for it to cool off (PTC inrush limiter).
Once the inrush limiter is ready, you can turn it on again.

I run XP and Win7 on this machine. (soon, hopefully, Win10 on my new
partition on my new 2TB hard drive). When I want to change OS's I have
to shut down and restart. I usually wait till my fans stop spinning
(10 seconds?) You might have saved me my latest power supply (850
watts because I learned here they lose wattage every year) Guess I'll
wait a little longer between shutdowns, Paul.

Post by Paul
It must be 20 years ago now, but one visitor managed to destroy
one computer after another, over a period of two months. I think
someone else in the particular group, on noticing this pattern, said
something like "maybe you're not meant for computers ?".
And the individual replied with an "Oh no, I know exactly
what I'm doing". The trail of carcasses in his room,
offered no hints.
Paul