Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!mips!sjsca4!poffen From: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware Subject: Re: Sporadic problem with VGA coming up in -- black and white mode? Message-ID: <1990Sep10.180105.17197@sj.ate.slb.com> Date: 10 Sep 90 18:01:05 GMT References: <6712@darkstar.ucsc.edu> Reply-To: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger) Distribution: na Organization: Schlumberger Technologies, San Jose, CA. Lines: 45 In article <6712@darkstar.ucsc.edu> funkstr@ucscb.ucsc.edu (Larry Hastings) writes: > > >My housemate's 386 has a Genoa 5400 Super-VGA card. Every 10th time it >boots up (on the average), it comes up thinking that it's some sort of black >and white card -- the text colors available are black, lo-white, hi-white, and >I think underlined. (A lot of colors don't show up at all.) This is very >reminiscent of MDA -- but nothing has asked it to be in an MDA mode. Not only >that, but trying to convince it to go to color either doesn't work, or hangs >the machine (for instance, changing to a super-VGA mode). The problem has >never gone away without rebooting, and (usually) it takes a couple of reboots >before the problem does go away. > >We had long attributed this to a bug in the card -- he got one of the very >first ones, and it would not suprise me if he had buggy ROMs. However, >this has now started happening on _my_ machine. (I just got my machine about >a month ago, and this has started happening within the last week.) I don't >recall what kind of VGA I have -- suffice to say it's pretty darn generic, >non-Super VGA. > >I don't think this is some sort of software virus, because: > a) My housemate's machine also runs UNIX, and it's happened under > UNIX as well, > b) it's also happened when booting from floppy, and > c) if it was a virus, it would probably be detected by a nice current > version of SCAN (which says that both systems are clean). > >Now I'm stumped. It's a really pissy annoying problem, too -- it can take >several reboots to get it to go away. Like 10 on a bad day. > >Have any of you had similar problems, and (if so) do you know of a solution? >-- Many VGA cards detect what type of monitor is connected so it can properly support it. I have found (with my V7 Fastwrite VGA at least), that I must power up the monitor first, or else the card will improperly detect what type of monitor it is, and I only get black and white. Perhaps this is related to your problem. Russ Poffenberger DOMAIN: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com Schlumberger Technologies UUCP: {uunet,decwrl,amdahl}!sjsca4!poffen 1601 Technology Drive CIS: 72401,276 San Jose, Ca. 95110 (408)437-5254