I have just bought a new system to set up for a friend. Quite straightforward Asrock G41MH-GE motherboard with a HANNspree 23" monitor.
It's been a right royal pain to get going as much because of the silly monitor and BIOS setups as because of a kernel/Intel incompatibility.
The monitor initially seems pretty standard with on screen setup and buttons to move through the menus but the real pain is that if there is no signal input you can't activate the menu. It actually tells you this in the manual, I didn't believe it at first but it really is true.
I had set the monitor to VGA input (it's dual VGA and HDMI) but (for various reasons, see below) I had the HDMI lead connected. Hit the 'menu' button and notheing happens because there's no input on the VGA connector, sort of Catch22 really, I had to actually connect something to send it a VGA signal to let me get the menu up to switch it to DVI input. OK, it would *probably* have managed itself if I'd left it at Auto input select but we wanted to specifiy which input was being used.
Then onto the BIOS on the Asrock motherboard. The boot options only appear for a very short time, too short to actually read them so you have to look in the manual to find it's F2 to get the BIOS setup. The real oddity though is that the splash screen (with the options) *only* appears after a power on, hitting the reset button doesn't show it so then you are really in the dark. I've never come across a motherboard where hitting reset doesn't produce the same effect as power on.
Chris G wrote:
The monitor initially seems pretty standard with on screen setup and buttons to move through the menus but the real pain is that if there is no signal input you can't activate the menu. It actually tells you this in the manual, I didn't believe it at first but it really is true.
I had set the monitor to VGA input (it's dual VGA and HDMI) but (for various reasons, see below) I had the HDMI lead connected. Hit the 'menu' button and notheing happens because there's no input on the VGA connector, sort of Catch22 really, I had to actually connect something to send it a VGA signal to let me get the menu up to switch it to DVI input. OK, it would *probably* have managed itself if I'd left it at Auto input select but we wanted to specifiy which input was being used.
To be honest this is the norm, I can't think of a recent monitor I have seen where you can get into the menu without a signal being present. That said everything I have seen will automatically switch to the appropriate input if only one is present so I am not sure why you had problems here.
One thing worth bearing in mind is that DVI is not hotplug safe (well officially neither is VGA) but hot-plugging DVI can cause all manner of funnies.
On 11 February 2010 18:36, Wayne Stallwood ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk wrote:
One thing worth bearing in mind is that DVI is not hotplug safe (well officially neither is VGA) but hot-plugging DVI can cause all manner of funnies.
If DVI isn't hotplug safe, why does it have pins for hotplug detect? http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=dvi+hot+plug+detect
Tim.
Tim Green wrote:
On 11 February 2010 18:36, Wayne Stallwood ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk wrote:
One thing worth bearing in mind is that DVI is not hotplug safe (well officially neither is VGA) but hot-plugging DVI can cause all manner of funnies.
If DVI isn't hotplug safe, why does it have pins for hotplug detect? http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=dvi+hot+plug+detect
Maybe the interface has a specification that can include hotplug, but in my experience it either isn't implemented or is implemented in a broken way as I have seen/heard of several cases where hotplugging a DVI interface can cause rather strange issues including Monitors that think they should be asleep or stuck on the wrong input.
Also the connector assembly itself isn't hotplug safe IMO (except perhaps mini-dvi) as it is possible to plug it in a way that all pins don't connect at the same time...compared to connectors designed for hotplug like USB/Firewire/SATA etc
On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 06:36:17PM +0000, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
Chris G wrote:
The monitor initially seems pretty standard with on screen setup and buttons to move through the menus but the real pain is that if there is no signal input you can't activate the menu. It actually tells you this in the manual, I didn't believe it at first but it really is true.
I had set the monitor to VGA input (it's dual VGA and HDMI) but (for various reasons, see below) I had the HDMI lead connected. Hit the 'menu' button and notheing happens because there's no input on the VGA connector, sort of Catch22 really, I had to actually connect something to send it a VGA signal to let me get the menu up to switch it to DVI input. OK, it would *probably* have managed itself if I'd left it at Auto input select but we wanted to specifiy which input was being used.
To be honest this is the norm, I can't think of a recent monitor I have seen where you can get into the menu without a signal being present. That said everything I have seen will automatically switch to the appropriate input if only one is present so I am not sure why you had problems here.
One thing worth bearing in mind is that DVI is not hotplug safe (well officially neither is VGA) but hot-plugging DVI can cause all manner of funnies.
I think the real downside of this monitor is the time it takes to show something on screen after a signal appears. I'm pretty sure this is why I was having problems with the motherboard BIOS, it *was* showing the splash screen but the monitor wasn't waking up quickly enough.
-
Chris G -
Tim Green -
Wayne Stallwood