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Urgent - Video Monitor Help Needed

Got a friend in the middle of nowhere with a problem. Told him I'd post here to see if anybody knew the answer.

Situation: Five Dell servers each equipped with one ATI Radion X1300 video card. Problem is, he needs each card to come up with both video outputs active - which it WILL do, but ONLY if both monitors are present.

Port-A is a DVI style, and Port-B is a VGA style.

Technically, I think the VGA is active all the time regardless. But the problem is not on the VGA side.

Basically, he wants to use a single monitor on the DVI side for all 5 servers. And evidently, if the server boots (reboots) and there's no monitor connected on the DVI port, it will not enable it. The only way to get it back is to connect a monitor and reboot that particular server.

Anyone know a way around this, or a way to fake-out the hardware? I am not that familiar with the DVI interface.

My apologies for posting here, but this is really the only newsgroup I'm subscribed to. Please recommend, if you know a better place to ask.

Thanks!!

-mpm

Reply to
mpm
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It's a KVM issue. It must be able to emulate DVI, so the card doesn't drop the output. Very few KVM can do this. I believe IOGear has a few models, but insist on a money-back guarantee... IOGear "support" sucks the big lemon, so you have to sort out unusual things on your own.

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
         America: Land of the Free, Because of the Brave
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Exactly. If there is no attachment on the DVI port, it will only initialize the VGA out port, so emulation on any switcher device used would be requisite.

Get an HDMI monitor, as HDMI switchers have this function. Then, you can pipe all your cards to the HDMI switch via DVI to HDMI cables (or converter adapters) and a single HDMI cable to the monitor. Use the KVM switch to switch the Kbd and mouse, and the HDMI switch to select the machine the monitor gets hooked to.

Reply to
ChairmanOfTheBored

As an addendum, most displays that do have an HDMI input also have either an RGB or a VGA input, so even if the DVI should fail to come up upon a reboot, he could ALSO kvm the vga outputs of the vid cards to the display, and ALWAYS be guaranteed a way to view what is going on on a given server.

Reply to
ChairmanOfTheBored

Thanks guys. I have forwared your suggestions to him.!!

-mpm

Reply to
mpm

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