[rescue] question on video cards for U10

[Kevin Fitzgerrell]

> On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 22:20:33 -0800
> Brian Howe <bwhowe at gmail.com> wrote:
> I would like to add a video card to my U10 so that I can use my LCD
> monitor. I know that the builtin adapter will not work with my display
> because in needs to have sync-on-green.



Brian,

I've not experienced this problem with the built-in adapter on the U5/U10.
I'm running LCD monitors with lots of U5/U10 workstations.  The only ones I
need a sync combiner for use with LCD monitors are those where I have a
second monitor run off a TechSource Raptor GFX PCI card.  The PGX
framebuffers support VESA timing and choice of seperate and composite sync,
however having said that, early LCD monitors were VERY picky about timing.

If your built in adapter is working on a CRT but not on your LCD, and your
LCD monitor is fairly recent, try running m64config -prconf to see what it's
current settings are.  Probably you'll want to change to 1024x768x60 or
1280x1024x60 before you connect the LCD.

If you want a cheap 2nd video card that supports composite sync, just stay
away from the Raptor GFX, as they don't support composite sync at 60mhz.
The earlier Sun PGX with the 13W3 plug should work OK, with a 13W3-VGA
adapter, and I think the more recent Sun PGX64 cards are fine too, but I
don't have one handy to check now.

As far as using PC video cards, there are Solaris Sparc drivers out for some
of the Matrox cards (Millenium I/II, and I think the G100/200), but they
will only work as 2nd head, not as console.

As I type this I see your last post noted you're running FreeBSD.
FreeBSD-sparc64 has very limited framebuffer support.  What version are you
running?  See the release notes at:
http://www.freebsd.org/relnotes/5-STABLE/errata/late-news.html for some
details.

Regards,

Kevin