Digital display with NVidia card?

[Matthew Saltzman]

On Tue, 6 Mar 2007, Ed Greshko wrote:

> Matthew Saltzman wrote:
>
>> Both are attached.
>
> OK, will take a look at them in a bit.  It is AM here and just getting 
> started.  Although Lonni is on it.  :-)
>
>>> nvidia-xconfig in run level 3 and use the xorg.conf it generated?
>>> 
>>> I believe that you are able to get the login prompt at level 3, right?
>> 
>> No, I see no display of virtual consoles.  I did run system-config-display
>> and nvidia-settings .  I can try nvidia-xconfig and nvidia-config-display
>> from runlevel 5 later.
>
> Sorry, just want to reconfirm a couple of things.
>
> 1.  When your system is first powered on, the monitor comes out of standby 
> mode and you do see the system's BIOS screens and if you wanted to you could 
> go into the BIOS settings displays.  Yes?

Now that you mention it, no.  The screen remains blank from power-on to X 
driver start--no POST, no boot messages, no rhgb, no VC.  (In fact, the 
first time I power on the monitor and then the CPU, the monitor appears to 
stay in analog mode until the machine finishes booting.  Then if I power 
the monitor off and on, it detects the digital signal.  After that, 
rebooting produces the result above.)

>
> 2.  If #1 is yes, can you see the grub menu?  If yes, what happens when
> you use "a" to change the kernel start line to remove rhgb and add "3" to
> boot to run level 3.  Do you still end up with a blank screen?

N/A, as above.

>
> 3.  Aside from 1 and 2.  When you boot and have the blank screen...can you
> use the "menu" buttons on your display and have the "on screen menu" show
> the "Display Mode"?.  If I recall correctly, part of the symptoms of my
> problem was that the monitor's display mode showed "Analog" instead of
> "Digital". So, even if only the digital cable was plugged in the monitor
> kept thinking the "Analog" was alive and would not switch mode...giving a
> blank screen.

So it appears, here.  After I get it to detect digital mode once, it will 
continue to do the following:

Sense message switches between analog and digital mode through the first 
few POST screens, then settles on digital, but the screen is blank, and 
the monitor menu does not appear.

-- 
 		Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs