Need help with monitor...

[Kickin_Wing]

I just got 2 giant and extremely heavy monitors from a friend and have a couple questions about them:

First, they are Digital (brand) monitors and there are two model numbers on the back: GDM-1961 and VRT19-HA.

Also they, don't hookup using the standard VGA connector, they have 3 connectors for the video-out. And they look kind of like the composite cable to hookup to your TV, but have slots instead of rounded, circular probes.

( | ) ( | ) ( | ) <---- diagram

What kind of cable do I need to hook these up to a VGA input and where can I find it? And will these monitors work with either Microsoft Windows and/or Sun Solairs?

Thanks,
Kickin' Wing -
Proud Member of Folding@Home's team Overclockers.com

[Placid]

They sound like bnc connector's. Are they marked r-b-g ?
Try radio shack for a cable.

If they are bnc these type of monitors are usually fixed frequency and if you try to use on with a modern video card it might damage the monitor.

[Kickin_Wing]

Yes, on one of them it's labeled R-G-B, for Red-Green-Blue I'm guessing.

And he said that they were Fixed Frequency, is there any way to use them now? Maybe on my Sun Ultra 5?

[Placid]

I don't know what a sun ultra 5 is sorry maybe someone else can answer that.

So one is rgb then the other two one is horizontal and the other vertical.

Too bad your friend didn't have the cable from them.

[Kickin_Wing]

To clarify (I guess I misspoke):

I have only 2 monitors.

The one I was looking at for the original post is a Digital the other a Reflex.

The Digital has two model numbers on it.

They all have vertical-slot inputs, in R-G-B I only ment to seperate the letters.

And a Sun Ultra 5 is a computer that Sun Microsystems makes for use as a Server or Java Developer (but obviously you can do other stuff with it).

Thanks for the help Placid,
Kickin' Wing

[Breadfan]

You can buy a connector that turns the RGBVH into a connector for a vga card.

The BNC connectors just seperate the signal with seperate hookups for blue, red, green, vertical sync and horizontal sync. The BNC cables typically have less signal degredation which is important on large monitors...for instnace, if you use a cheesy vga cable as opposed to a really nice one, you CAN see a difference on a large monitor (atleast older ones).

If you need one...check here perhaps:
http://www.monitorworld.com/Cables/hd15male_to_5bncmale.html

Not sure the best place to find one, so I'd reccomend a google search for hd15 to bnc adapters....

My 20" Sony (an HP), uses BNC connectors. And...my monitor is multisync. That digital may still be multisync, but if not, then most likely its built to run on your Sun...

Hope you find what you need!
Mike

[PsycoPhreak]

"Fixed frequency" monitors aren't that great, you can't use them on a system where your going to be running programs that automatically change the resolution to suit whatever they have to display. You can use them, but, you have to make sure your using a video card that can support the frequencies needed by the monitor ( in this case, it would be 1280x1024 72.5 refresh ) The card must be capable of displaying this at all times ( also under boot, we all know the typical boot screen is NOT any where near these specs, so the card used MUST support it, or you won't see the "post" screen any possibly other system screens unless they are at 1280x1024 72.5 Hz)

PS. running these monitors are possible on any system that has a video card that can support these specs. but if you try to run anything different, you can kill the monitor. there is more to it than this, but i'm tired and can't think about any more right now, I put some specs here so you can see what you need to run these monitors.


Specifications for the VRT 19-HA (AKA SONY GDM-1961):

Display Resolution: 1280x1024
Pixel CLock: 130Mhz

Input: BNC RGB Sync on green

Horizonital

Horiz Freq: 77.1728 Khz
Active Video: 9.7853 us (1280 pixels)
Back Porch: 1712.4 ns (224 pixels)
Blanking Interval: 3.1802 us (416 pixels)
Front Porch: 244.6 ns (32 pixels)
Horizontal Period: 12.9656 us (1696 pixels)
Sync Pulse: 1223.2 ns (160 pixels)

Vertical

Vert Freq: 72.5562 Hz
Active Video: 13.2768 ms
Blanking Interval: 39 horizontal lines
Front Porch: 3 horizontal lines
Sync Pulse: 3 horizontal lines
Vertical Period: 13.7824 ms

Power Consumption: 220 watts maximum