Can you unhook a monitor while teh system is running?

[Tithulta]

I posted this awhile back and got no response, but I had it tucked in the end of one of my previous threads so i guess it was overlooked for that reason. So here is what i previously posted..

it's now running quite well, except one thing. I need my secondary system to be up and running so i unhooked the borrowed mouse,cdrom, and monitor. Well I also want the system to be running for burnin. I have it connected to my LAN so i can monitor it remotely to a small extent, but I can't seem to get it to boot into windows without being able to SEE. I'm assuming you can't disconnect a monitor from a running computer, but I thought I'd check and see. When in doubt my philosphy is leave it be. I know the LAN and all is working fine before I removed the moniter eeeetc etc. so how do you all who have more systems than you do monitors get them up and running in windows? WIN98se is the OS and yes you'd think it was simply wait until it seems to have stopped at the windows log-in and just press enter like I do on my other 2 systems. For some reason though this isn't working for the non-monitored system. SO know I know it's been shut down improperly and thus dunno what's going on with it. I'm about to just shutdown the secondary system and plug int he monitor and get it booted again shut down properly and go from there. Just thought I'd check in first in case it was possible to hot swap the monitor cable. Maybe by turnign off the monitor it's possible, but I'll await for confirmation of that before destroying something i cant afford to replace unless it's free.

Ok addenum
I got it booted and all straightened out and even wanted to run Sandra on it just to see it's scores, but forgot there wasn't anything on the drive to unzip it. For some odd reason before I tried to unzip it though(transfered the file over the LAN) I had rebooted. So on rebooting the LAN decided to quite. I haven't uninstalled it and reinstalled it yet as I'm upgrading the HDD to a bit more modern one. Anyrate my question remains...can the monitor be "HOT" swapped? What if the power is turned off on the monitor and then swapped?

I AM SOO glad to picking up a monitor for it Sunday...but in truth I want it Folding

One thing I want to tinker with is the fact the MB supports enough tweaks that should hardware be willing I could O/C the 300 mhz to 415. At the very least it has some great memory tweaks.

[rogerdugans]

Having 3 monitors and a total of 7 rigs crunching Seti@Home I am familiar with the problem!

I currently have 4 pcs in my basement with one monitor that is swapped out when I need to do something locally and off most of the time. I power it off when changing from one to another pc.
I also have just one mouse and keyboard down there: the trick with that is to set BIOS to stop on NO ERRORS- always boot anyway.

I can then use VNC to remotely log in to any of the machines for administration etc, including logging in (VNC can send a ctr-alt-del too if anyone else is still using NT 4.0)

2 of these rigs are running Linux as well: VNC also works on it!

Get VNC (http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/)

[eobard]

What he said, make sure the monitor is unpowered before you disconnect the data cable and make sure the data cable is in the new machine before you hit the power back on. I've got 2 (well, now 1.5 :mad: ) monitors for 3 machines.

[oc jason]

i think that u definately can, i jsut did ti when bosses monitor blew out, and plugged onew one it and it was just where he left it.

[CrystalMethod]

It depends on the monitor. The older ones you could run into some problems. But, when I'm at work, I plug in and unplug my monitor while it's on all the time. Well at least I used to. got the company to spend 800$ on lil' ol me, and got two 8 port KVM's. Really nice, to have. Now I can work on a total of 20 systems at a time, instead of the usual 4. Makes my life sooooo much easier.

[Yodums]

My cousin did it once just make sure the monitor is turned off like they said or you can like short circuit something.

[Jeff Bolton]

which raises another question i was thinking about asking...if i ever wanted to make a second system but wanted to share a monitor is there a switch or something that i can buy (like an A/B switch)? like i plug both computers into the switch and have the monitor plugged into the other side of the switch and then i just switch back and forth whenever i need to? i know they have these for printers so it'd be interesting to find out.

jeff

[flounder43]

Originally posted by Spike Spiegel
which raises another question i was thinking about asking...if i ever wanted to make a second system but wanted to share a monitor is there a switch or something that i can buy (like an A/B switch)? like i plug both computers into the switch and have the monitor plugged into the other side of the switch and then i just switch back and forth whenever i need to? i know they have these for printers so it'd be interesting to find out.

jeff

Yep, its called a kvm switch (keyboard, video, mouse) it swiches all three...

[Yodums]

Flounder said it.

My dad's 3 comps has it and an alternative name for it is a "data-switch" and it works great just that you got to make sure you boot up with the letter and let it boot into Windows before switching or else it won't detect a monitor ...

[Jeff Bolton]

awesome! does anyone know where i can find one?

jeff

[KaHNZa]

Um, I unplug and plugin monitors while they and the computer is on all the time. I've never had a problem in 3 years!

[FRANK]

Most of the better KVM switches will let you boot a machine without being set to it, it will still recognize the keyboard, mouse and monitor.

There are two types, first is the basic data switch which will usually cause a degradation of the video display and will not support higher resolutions, often limited to 480X640.

The better KVM switches are electronic and will still provide good video at higher resolutions, along with the ability to boot independently of the switch.

The data switches can be found in the $20 +/- range.

The electronic KVM switches run $50 and up depending on the number of ports and the basic quality of the unit.

Belkin, Lincsys and several other well known manufacturers offer these units. They can be found at most on-line parts vendors.

I highly recomend using the "electronic" type because of the video quality issue as well as the ability to boot machines independently of the switch.

I hope this helps.

Good luck!

[rogerdugans]

I have an old Data switch type- and it isn't really worth bothering with these.

One of these days I will get a kvm- network management is easy with VNC but any bios work must be done locally (tweaking a few more mhz).

Working through VNC for an extended period is frustrating as well: great for short stints, but not a few hours!

[flounder43]

The problem with KVM switches is that with 2 of my comps, when I switch away for too long, (on the order of hours), the mouse disappears on that comp. I have traced the prob. to the cheap vid cards, but it is still a bummer. I prefer to use VNC.

The cost also is an issue with KVM, for every comp, you need another keyboard, mouse, and monitor connertor cable.

I guess I have been able to make a combination of the KVM and VNC work for me.

[CrystalMethod]

Yeah, the cables are a hassle. But we got them pretty cheap, it was $8 for the 10' cables, and $4.50 for the 6' ones. They're cables made specifically for the KVM's, kinda big and bulky, but it sure beats tie wrapping separate cables together. The neat thing about the KVM's I got, is that they're electronic, and are daisy chained together (max is 8 of them that you can link together), keyboard hot key switching, OSD menu, all the good stuff. But then again, I didn't buy them myself, and I can't take them home... :(

[klosters64a]

Some plug and play components could possibly be hot plugged. SCA-80 SCSI HDD'S can allegedly be hot plugged. IMHO, nothing should ever be hot plugged. Nothing. Ever.

[CrystalMethod]

Originally posted by klosters64a
Some plug and play components could possibly be hot plugged. SCA-80 SCSI HDD'S can allegedly be hot plugged. IMHO, nothing should ever be hot plugged. Nothing. Ever.

It's true that some SCSI drives can be hot swapped. but you need the drives that are designed for this. It's usually only large servers that use this feature, I can't think of any reason anyone here would have a use for it. The only servers I've built with the hot swap SCSI drives were for a telecommunications company, where they couldn't shut down the servers to replace a drive without their clients being disconnected from the network.