suggestions on an "all purpose" diagnostic monitor

[knoober]

My homemade nas has problems every once in a while that requires I plug in a monitor for diagnostics. I have an old vga monitor that I can hook up with a dvi adapter, but I think it might be time to move up to something simpler to use. VGA to DVI and the bulky power supply are a pain (1st world problem I am sure). I would like to have a small and low cost monitor that I can store easily and plug in to a dangling wire on the gpu. An hdmi capable tablet would be ideal because I could use it for other stuff, but I would settle for a cheap (not sure what that means for this use) and portable hdmi screen that I can look at the BIOS with. Does anyone have a favorite they could recommend?

 

[Johan45]

For a cheap monitor check thrift stores

 

[WhitehawkEQ]

KVM switch? There are VGA, DVI, HDMI and I think DP versions.

 

[wagex]

What operating system does it use? is there a gui, or remote desktop client you can use?

 

[WhitehawkEQ]

I'm going to assume Knoober is using FreeNas. Am I right?

 

[knoober]

It's a Ubuntu build that I am migrating to Debian, and I just ssh into it when I need to. The problem is that this board is old and once in a blue moon the bios hiccups and it won't boot. Every time that happens I have to dig in the back of the garage for an old monitor to view the BIOS, plug in a keyboard, hit one key... Then put everything away and continue with ssh.

What I want to do is leave a dangling hdmi cord and just plug in a little tablet sized monitor. Lazy but... Quality of life/ease of use right?

 

[WhitehawkEQ]

It's a Ubuntu build that I am migrating to Debian, and I just ssh into it when I need to. The problem is that this board is old and once in a blue moon the bios hiccups and it won't boot. Every time that happens I have to dig in the back of the garage for an old monitor to view the BIOS, plug in a keyboard, hit one key... Then put everything away and continue with ssh.

What I want to do is leave a dangling hdmi cord and just plug in a little tablet sized monitor. Lazy but... Quality of life/ease of use right?

Get a KVM switch like this one --> IOgear-GCS72U-d-sub-usb, then you won't need to dig anything out of the garage

 

[NiHaoMike]

Get one of those cheap HDMI capture sticks (make sure it's based on the MS2109 chipset, the older ones were really junk) and a USB OTG cable for your smartphone or tablet.
https://hackaday.com/2020/07/18/an-hdmi-monitor-from-your-phone/