I am a newbie to the world of Sun and just picked up an ultra 5 workstation
to learn the ways of Solaris so go easy on me with this question. The ultra
5 has a pci video card that does not require a sparc to vga converter. I
had the video hooked up using my Compaq 8 port KVM switch that runs off a
LCD panel monitor. The problem it when I have the Sun box hooked up to the
kvm the video does not appear to sync up. I just get a bunch of wavey lines
on the screen. If I connect the Sun box directly to the lcd monitor and
bypass the kvm switch then it works fine. Does anyone know if there is
anything I can do to get the video working using my kvm switch?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!!
Mike

"Mike" <mikenews03@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<Ff3ib.6806$843.2620@nwrddc03.gnilink.net>...
> I am a newbie to the world of Sun and just picked up an ultra 5 workstation
> to learn the ways of Solaris so go easy on me with this question. The ultra
> 5 has a pci video card that does not require a sparc to vga converter. I
> had the video hooked up using my Compaq 8 port KVM switch that runs off a
> LCD panel monitor. The problem it when I have the Sun box hooked up to the
> kvm the video does not appear to sync up. I just get a bunch of wavey lines
> on the screen. If I connect the Sun box directly to the lcd monitor and
> bypass the kvm switch then it works fine. Does anyone know if there is
> anything I can do to get the video working using my kvm switch?
>
> Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks!!
> Mike

Mike,

I may have seen this before, but I can't remember if I actually solved
it. What resolution are you running on the Sun box? Do a the
following to find out (as root).

fbconfig -res \?
fbconfig -propt

This should give you some information about your card. I suspect the
refresh rate is too high. I'm not sure which video card you have, but
you can find out by looking in /dev/fbs/ directory.

It might be an ifb0, afb0, ffb0, or jfb0. You can look at
sunsolve.sun.com to find our which they are. Also, naturally ensure
you have the latest patches for that video card. Also the banner at
bootup should tell you too. It should have a graphic logo on the left
corner of the screen during Open Boot Prom banner display.

To set the refresh rate lower do this:

fbconfig -dev afb0 -res 1024x768x60 (assuming you have an afb video
in /dev/fbs directory).

Log off, then back on, this will ALWAY restart X for you.
Sometimes it's necessary to kill the dtlogin manager. To do this,
log on to the console (command line) option on the CDE login screen.

as root, run /etc/init.d/dtlogin stop
change your settings, then /etc/init.d/dtlogin start
then Control-D to log out. You may have to wait a few seconds to let
CDE respawn itself.

Hope this makes some sense and helps,

Chris

"Mike" <mikenews03@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<Ff3ib.6806$843.2620@nwrddc03.gnilink.net>...
> I am a newbie to the world of Sun and just picked up an ultra 5 workstation
> to learn the ways of Solaris so go easy on me with this question. The ultra
> 5 has a pci video card that does not require a sparc to vga converter. I
> had the video hooked up using my Compaq 8 port KVM switch that runs off a
> LCD panel monitor. The problem it when I have the Sun box hooked up to the
> kvm the video does not appear to sync up. I just get a bunch of wavey lines
> on the screen. If I connect the Sun box directly to the lcd monitor and
> bypass the kvm switch then it works fine. Does anyone know if there is
> anything I can do to get the video working using my kvm switch?
>
> Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks!!
> Mike

Mike, I may have seen this before, but I can't remember if I actually
solved it. What resolution are you running on the Sun box? Do a the
following to find out (as root).

fbconfig -res \?
fbconfig -propt

This should give you some information about your card. I suspect the
refresh rate is too high. I'm not sure which are you have, but you
can find out by looking in /dev/fbs/

They might be an ifb0, afb0, or ffb0, jfb0. You can look at
sunsolve.sun.com to find our which they are. Also, naturally ensure
you have the latest patches for that video card.

To set the refresh rate lower do this:

fbconfig -dev afb0 -res 1024x768x60 (assuming you have an afb video
in /dev/fbs directory).

Log off, then back on, this will ALWAY restart X for you.
Sometimes it's necessary to kill the dtlogin manager. To do this,
log on to the console (command line) option on the CDE login screen.

as root, run /etc/init.d/dtlogin stop
change your settings, then /etc/init.d/dtlogin start
then Control-D to log out. You may have to wait a few seconds to let
CDE respawn itself.

Hope this makes some sense and helps,

Chris

"Mike" <mikenews03@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<Ff3ib.6806$843.2620@nwrddc03.gnilink.net>...
> I am a newbie to the world of Sun and just picked up an ultra 5 workstation
> to learn the ways of Solaris so go easy on me with this question. The ultra
> 5 has a pci video card that does not require a sparc to vga converter. I
> had the video hooked up using my Compaq 8 port KVM switch that runs off a
> LCD panel monitor. The problem it when I have the Sun box hooked up to the
> kvm the video does not appear to sync up. I just get a bunch of wavey lines
> on the screen. If I connect the Sun box directly to the lcd monitor and
> bypass the kvm switch then it works fine. Does anyone know if there is
> anything I can do to get the video working using my kvm switch?
>
> Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks!!
> Mike

Mike,

I may have seen this before, but I can't remember if I actually solved
it. What resolution are you running on the Sun box? Do a the
following to find out (as root).

fbconfig -res \?
fbconfig -propt

This should give you some information about your card. I suspect the
refresh rate is too high. I'm not sure which video card you have, but
you can find out by looking in /dev/fbs/ directory.

It might be an ifb0, afb0, ffb0, or jfb0. You can look at
sunsolve.sun.com to find our which they are. Also, naturally ensure
you have the latest patches for that video card. Also the banner at
bootup should tell you too. It should have a graphic logo on the left
corner of the screen during Open Boot Prom banner display.

To set the refresh rate lower do this:

fbconfig -dev afb0 -res 1024x768x60 (assuming you have an afb video
in /dev/fbs directory).

Log off, then back on, this will ALWAY restart X for you.
Sometimes it's necessary to kill the dtlogin manager. To do this,
log on to the console (command line) option on the CDE login screen.

as root, run /etc/init.d/dtlogin stop
change your settings, then /etc/init.d/dtlogin start
then Control-D to log out. You may have to wait a few seconds to let
CDE respawn itself.

Hope this makes some sense and helps,

Chris

"Mike" <mikenews03@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<Ff3ib.6806$843.2620@nwrddc03.gnilink.net>...
> I am a newbie to the world of Sun and just picked up an ultra 5 workstation
> to learn the ways of Solaris so go easy on me with this question. The ultra
> 5 has a pci video card that does not require a sparc to vga converter. I
> had the video hooked up using my Compaq 8 port KVM switch that runs off a
> LCD panel monitor. The problem it when I have the Sun box hooked up to the
> kvm the video does not appear to sync up. I just get a bunch of wavey lines
> on the screen. If I connect the Sun box directly to the lcd monitor and
> bypass the kvm switch then it works fine. Does anyone know if there is
> anything I can do to get the video working using my kvm switch?
>
> Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks!!
> Mike

I had the same problem. You must set the Screen to all servers equal,
perhaps 800x600 or 1024x768. The Sun doesn't recognize the lost of the
signal and will not resync. This little trick helps me.

CU
Klaus Grote