Wednesday, December 7, 2011

One on one with the PC.........

The CQWW DX CW contest was a blast and before the contest I did some thinking as to how I could best take advantage of the computers that I have at VE3WDM. I brain stormed the week before and came up with the idea that my main desktop PC would run my K3, logging program and propagation stuff. I could use a net book laptop to look at QRZ.COM, email and so on. So it was decided one monitor would look after the main PC "stuff" and the other would be hooked up to the net book and run the other "stuff". This plan worked great and I
was able to multi-task during the contest between two computers using two nice LCD monitors. The next day after the contest the net-book was snuggled in it's case and it was time to use
During the contest with both monitors

both LCD monitors on the main PC as it always had been done....As the PC booted up the one monitor display read "not connected". I then preceded to connect reconnect and change out the video cables but nothing had worked. I was still getting the "not connected" message floating around. I then in WinXP had a look at my video card. Maybe I just had to tell the PC to recognize the other monitor again. In the process of trying a dual monitor setting I did not read the warning that was counting down from 15 seconds. I just said "ok". Well now both monitors were blank with the message "not connected" Well that went well!!! It was off to Google to solve my troubles. Seems the net-book could had changed the monitor refresh rate and or resolution settings. Settings the main PC was not able to recognize and thus the message "not connected". According the the advice derived from Google searches I have to boot in VGA only mode. It was simple, I was told "wait for the Windows logo to appear and press F8". Easy if both monitors were not blank!!! So began the many restarts guessing when to press F8. Well in time I was successful and was able to get into VGA mode and repair both monitors. All is working well now and lesson learned. It turns out the net-book changed both the refresh rate and the resolution.

4 comments:

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Hello Mike, I know what it is. Trouble like this is always unexpected and if youknow what to do a small mistake is easily made. Glad you have screens again. 73, Bas

VE9KK said...

Good evening Bas, yes it sure was a surprise to see the floating message on the screen. But all is better and it's time to learn and.....well I won't say never again.....as NEVER for some reason happens again.

Anonymous said...

Hi Mike, you have more patience than me with PC's. PC Computers often drive me nuts (I think they sense my fear) :0)

My wife has a Mac, which I often find an excuse to use... :0)

Glad you fixed the problem, if that had been me there would have been wires hanging out everywhere.

73 de Mark MW0MJB

VE9KK said...

Good afternoon Mark, Julie has some Mac's as well and I will say I have to get used to the OS. Over all she has had no troubles with them.