On Mon, 2004-06-28 at 01:32, Jeff Vian wrote: > > resonance and overheating the HOT. I have personally > > toasted 5 monitors with Linux, and 1 with Windows. > > > > In over 20 years working with PCs I have never toasted a monitor when > configuring it. I only recall having a couple fail at all, I usually > upgrade them before they fail. > > In the early stages of developing Linux and X I heard horror stories of > people doing so, but I AFAICT that was more hype and urban legend than > actual problems. I have never met anyone who claims to have had that > happen to them personally. > > With modern monitors and video cards and especially with the > configuration software available now, it is very hard to even come close > to setting up a server config that might damage a monitor when trying to > start up. > > If you have toasted that many monitors it seems that 1) you are > extraordinarily unlucky, or 2) your work practices are unsafe and you do > not learn from mistakes. (I would prefer to believe 1 is the case) Many years ago I believed it was impossible to physically damage a computers hardware with software. But a guy at work proved me wrong. This was back in the dark ages when the old Hercules graphics cards were being used on the original IBM PCs and the first clones. In those days you poked values into the video cards registers to set the frequency output to the monitor. And what a lot of people found was that many monitors would release the magic smoke from inside if you poked the wrong value into those registers. This was typically preceded by a high pitched whine just before the smoke curled from the back of the monitor. Have not heard much of that kind of problem with todays equipment. They should have protection circuits to prevent such things. But as you said, if one person has smoked that much equipment there must be something going wrong. :) -- Scot L. Harris webid@xxxxxxxxxx guru, n: A computer owner who can read the manual.
