Fink-Nottle

I've been given an old Viewsonic N1750w LCD display which I was trying to connect to a Power Mac G5 for my kids. The G5 has an ATI 9800 and I'm using a DVI/VGA adapter as the display is VGA only. The problem is that the monitor is a wide shape and therefore doesn't use a standard resolution... it likes 1280 by 768. When I boot the computer I can see the 'Apple' logo but then lose the connection when the 'Login' screen comes up. I can set the resolution manually using a different display and then connect the Viewsonic and it works, but it won't hold when I restart. In addition, the computer won't autodetect this display.

Any ideas to force the computer and login screen to use this resolution? I've tried SwitchResX and I've tried editing the pList file... but no success.

Thanks... I hate getting stumped on a problem at home.

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pm-r

Using a PRAM and/or vram reset comes to mind with the monitor turned On and connected.

wonderings

Are there specific drivers for that monitor? I have never needed drivers for any screen on my macs, but if its an odd resolution, maybe they released some drivers for it. Are you able to try the screen out on another mac and see if the problem persists there?

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pm-r

That monitor has a 1280x768 native resolution but can go to a maximum on PowerMac™ G3/G4/G5 up to 1280x1024, all of which should be available from the Displays pref pane.

CanadaRAM

When connecting by VGA, the Mac does not give you all of the possible resolutions

+ Some cards do not support 1280 x 768 -- the ATI 9800 for example
Supported display graphics: 1152x864, 1920x1080, 1920x1200, 1920x1440, VGA (640x480), SVGA (800x600), XGA (1024x768), QXGA (2048x1536), SXGA (1280x1024), UXGA (1600x1200)

You can't take for granted that all possible resolutions lower than Max x Max are supported.

pm-r

Thanks Trevor (CanadaRam) and I'm guessing that using a DVI-VGA adapter could also impede what resolutions are available for use.

But I'm confused as to why the OP would be using such an adapter as FAIK, those Mac G5 ATI 9800 cards had VGA, DVI and s-video outputs, so why not use the VGA port directly and maybe get more resolution choices that will work and stick???