>>I can't hot-swap the monitor..... can I? I've got the Cornerstone comming soon.
Sure you can. The only restriction is that the new monitor
has to be able to handle the settings the old one was running
on. Unless you were running very high res and high vertical
refresh, that will almost certainly not be a problem, especially if the current monitor is a few years old.
Even if the new monitor won't sync at the old
setting, all you have to do is put the old one back and
adjust the display properities; you are VERY unlikely
to hurt a modern monitor by feeding it a poison sync
signal.
Your new monitor's manual
will tell you what resolution/refresh rates it will support.
The monitor is not in itself sensitive to color depth, but
the video card is (will support higher refresh rates at
lower color depths).
BTW, exactly the same thing will be true if you turn it
off, change monitors, then turn it back on. The new
monitor will still have to operate at the old settings.
Finally, your video card probably has a monitor database
which contains the settings of most current monitors.
Did you get a Matrox? If so (and its driver is installed),
right click anywhere on the desk top, choose MGA Display
properties, go to the Monitor tab, and check the
MGA Monitor check box. You will see a list of monitors
in the database. If it has yours, it will show you
compatible settings. I have to admit I don't see
Cornerstone in my Matrox database. (If you don't have MGA Display
properties, the Matrox driver isn't loaded. You can
download the current driver from their web site.)
NOTE: The preceding paragraph is specific to Matrox
cards with unified drivers. If you don't see MGA
properties when you right click the desktop, none of
it applies. You can still look up compatible settings
in the monitor manual though.
I see by typing along here I've made a nit sound like
a big deal. Just swap the monitor and it's 20 to 1
it will work; if it doesn't, swap back and play with
the settings till it does.
Spots |
