[weblacky]

It really was automatic!

And my comment on the resolution wasn’t about you, I was saying/asking why previous owners always screw with the screen properties and muck them up. I never implied you did this is to yourself, you were explicit on the system already being this way.

Now you might want to remove the flat panel card during install to be sure. (I have not yet done my own O2 with flat panel adapter install yet).

My experience was to check the station’s manual for the terminal settings, hooked it up, and opened the serial session on the laptop before I booted the SGI station.

Booted the SGI Station.

PROM menu came up on the serial terminal automatically as well as on the main monitor and I interacted with it via serial terminal. This tells the PROM you’re interested in using the serial terminal. From then on everything was just like installing from the PROM mini root window but via the serial terminal.

After install was done it rebooted, and the login screen appeared on the main monitor.

I literally did nothing else than install using serial interface to type inst commands.

Try it and you’ll see. Just follow what the O2 station manual says to do for terminal hookup!

Good luck,

[blacksmith]

I am not sure if the O2 can output to VGA if the flat panel card is installed. I think I've read that only one output is working at any given time. I will try to connect a VGA monitor on mine and I will come back with results (at this point mine has the flat panel card and flat SGI monitor attached).

[weblacky]

I have a “new found” O2 with flat panel card, but I only booted it to PROM via VGA. which works fine. Unsure once OS boots if you’d need to manually install drivers or what happens with Irix.

But 100% sure PROM shows on VGA.

[Jacques]

I am not sure if the O2 can output to VGA if the flat panel card is installed. I think I've read that only one output is working at any given time. I will try to connect a VGA monitor on mine and I will come back with results (at this point mine has the flat panel card and flat SGI monitor attached).

Yes it can output to VGA if the FPA card is installed. I don't think you can connect a VGA and FP display at the same time though. My O2 has a FPA and I swap between 1600SW and VGA all the time.

[Irinikus]

I am not sure if the O2 can output to VGA if the flat panel card is installed. I think I've read that only one output is working at any given time. I will try to connect a VGA monitor on mine and I will come back with results (at this point mine has the flat panel card and flat SGI monitor attached).

Yes it can output to VGA if the FPA card is installed. I don't think you can connect a VGA and FP display at the same time though. My O2 has a FPA and I swap between 1600SW and VGA all the time.

But surely you can only do this through IRIX. What if it was last outputting through the FPA and the system disk was wiped?

[guibrush]

@ weblacky:

And my comment on the resolution wasn’t about you,

No problem :-)
Now I'm trying to install Irix 6.5 via the serial connection, but I have errors while doing it. But this is certainly me not doing things correctly, I have to studdy carrefuly. The installation process was going well for a long time, but it ended with an error.

https://siliconimage.irixnet.org/User-Al...0143a87737

I removed the flat pannel card to be sure.

@ blacksmith:
I confirm that the O2 can display the PROM menu on the VGA output when the flat pannel card is attached. It's only when booting that the screen goes to black.

@ JoaquinSanchez:
Interesting. When you swap to VGA, you have to do something in the system or it works automatically ?

@ Irinikus:
You think that the command that tell to change the output is issued only under Irix, but store his value in the PRAM chip, right ?

@ all:
What I did inbetween is ordering a flat pannel monitor on Ebay, to hook it up on the card. It can solve the issue then, as I could simply use the O2 with the flat pannel card instead the VGA. It will then confirm or infirm the theory about the PRAM stored value.

[Jacques]

I don't do anything, just power down the O2, disconnect the 1600SW display and plug in the VGA. The system will boot with 1280x1024 on the VGA port. When I power down, disconnect the VGA and plug in the 1600SW it automatically reverts to the FPA native resolution, as the FPA on the O2 cannot display anything but the native display resolution. It's all automatic.

[guibrush]

ok, thanks.

I will keep you informed as soon I get the flat panel monitor. My guess is that I will eventually got a picture on it, letting me installing Irix. Once the system is installed, I hope it works like you describe it. Let's see :-)

[Jacques]

I didn't want to hog space on the image hosting site, I'll be taking the Flickr video down in a week as it's eating into my Flickr space.

Here is a vid of the O2 / Irix doing automatic adjustments when swapping out between a VGA output at 1440x900 @ 60 Hz on a widescreen Dell 24 inch panel to a 1600SW panel via the FPA, outputting at the native panel resolution of 1600x1024 at 60 Hz. The video cuts off at 3min but the last 3min was of me swapping back to VGA again, once again landing on the Dell at 1440x900.

https://flic.kr/p/2i7qySm

PS - Extreme fan mod for the very noisy 4500rpm cpu fan done! It's very quiet and the machine is much cooler. I don't have a PCI tray, but I suspect a 10mm 92mm Kaze fan would work just as well. 

[Irinikus]

Just a thought, but it might be your monitor!

I don't know about the O2, but machines such as the Tezro do change the way they output when they go from the PROM to loading the OS. (Maybe this is what is happening here.)

Try another monitor if you can.