monitor annoyance (new hardward found ... on startup)

[Molecule]

While trying a drive cloning program (CDriveBack -- linux based CDrom, apparently great for cloning XP) I apparently burned up my NEC Multisync-17 monitor.

(After booting linux from a CD, it uses std text view display (vga 640x480 display mode 5?). Whatever display mode it was, when it displayed on my monitor screen, the text ran way past the left and right edges and down past the bottom of the screen. When I tried using monitor sizing controls to, squeece the screen into the viewing area, I apparently turned up the voltage on something inside my old and tired monitor and ... blam ...)

I bought a new 19" Hannag HX191DPB digital monitor -- mainly because it was cheaper than a 5 year used Dell and it has the old "square" look to it. It hooked right up and seems to be displaying 1280x1024 x 16bit high color just fine. I'm using an old Matrox G400 video card.

The startup disc that came with it doesn't have any .inf files, nor does the www.hannsg.com website have any drivers to download for the monitor. Several forum postings elsewhere also indicate that this monitor runs (in XP and Vista) without any drivers, and so none are provided.

On startup, 98se identifies the monitor, and tries to load a driver for it -- but I can't feed it one, or don't know which one to feed it.

Is there anything I can do, so that on startup I don't get the "new hardware found" dialog each time I boot up?

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Also, during bootup, when the BIOS is scanning hardware and outputting results to the monitor, the results show in dos-style B/W text mode, but the text is running off the left sides and bottom of the screen.

Is there anything I can do to stop the process at that moment, so that I can adjust the monitor? Maybe run some dos program that will bring up that video mode? Does anyone know the display mode number for BIOS output during displays, and how to replicate it in a program?

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If my video card is going -- is there a good totally generic behind-the-curve dumbed down video card that I can buy with 98se drivers?

[Drugwash]

1. Press the Pause key while the POST message is displayed, if you wanna tinker with the monitor settings (continue boot by pressing Enter)

2. Dunno about ATI, but there's a thread about an unofficial nVidia driver v82.69 that apparently supports quite a range of nVidia video cards (up to the 7xxx series at least)

3. At least theoretically, a custom inf could be built for your new Hannag monitor. Just analyzing the other drivers (look for monitorX.inf in Windows\Inf) would offer enough hints; most important thing is to know exactly it's capabilities and limitations

[Kwibus]

There are default monitor drivers in win 98

next time the computer boots up and says it has detected the unknown monitor select

display a list of all drivers

select show all hard ware

then select the super VGA 1280 x 1024 under standard monitor types.

I think your monitor should work with this driver.

[noguru]

This new monitor should be plug and play and win9x can recognize pnp monitors.

See if pnp monitor detection is enabled in display settings.

You can also install the pnp "driver" manually the same way how kwibus described to install the standard VGA. With your monitor standard VGA will probably work fine too, but in case you run into refreshrate problems pnp might be better. On my system I have a additional VGA 1280x1024 @75 Hz option. I guess that without the @75Hz it will use the adapters default, 60 Hz in most cases. This is also fine on your new screen but will be horrible on a CRT.

[Molecule]

thanks guys -- Drugwash, Kwibus, noguru

once I found out were I had hidden 98se's default monitors.inf, everything has worked just fine