A Little Bit Lazy

I had a big issue with my computers yesterday: the DVI input of my LCD monitor stopped working all of a sudden. The monitor is a Viewsonic VX2025wm 20.1″ widescreen LCD. I have had it for a few months and the DVI input has been working perfectly untill yesterday. I have two desktop computers which are sharing the Viewsonic monitor. I was switching the monitor connection between them yesterday afternoon. And all of a sudden I got a black screen (on both computers) and the monitor told me “No Input Signal”. I tried to reboot both computers but no go. There was nothing on the screen.

Since Viewsonic VX2025wm also has a VGA port, I dug out a VGA cable and connected the computers to the monitor via VGA. The funny thing is both computers worked fine on VGA. I thought to myself that the DVI port on the monitor might get fried.

After some googling I found out that some people are having this exact same problem. Here is a link on [H]ard Fourm: VX2025WM problems?. In this thread it is mentioned that some Dell LCD monitors are experiencing this problem and Dell has come up with a solution. The solution can be found on Dell Support Forum and here is the link.

Basically what happened was that my NVidia vedio card messed up with my LCD monitor’s EDID and put the monitor in a permanent DVI Power Save Mode. The solution is simple. Just download this ZIP file and follow the instructions below. Then you will have a working DVI input.

Instructions on how to recover the DVI port (note: these instructions are copied from Dell Support Forum):

The ZIP file will contain DVI_Recover_FLOPPY.exe and DVI_Recover_CDIMAGE.iso:

• If you have a floppy drive, place a blank floppy disk in the floppy drive and run the file DVI_Recover_FLOPPY.exe. This will create a bootable floppy disk. Continue with the steps below.
• If you do NOT have a floppy drive, you will need to burn the ISO image DVI_Recover_CDIMAGE.iso onto a CD-R or CD-RW disc. The procedure for this varies from software to software. In most cases, your software will have an option for “Burn Image” or “Write Disc from Image,” which you will choose. Ensure the software is looking for .iso files, browse to the location that you extracted the files from the DVI_Recover.zip to, select the file DVI_Recover_CDIMAGE.iso, and complete the image burning process. If your installed software does not have image burning capabilities, the Demo version of Nero 6 may contain that functionality.
• IMPORTANT: If you only have a CDROM drive, configure your system to boot from the primary optical drive. See this Dell Knowledge Base for further information.

After you have the bootable floppy disk or CD-R/RW ready, perform the following steps to resolve the problem:

1. Using the VGA cable provided with your flat panel, connect the monitor to the VGA port on your video card. Ensure that the connection is successful and that you can change the monitor’s input to VGA and receive an image.
2. Download and install the latest nVidia ForceWare drivers here. This will prevent occurrence of the problem once you have used the rest of this procedure to correct it.
3. If you do NOT have a floppy drive, and are going to be performing the fix using a recordable CD created with the DVI_Recover_CDIMAGE.iso, insert your recorded CD into the primary optical drive now.
4. Shut down the computer. Disconnect the power cables from both the monitor and the computer.
5. Disconnect the VGA cable, and reconnect the monitor to the computer via the DVI cable.
6. Press the power button for both the monitor and computer while unplugged to drain any remaining power.
7. Re-attach the power cables to both the monitor and the computer.
8. If you have a floppy drive, insert your bootable floppy into the floppy drive and power on the system. Otherwise, simply power on the system.
9. The system will boot to the floppy or recordable CD. Wait for approximately one (1) minute. You will not notice any major indicators that the fix is progressing; it is important that you allow the program to attempt to fix the flat panel undisturbed.
10. Remove the floppy disk or recordable CD, and power down the system.
11. Power up the system, and test your DVI connection.

If your monitor is still stuck in DVI Power Save mode, boot to the floppy disk or recordable CD again as described above. It may take up to three tries total in order to enact the fix.

过去的三个星期就折腾搬家了，真是又累又麻烦。下面把我记得的事情记个流水帐吧。

就记这么多吧。新地方新环境，还需要时间来适应。