nr3m@cisunx.UUCP (Matthew A Henry) (03/22/89)
Hi,
I'm looking for anyone who might be able to help me with a problem I'm
having with a Leading Edge Model D. The problem started awhile ago
when, for no apparent reason, the screen went blank. Re-booting with
reset or ctrl-alt-del brought the screen back instantly, but in time
the screen would blank again. The problem got progressively worse
until at times the machine became unusable (the screen would
blank several times in as little as five minutes). There didn't
seem to be any pattern at all in when it would blank. One night
it would be fine for several hours, and the next night it would blank
almost continually. The one interesting thing I discovered was that
if the screen went blank and I switched the color/mono switch on the
back of the Model D to color (I use a monochrome monitor) the screen
would come back to it's previously displayed state, but would not
display anything new typed in from the keyboard. The screen being
blank seems to have no other effect on the machine, and in fact, if
I hit ctrl-ptscr after the screen blanks, I can continue to operate
using the printer to see what would be on the screen.
I made some calls to Leading Edge and some local Leading Edge repair
centers, and all they were willing to do was swap in a rebuilt
motherboard for 225+ bucks. So I decided that the best thing to do
was to pull the jumper that disables the on-board graphics and install
a monographics card. Which I have done, producing some interesting
results. After I installed the card in the machine and turned it on,
it gave an error beep (long followed by a short), which Leading Edge
says is normal. I tested the graphics with various programs that
require hercules graphics and found most worked OK, and the screen no
longer blanked. So I thought everything was fine and the only
difference between the machine now and before was some incompatibility
with the graphics. Well several nights ago after finishing a fortran
program for school I thought I would try the graphics program (mahjongg)
that didn't want to work with the new card again, and to my
surprise it worked fine. I re-booted with ctrl-alt-del and didn't
get an error beep code. I did this several times with the same results
each time. The next day I turned on the machine, got the error beep
code and could not get mahjongg to run. I ctrl-alt-del re-booted
several time, each time getting the error beep, and no luck with
the program.
So here is my current situation: I am using the monographics card in
one of the expansion slots and I no longer have the problem of
the blanking screen, but I do have a situation where re-booting
will at times produce an error beep and some graphics programs
will not run, and at other times I don't get the error beep and the
graphics programs that didn't run before seem to run ok.
I hope this makes some sense to someone. Any thoughts, e-mailed
or posted would be greatly appreciated.
Yours in confusion... Matt
Matt Henry NR3M
(412) 443-5071
...{allegra, bellcore, cadre, idis, psuvax1}!pitt!cisunx!nr3m
NR3M@PITTUNIX
nr3m@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu