Mods and Coords reading this....sorry for the duplicate post from the Coord. Forum

Hiya everyone...well most of you know of my burglary some weeks ago...well a pal who's been trying to get me on a Mac for years gave me his older G4 AGP model [MODEL M5 183] with everything but a monitor about a week ago...then yesterday I was given a FLATRON L 1950H flat screen monitor...set the whole thing up then up turned on the monitor, then the computer and it booted fine but when it came time for the Video Card to kick in it all went black [no desktop left] and I got a message from the monitor that my refresh rate was unsupported...does this mean the monitor is useless fro my mac....I have a pc/inte l[P3 of some sort] coming in the mail this week from a pal in Idaho so it's not wasted if it's useless on the mac but I really wanted to use the mac for my music as all the work I tried at my pal's place when he was using this G4 seemed way smoother than the work I've done on my pc/intel with identical software[melody assistant music writing software].

Any hints to make it work, or suggestions for a proper monitor will be gratefully received....

thanks very much up front for your help.. ...

On your monitor controls lower the resolution and refresh rate until it comes on then you can fiddle with it some more using the on screen controls, if it says out of range then it means the resolution is set to high. start at like 800x600 or 1026x768. All my monitors are PC/mac compatible. I have viewsonic monitors.

Thanks Clay....the problem being the screen goes black and I can't get the menu to fiddle around with, no matter what button or series of buttons I push on the monitor [the monitor is 2nd hand as well from a pc setup]...another helpful soul suggested I borrow a G4 friendly monitor and set it [the mac] up that way as it needs to be set in the mac's controls right?...anyhow that's my current quest to borrow a monitor..and a mac geek if I can so I can grill her/him for info and I do have a list, heh heh heh...I seem to need visual hands on types of learning experiences from past experience on the old A2000 and my first P90, so I'm aiming at that, thanks again mate.. ...

Hmmm..interesting that monitor, unless something is either wrong with it or the video card, should start up at a default setting. Lets try this..shut the computer off by holding down the power button on the front, once its off start it again and hold down the apple+option +P+R keys on the keyboard all at the same time, continue holding those down until you hear the start up chime 3 times then let them loose see if that doesn't set it back to a basic setting, I've never used anything but macs for 20 yrs so feel free to fire me any questions you have.

Like I said it does work then stops at black...will try your suggestion when I'm in playing around time...20 years a mac man eh....I'd have stayed with Amiga myself if they had kept pace but trying to grab business clients rather than focusing on music, which they were lightyears ahead of even Mac then, and graphics...I had 4096 colours when intel had 16, was what killed them for me and none of my programs at the time ran on a mac....so intel it was...well AMD  3D really..never trusted Pentium for some reason. My original 3D software was/is Imagine3D, now dead but it still works for me.. ...

Ahhhhh..Amiga hehehe, Nevermind Bobby I found why it won't work.."Supported Operating System: Win 95A, Win 95B, Win 98, Win 98SE, Win ME, Win 2K, Win XP, Win Server 2K3"

Here's the link: http://www.kids-downloads.com/drivers/index.php?catid=3&compid=139&compt=LG+Electronics+Inc.&driverid=1033

Ok now I take that post back LOL!!! It says it should be compatible with mac, interesting.

How do I dl the driver....the dl link goes to a "this page does not exist".. ...

Then how do I get it into the mac..LOL...I am a noob on the mac.. ...

Or is that done from that Option+Apple+P+R trick?

The Option+Apple+P+R resets the parameter ram, basically clears out the ram chips etc, what OS is that running do you know? LIke OSX tiger etc. Also do you know what video card is in it?

OS 9.? I believe and it may well be a GeForce card...haven't opened the box...just found the manual and found out how..

If its all stock it'll more than likely be a ATI radeon vid card, Did he give you a CD to upgrade from OS 9? That's most likely gonna be the problem if that's whatOS is running, thats a way old OS.

No he didn't...gonna have to find me a tiger or a leopard somewhere eh?

Maybe, but I've never had problems hooking up a monitor on a mac, no drivers etc, but it could be a combo of the OS, the vid card and the monitor.

refresh rate is usually measured in Hertz( at least when I was working on them). 60Hz is hard on the eyes, but between 70-80 ,might work.

Now as for MAcs'....I dunno.

I had a similar problem once. It turned out to be the monitor cable.

Originally, I hooked the new monitor up with the old cable that was still attached to the pc, and I couldn't get the correct resolution. I then tried the cable that came with the monitor and by maqic all of these new resolutions turned up!

No cable came with this monitor but I think I've isolated the problem...he ran a CRT monitor and it's expecting that. Been getting some advice re: that situation on the mac forum here that I think I'll take a stab at...not too good at this stuff...more of a program user than a computer afficionado if y get my drift...I understand M$ quite well after 10years but am a total noob on a mac which seems all different..missing stuff on the mouse to start with...LOL...it's like trying to use blender after 10 years using Imagine3D...different worlds really.. ...

On a windows machine, it this scenario.  I would boot into Safe Mode, and change the resolution into the lowest possible res and refresh rate like 640x480 or 800x600 @ 60hz.  I would boot into normal mode and voila off it goes.

I would imagine, on the Mac there has to be a way that you can boot into a safe mode of some sort and lower the settings.

It sounds to me like the G4 had a high end monitor originaly that could handle whatever resolution and refresh rate it was set to and now your stuck at that resolution and the current monitor cant handle that resolution or refresh rate.

No, it had a CRT monitor and they typically have a 65Hz RR where LCD/LED monitors can only handle 60Hz...just have to reset that and I'll be fine....just never done anything on a mac and it's an alien landscape...hope  can find the prefs for the monitor.....that'll be the trick

Tried it a gain using the Software install disc fo 9.1 and holding down Control at the chime till the desktop appeared but the same thing happened...got this message in blue on a black screen

out of range

68.7kHz-80Hz

had to hard shut down again with no desktop.....pray for me.. ...