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16 Posts
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691
September 6th, 2004 20:00
Belkin KVM with APR Boot Problem
Just wondering if anyone knew of a fix to this problem:
Inspiron 8100 with APR
Belkin KVM Omniview SOHO Series Model F1DS104T
With the laptop docked in the APR, it will not boot up unless you crack the display for the first 20 seconds (or so) of the power up process. Apparently, the KVM switch is not convincing the Inspiron that there is an external monitor attached and it will not power up. As far as I could gather, it is a safety feature of the Inspiron to avoid power up while the laptop is in it's case. Last time I checked, Dell and Inspiron were pointing the finger at each other and the problem was not being addressed. Was hoping someone might have stepped up and solved the problem.
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rstoyle
16 Posts
0
September 6th, 2004 21:00
Sorry - meant to say "Dell and Belkin were pointing the finger at each other"
AustinTech
1 Message
0
September 9th, 2004 02:00
rstoyle
16 Posts
0
September 14th, 2004 14:00
I don't have a solution yet but I am narrowing it down. The original SVGA standard has some reserved pins that are used to tell the video card what type of monitor is connected. Different types of monitors would use a certain GND combination of these ID pins. The Belkin output does not appear to use them so I tried a few combinations of GNDs but it didn't work. Not suprising since most manufacturers are moving away from this type of detection.
So, I can only assume that the Inspiron (I have an nVidia GeForce GO video adapter) is using DDC Monitor detection. If that is the case, I don't know of a way to trick the card into thinking there is a monitor attached. I did find a utility to read/modify the BIOS on the GeoForce card (XBios). Then there is another utility (NVFlash) to flash the card with the new modified BIOS file. Using XBios (which works great) I notice a setting to disable the DDC detection. I could not get Nvflash to work however. I tried to use NVFlash to back up my current BIOS but the result was an empty file. Given this, I wasn't about to try to overwrite the existing - big big problems if it corrupts what you have. The limited documentation that I could find did mention a type of EEPROM that was not compatible with the program. I can only assume that is the problem.
Sooooo, I am at a bit of a dead end at this point. Might do some more digging when I have some time.
drichter4764
2 Posts
0
December 14th, 2004 23:00
Message Edited by drichter4764 on 12-14-2004 07:49 PM