On Fri, Jun 16, 2000 at 05:54:55AM -0700, Todd Whitesel wrote:
> Something your Multias might do as they age is acquire something I have
> decided to call "squiggly video disease". This is a state in which you
> cannot read the text on the screen in SRM, and the Multia is basically
> useless for graphics console work.
> 
> Lately I have been trying to get a bunch of diskless Multias together.
> Of the 14 total units...
> 
> 	8 are known working in diskless mode.
> 	3 have trouble coming up or staying up without traps/panics/etc.
> 	3 suffer from squiggly video disease.
> 
> What's interesting is that I am starting to spot a trend: the Multia's
> with squiggly video disease all have old firmware (3.5-72 or thereabouts)
> and _all_ three of them can run ARC just fine -- with rock solid video.

It seems possible, though unlikely, that the firmware might have
something to do with it. The other thing to consider is that ARC is
running at standard VGA (640x480, 60Hz), while SRM tends to default to
something more DEC-like (1024x768, 72Hz, usually), so all the timings
are different, and the SRM mode is more demanding of the hardware.

I've never seen a Multia with this disease though. Are they all the
older VX40 model?

G.
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Graham Allan - I.T. Manager - gta@umn.edu - (612) 624-5040
School of Physics and Astronomy - University of Minnesota
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