Monitor problems

Troubles come in threes. Not always, but often enough.

This started a couple of days ago with a problem on the monitor on my games computer, a nice 1920 by 1200. It stopped working. I don't know why. So I swapped it for the monitor on my terminal server, the computer that I use for terminals to my various servers, and on the terminal server, I put a Dell 1280 by 1024, because it doesn't really need to be high resolution.

Then, today, I went into my office and all the pies had stopped working. That was a power supply problem. They are powered from the 12 volt line of a standard PC power supply (actually the same power supply that feeds my terminal server) and then via power-over-ethernet to a step-down card that reduces the 12 volts to the 5.5 that the pies like. I replaced the 5 amp fuse (the fuse hadn't blown, it was the fuse holder!) and they worked.

That same 12 volt line also powers my QX2710LED 2560 by 1440 display, which I use as my main working display. So that was out too, but when I got power back to it, it would no longer work. Maybe that's what caused the power problem. So I swapped it for another 1920 by 1200 that I had spare, an Edge 10. That worked OK ... at first. Then the display started to shake and shudder and soon became unreadable.

At that point, I'd run out of high resolution monitors.

So I put on one of the four Dell 1280 by 1024 monitors that I got recently, really cheap, and that worked fine, except that the resolution is only 1280 by 1024 and I'm used to a *lot* more than that on the screen. And with more on the screen at once, I work more efficiently.

Then I had an inspiration. My workstation computer has a VGA port and a DVI port. What would happen if I put a monitor on each port?

I can tell you what happens.

You fumble around quite a lot until you realise that the computer thinks that the monitor on my left is actually on my right, you swap the monitors over, and now it's almost like I have one very wide 2560 by 1024 monitor. If I click and drag something from the right monitor towards the left, it appears on the left monitor, and I have them butted side by side so it's very natural.

Still, I miss my 2560 by 1440, and I'm going to get another one on Ebay - they're less than £200. I've ordered a 1920 by 1200, £57, coming from Germany (hurrah for the EU, it means no annoying customs duties to pay and then a huge sum to Fedex for doing the customs paperwork). And I'm bidding on a 27 inch 2560 by 1440, but if I don't get it, I'll keep trying until I get one.

 ... later ...

I got outbid on the 2560 by 1440, so I've ordered a new one for less than the second hand one went for!