[rescue] I got a new Octane! Why can't I talk to it?

[Micah R Ledbetter]

Thanks for the replies, all! I will attempt them post-haste.

However, this one in particular caught my eye to reply before I go to  
school this morning...

On Apr 4, 2007, at 06:57, jodys at helluin.org wrote:

> Here is one possibility
>
> The machine is set to boot from graphics and you are trying to connect
> to a non-13w3 monitor using a Sun (or one labeled Sun/SGI/DEC)
> 13w3->HD15 adapter.

Yes, that is correct. I'm using a 13w3 adapter with a trinitron,  
which DOES definitely work with my Sun machines.

> The coaxial bits of the 13w3 connector (the w3 part) are reasonably
> standard across vendors. The stuff in the middle (the 13 part) is not.
> So, if your adapter works with Suns it likely won't work with an SGI.
> I've found that many monitors are confused if, say, they are recieving
> H sync on one of the Monitor ID pins.

Really? I thought the adapter was supposed to work with all of the  
vendors. Hrm.

> A quick fix to the above problem, assuming you are sure that your
> monitor supports Sync on Green and you are willing to commit an  
> adapter
> to this purpose, is to snap off the 13 pins in the middle. This will
> only provide R,G and B to the monitor. Irix may report the monitor as
> "unknown", but this shouldn't affect anything and you should be  
> able to
> see the machine POST.

Hmm. When you say that it shouldn't affect anything, does that mean  
just during boot, or even after, when I boot up into the graphical  
environment, it will still work?

> Also, double check you have the keyboard connected to the right  
> port, I
> believe it is the one closest to the inside. There are little icons.
> To my embarrassment, I wasted over an hour wondering no keyboards  
> would
> work on my Octane when they were connected to the mouse port...

Alright. I switched them around. It wasn't really obvious from the  
icons which port was which, but I didn't have good light back there.