[Info-vax] What video card for a DS10?

[FredK]

"Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88 at comcast.net> wrote in message 
news:JcidnQ-wZ7Gb-lPXnZ2dnUVZ_s-dnZ2d at giganews.com...
> tadamsmar wrote:
>> I have some DS10s to maintain.  I think one of them has a bad video
>> card.  The monitor is getting no input as if it was not plugged into
>> the connector.  I swapped and checked the monitor, so I know the
>> problem is not the monitor.
>>
>> The system is still up and in use.  When I can (tomorrow perhaps) I
>> will be able to shut it down and swap the video card as a test.
>>
>> I am running VMS 7.3-2.
>>
>> What video cards can I use?   Can I buy a new one or do I need a
>> legacy card?
>>
>> Thanks for any help!
>
> You need a "supported" card; e.g. one for which VMS has a device driver.
> If you have lots of spare video cards and lots of time you could try them 
> one after the other and you might find that one works.  You might also get 
> "smoke and flames" if the card happens to be physically compatible but not 
> electrically compatible!
>
> I would stick to genuine DEC/HP video cards of the proper model(s).
>
> There are standards for video cards but no guarantee that DEC/HP actually 
> complied with those standards!

LOL.  Yeah, sure there are "standards" for video cards... as long as you 
want to operate it in VGA mode.  Get real.  Every real graphics card 
requires a device-specific driver (in Windows-speak a "High Performance 
Video Driver").  These are usually supplied by the vendor, although there 
are Open Source versions for some cards (and usually not all the capabilites 
and performance) for Linux.

Take for example the card generically called the Radeon 7500 - this card has 
about a dozen actual varieties even though they are all called Radeon 7500. 
Each have different initializations, slightly different features, and there 
are even several different core graphics chips.  To support every variety 
would require trying to track the closed or open source versions of the 
vendor/xfree86 drivers.  Heck, AMD/ATI completely rewrote the driver so they 
can use it to support future graphics chips that will use the same core 
2D/3D.

Now, DEC/HP sold a specific set of versions of this card, which is what the 
drivers were written for and tested against and which we support.  In fact, 
the drivers will actually work on lots of the minor variations (at least in 
V8.3)  - including the Radeon 7000 which doesn't have the 3D TCL hardware. 
It would be impractical, and not make business sense for us to chase and try 
to support every possible variation of these cards ever made.

As to plugging in and getting flames... these card are STANDARD PCI cards. 
Unless you have a hack saw, they will only plug into option slots that are 
compatible.

The Radeon 7500 is EOL from all sources including HP.  You might be able to 
get them from various resellers including Island.  You can purchase the 
Radeon 7000 from HP as the AH391A for Integrity servers - this card should 
work in a DS10 without a problem as well.