The Build from Hell: Part III: Christmas Morning: Part I: Display Dilemmas

Isn't it nice when things just work? You get in your car, turn the key, and the engine starts. You pick up the phone, push some buttons, and someone answers on the other end. You turn a knob on a faucet and water comes out.

This is the way computers should be and, until recently, the way they had been working for me. That all changed with The Build from Hell.

As I forgot to mention in parts I and II, the Build from Hell (which we shall from henceforth refer to by its given name "HiFi" because that's kinda what the case looks like) was intended to be a Christmas present for "Rie" and by "Rie" I mean primarily for myself, but Rie can use it too.

When I ordered the parts, I had them shipped to work, and I assembled it there, so Rie wouldn't know about it. My vision was that early on Christmas morning, before Rie got out of bed, I'd set up the computer in the living room, then cook her breakfast, so she'd arise to two perfect children, a perfect hubby, a perfect breakfast, and a nice shiny new computer under the TV.

The reality is she woke up to two screaming children, no breakfast, and a hubby who was fussing and fuming at a computer that wouldn't DO WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO DO, GORAMMIT!

Ah, Christmas, that magical time of year when our thoughts turn to peace, love, and disemboweling the graphics chip set designers at AMD and HIS.

The specific issue here was one of display. The video card has two DVI outputs and one HDMI output. I figured I could just use the HDMI output to hook it straight into the TV. This has the advantage of a) it does not require an adapter, which the DVI connections would need to plug into the TV's VGA connector, b) it does not require any additional audio cables, since HDMI carries an audio signal as well (and the video card has a built-in audio card!), and c) it would make flipping to the computer easier, since the TV's remote has a shortcut button for the HDMI inputs, but not for the VGA.

So I hooked up the computer and powered it on. It POSTed, everything looked fine, it started Windows, then the screen went blank. After waiting about five minutes, I realized something was up (maybe it hung, maybe it was the hard drive issue), so I restarted. Same thing.

My first thought was that it was a resolution issue. The last resolution I had it set to was one that would like good on my monitor at work, so I reckoned if it was one that wasn't supported by the TV, the display might just be blank. So, I got my second monitor from my desktop computer, and hooked that up next to the TV in the living room, plugging it into one of the DVI ports. I got video on that, but when I plugged it in, it was recognized as the secondary display. All the Windows icons, taskbar, Start menu, and programs were rendered on the primary display, which was the (still blank) TV. Unplugging the TV from the HTPC allowed the monitor to become the primary display, but no longer allowed me to adjust resolution or any image settings for the disconnected TV. Plugging the TV back in would cause the monitor to revert to the secondary display, preventing me from accessing any programs or commands.

I tried to be clever. I'd open the Display Adjustment control panel on the monitor, plug in the TV, then try and move the (now hidden) control panel to the secondary display. Positioning the cursor over the title bar of the window, the attempting to drag it over did not work. Selecting alt+space, m then holding down the cursor did not work. Positioning the window on the edge of the screen did not work. The basic gist was that, so long as the TV was connected, I could not access the display control panel to adjust its settings. Unplugging the TV made it possible to access the control panel, but then I could no longer adjust its resolution. 'Twas, as they say, a Catch-22.

Blargh.

I spent about an hour fiddling with it, and I think this was about where Rie got up, to see me fussing and fuming and cursing and swearing at the TV. I used every curse word I know, but none of them fixed the issue! Not even "slippin-rippin-dang-fang-rotten-zarg-barg-a-ding-dong"! What more can a man do?

Anyways, I eventually solved the issue (and I don't know why I thought to try this, other than my years of learning to solve obscure puzzles in adventure games by trying "Use X with Y" where X and Y represent every single item in your inventory), by plugging the second DVI port from the HTPC into the VGA input on the TV, so I now had three outputs from the computer going to to different displays: HDMI to TV, DVI 1 to monitor, and DVI 2 to TV. Now, what happened here was that the video card defaulted to only displaying two desktops at a time, even though it has three outputs, so you could choose between the extended desktop being rendered on displays 1 & 2, 1 & 3, or 2 & 3 (you could also choose to have the third display as a clone of the other two, but, by default, it didn't want to show a desktop extended to three monitors). By whatever stroke of luck or chance, it displayed the desktop on the VGA TV input and the separate monitor input, with the HDMI display left out but still connected! This finally allowed me to see the control panel so I could adjust the resolution on the connected, but inactive HDMI display.

OK, so I set that to 1920x1080, change the separate monitor to be the primary display (which I can finally do!) and flip the desktop to show on the HDMI input and separate monitor.

Success! Finally, video is being displayed over the HDMI input on to the TV. Problem solved, I unplug the two DVI inputs, pack up the monitor and...

...the TV goes blank.

raaaaAAAAGGGGEEEE!!!!

What now? I plug the DVI cable back into the TV, switch to the TV's VGA input, open the control panel. Everything looks good. Resolution fine, just like I left it. Switch over to the HDMI input and it displays fine. Whiskey tango foxtrot?

Unplug the DVI and... the HDMI input goes blank. Hmm....

So the problem is, as far as I can tell, the video card will only send a signal over the HDMI output so long as there is also another display plugged in to one of the DVI inputs.

Well, y'know what, mister fancy-pants HDMI output? No one loves you! I can just use the DVI output, just like I always used to! Take that.

I did what I should have done two hours before and just use the danged VGA input on the TV.

It's not what I wanted, but at least the video issues are "solved". Everything will work just fine now, right?

AH-HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Next thing to connect: the network.