Windows Never Looked So Good! (Radeon 9550 on 20 inch Apple Cinema Display)
When I was at work yesterday, I mentioned to a friend I had bought a 20 inch G5 iMac and now had a 20 inch Cinema Display I could occasionally hook up to my PC because I was going to sell the PowerMac it had been attached to. He started talking abut me using the PC’s Samsung 760V TFT LCD in addition to the 20 inch Apple Cinema Display to make a three window setup for Microsoft Flight Simulators. That made me realize that the dual monitor setup might bypass what I thought was a permanent limitation of running the ACD on my PC, i.e., the display would be black until Windows XP booted, meaning that the BIOS screens were unreachable. My PC is a homebuilt AMD XP 2800+ powered machine with 512MB RAM and an ATI Radeon 9000 All in Wonder video card. Checking to see if it would support dual monitors, I found out it wouldn’t, so I spent a few minutes checking out the ATI and CompUSA websites to look for a video card that did and wouldn’t cost much. I didn’t come up with a firm answer and decided to drop by my local CompUSA to do “up close and personal” research.
I started looking at the ATI Radeon 9600SE but then noticed the ATI Radeon 9550 at the same price after rebates. The 9550 had twice as much video memory and supports DVI and VGA monitors, exactly the setup I needed. The 9600SE supported two monitors as well, but I decided to buy the 9550.
Once I was home with it, it took me only a few minutes to pop the side off my PC, remove the 9000 All in Wonder card, install the 9550, rearrange my desk to accommodate the 20 inch Apple Cinema Display (hooked to the 9550’s DVI port using Apple’s ADC to DVI adapter) and the Samsung 760V. I booted the PC and much to my surprise and delight, I saw the PC’s BIOS screen pop up on BOTH monitors! What I had thought was a limitation of the Apple Cinema Display instead appeared to be a limitation of the video card. That meant I could run the Apple Cinema Display as my prime monitor; and since I really didn’t have enough desk space to support both the Samsung and the ACD, I pulled the Samsung off the system. (Since this caught me by surprise, I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do with the Samsung.)
Windows XP is gorgeous running on this display! The display is running at its native resolution of 1680 x 1050 pixels and 32 bit color. Man, it makes me want to use the PC more! I haven’t run any of my Microsoft Flight Simulators on this display, yet, but that’s coming. They were the major reason I attempted this, and it’s paid off in spades!
The only problem with this setup is that the Radeon 9550 is not supported by Windows 98SE. It’s installed as a VGA PCI card over there running 16 colors and 640 x 480 resolution. No ATI driver set I’ve tried has worked, most of them bombing out as they tell me some components they were looking for could not be found. It looks to me like the only way to recover a functioning Windows 98 is to upgrade to ME, and I’m not sure I’m going to do that. Instead, I’m trying to move every application I really need over to the XP side. I still have some things I can’t get XP to run and really need, so reconfiguring the dual boot system to XP only is not something I’m going to do right now, even if I did have the time to do it and I don’t.
I really love this setup. It’s very seductive. I’ve been wanting to get a 20 inch display on my PC for some time to support the flight simulators. I’ve accomplished that now by spending only $130 vice $1300. (Of course, there’s the indirect cost of the 20 inch iMac that made it all possible and wound up killing several birds with one stone, so I haven’t yet figured how to divvy that out.) For once in the PC world, something I’ve done has worked out even better than I had hoped!
I started looking at the ATI Radeon 9600SE but then noticed the ATI Radeon 9550 at the same price after rebates. The 9550 had twice as much video memory and supports DVI and VGA monitors, exactly the setup I needed. The 9600SE supported two monitors as well, but I decided to buy the 9550.
Once I was home with it, it took me only a few minutes to pop the side off my PC, remove the 9000 All in Wonder card, install the 9550, rearrange my desk to accommodate the 20 inch Apple Cinema Display (hooked to the 9550’s DVI port using Apple’s ADC to DVI adapter) and the Samsung 760V. I booted the PC and much to my surprise and delight, I saw the PC’s BIOS screen pop up on BOTH monitors! What I had thought was a limitation of the Apple Cinema Display instead appeared to be a limitation of the video card. That meant I could run the Apple Cinema Display as my prime monitor; and since I really didn’t have enough desk space to support both the Samsung and the ACD, I pulled the Samsung off the system. (Since this caught me by surprise, I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do with the Samsung.)
Windows XP is gorgeous running on this display! The display is running at its native resolution of 1680 x 1050 pixels and 32 bit color. Man, it makes me want to use the PC more! I haven’t run any of my Microsoft Flight Simulators on this display, yet, but that’s coming. They were the major reason I attempted this, and it’s paid off in spades!
The only problem with this setup is that the Radeon 9550 is not supported by Windows 98SE. It’s installed as a VGA PCI card over there running 16 colors and 640 x 480 resolution. No ATI driver set I’ve tried has worked, most of them bombing out as they tell me some components they were looking for could not be found. It looks to me like the only way to recover a functioning Windows 98 is to upgrade to ME, and I’m not sure I’m going to do that. Instead, I’m trying to move every application I really need over to the XP side. I still have some things I can’t get XP to run and really need, so reconfiguring the dual boot system to XP only is not something I’m going to do right now, even if I did have the time to do it and I don’t.
I really love this setup. It’s very seductive. I’ve been wanting to get a 20 inch display on my PC for some time to support the flight simulators. I’ve accomplished that now by spending only $130 vice $1300. (Of course, there’s the indirect cost of the 20 inch iMac that made it all possible and wound up killing several birds with one stone, so I haven’t yet figured how to divvy that out.) For once in the PC world, something I’ve done has worked out even better than I had hoped!
posted by Andy Foster at
2:58 PM
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