[krick]

I just picked up an Acer 19" widescreen LCD monitor.

I went to the website to download a monitor driver and the only one they have is for XP only.

Here's a link to the driver download page...
http://tinyurl.com/rc95z

Is there some valid reason that this is XP only, or is there some way to tweak the INF file so that it will work with windows 9x and 2000?

[LLXX]

Monitors don't need drivers...

But they do come with mostly useless add-on software...

[krick]

The "driver" usually includes color profiles and resolution and refresh rate info.

[erpdude8]

sad truth about the Acer AL1916 monitor is that it is XP compatible only. read here:
http://www.thealders...05/12/08/hmmmm/

this kind of monitor hates any version of win98/me and some Diamond Stealth graphics cards so find another monitor (ViewSonic monitors are wonderful and their drivers are compatible with Win98 SE).

This post has been edited by erpdude8: 15 September 2006 - 11:31 AM

[LLXX]

Since when were monitors "XP compatible" only?

As in, it won't even work under plain DOS?

The "blurring" symptom described in that link is common on LCDs connected via 15-pin analog interface, and is caused by misaligned signals (the interval for each pixel is not centered exactly within the sampling interval of the input driver, so in effect the analog signal is overlapping pixel boundaries). All LCDs with an analog input have an Image Lock or Image Phase or similar adjustment for aligning the signal properly. Also note that a bad cable can have the same effect, and some video cards don't have very stable dot clock oscillators, but the effect is much less obvious with a CRT since they don't have distinct pixels unlike LCDs.

[Fredledingue]

Maybe this monitor is adapting itself automaticaly from the signal it received from the graphic card, then kept these settings.
The w98 machine may had an old graphic card that didn't send good signal to the monitor and prevented it to adjust.
The XP machine, obviousely running on more recent hardware sent a signal that was interprretad properly by the monitor for auto-adjustment.

It's not XP or w98, it's the hardware that comes with it. Indeed there are no driver for monitor, keyborad, loudspeaker, microphone or mouse.

Maybe you would want a driver for the case? I'm sure some manufacturer have thought about that yet!

[erpdude8]

Fredledingue, on Sep 15 2006, 04:15 PM, said:

It's not XP or w98, it's the hardware that comes with it. Indeed there are no driver for monitor, keyborad, loudspeaker, microphone or mouse.

Maybe you would want a driver for the case? I'm sure some manufacturer have thought about that yet!

well that's Acer's problem, Fredledingue! they didn't make a Win98 driver for the Acer AL1916 monitor and only made one for XP.

a driver for a computer case? pssshhh, please! seriously there are several plug 'n play monitors out there that DO require drivers that are just INF files.

LLXX, on Sep 14 2006, 10:42 PM, said:

Monitors don't need drivers...

But they do come with mostly useless add-on software...

UH SOME new monitors DO actually need certain monitor drivers, LLXX, especially when using HP or Dell computer monitors [yeah, hello!].

HEY I had to install a driver for the HP mx50 computer monitor on my WinME computer to make the monitor work correctly under ME.

I even had to install a WinME driver for the Dell m781p monitor on my aunt's Dell Optiplex WinME computer because WinME doesnt have built-in drivers for it and asks for them. however, WinXP does have a built-in driver for the Dell m781p plug 'n play monitor.

so I definitely beg to differ on "monitors not needing drivers" unless the Windows OS has built-in drivers for them. I know this from experience with connecting monitors to PCs.

This post has been edited by erpdude8: 15 September 2006 - 09:07 PM

[Drugwash]

I recently stumbled into a monitor called Horizon 7002D, obviously manufactured for the eastern-european market, that I wanted to install properly for a friend of mine. After a painful search I found only one link in a forum post that lead me to a hungarian web page that hosted the respective driver. I manage to download the zip, somehow, and inside I found two files: an inf and a sys.

So I guess that's one of the (still) rare cases when monitor drivers are not simple inf files.

Don't ask me for that link, because I didn't bookmark it on this machine and Google couldn't find it anymore.

[erpdude8]

erpdude8, on Sep 15 2006, 06:46 PM, said:

so I definitely beg to differ on "monitors not needing drivers" unless the Windows OS has built-in drivers for them. I know this from experience with connecting monitors to PCs.

and to prove my point on PC monitors needing drivers, look in the \WINDOWS\INF\ folder, regardless of Windows version. you'll see a bunch of monitor*.inf files for many PC monitors. also, try buying a Dell monitor like the M781P model or an HP MX50, MX70 or MX90 monitor and connect any of these monitors to a Win98 SE computer. Win98se will detect these monitors AND ask for their drivers. if you dont provide them, they may not work correctly without the specific drivers.

oh, to answer Drugwash's post about the Horizon 7002D monitor and its drivers, try this link (Yahoo! found it):
http://www.tici5.tvn...orizon7002d.rar

This post has been edited by erpdude8: 15 September 2006 - 09:15 PM

[Drugwash]

Ah, that's it! Apparently there's a third file inside, a dll. My bad, I installed it a couple of months ago and forgot the details. Anyway, so much for the "no drivers needed for monitors" theory.



I wonder how long until someone will create a driver for the Power button...

[LLXX]

erpdude8, on Sep 15 2006, 10:13 PM, said:

oh, to answer Drugwash's post about the Horizon 7002D monitor and its drivers, try this link (Yahoo! found it):
http://www.tici5.tvn...orizon7002d.rar

Those files just look like they're for power management features, and the INF just sets maximum resolution and specs. Totally unnecessary.

I have several video cables, where I cut the DDC lines to prevent it from "detecting" the monitor, so Windows just shows a Standard Monitor device.

Show me an example of a monitor that *requires* a separate driver (and NOT a video-card driver) and I may change my opinion. As is, I should just expect to plug any monitor into my machine and, as long as I set the video card's refresh rate and resolution within its specs, it should work perfectly fine (maybe with some adjustments needed, such as the Image Lock I mentioned earlier on LCDs). So far my experience has agreed with this.

Quote

Indeed there are no driver for monitor, keyborad, loudspeaker, microphone or mouse.

... drivers *are* needed for the keyboard (i8042-something under 9x) and mouse (mouse.drv). Speakers and microphones... sound card drivers would handle those.

[Drugwash]

Well, it depends on the meaning of "required"...

A month or so ago, my neighbor came to me, desperate, saying he needed a monitor as his 15" IBM G54 started acting up - gone blank upon restart (that was an old issue we were expecting). I gave him my spare 15" Escort (LiteOn brand, apparently). He came back saying the image is desynchronized and he can't get it back to normal, so I went over and realized the videocard settings were giving a 85Hz vertical frequency, while my monitor could only accept 70 at most.

Well, his XP had no driver for my monitor, I had no XP driver for it (could barely find a 98 one for my needs), couldn't get on the Internet to search for one and also couldn't change any display settings in safe mode (dunno why). So I would call this a case where a monitor driver was desperately required, as well as the ability for the OS to recognize the monitor and install the driver automatically.

He ended up moving his huge and heavy 21" Nokia 445 monitor from his other machine and connecting it to the problematic one. Not to mention that XP did have the correct driver for it, but it failed to automatically recognize it, so a manual setup had to be done.

Basically, a monitor driver would only be required to cap the maximum resolution and vertical refresh rate, so that accidents wouldn't happen (operating a monitor with a refresh rate - vertical, horizontal or both - higher than supported will eventually fry it).

That's true at least for CRT monitors; LCDs are based on a different technology that I don't know, so I can't say what the risks are, if any.

[LLXX]

Drugwash, on Sep 15 2006, 11:56 PM, said:

That's true at least for CRT monitors; LCDs are based on a different technology that I don't know, so I can't say what the risks are, if any.

LCDs either don't display anything at all on the older models, or a message similar to "Signal out of range" if run outside of spec.

85Hz refresh isn't supported by many monitors, it's best to use ~70 or even 60Hz when switching between monitors (the flickering is bad, but better than seeing nothing or a scrambled image.)

[Petr]

LLXX, on Sep 16 2006, 04:54 AM, said:

erpdude8, on Sep 15 2006, 10:13 PM, said:

oh, to answer Drugwash's post about the Horizon 7002D monitor and its drivers, try this link (Yahoo! found it):
http://www.tici5.tvn...orizon7002d.rar

Those files just look like they're for power management features, and the INF just sets maximum resolution and specs. Totally unnecessary.

Those DLL and SYS files are for WinNT/2K/XP only as they contain dependecies to WIN32K.SYS, VIDEOPRT.SYS, NTOSKRNL.EXE and HAL.DLL.

EnTech website: http://www.entechtai...util/index.shtm looks interesting - the INF file was written using PowerStrip 3.0.

PowerStrip seems to be interesting driver, version 3.7 supports many OSes and chipsets, but it is also expensive. Supported OSes include:
OS support:
Windows 95
Windows NT 4.0
Windows 98
Windows Millennium
Windows 2000
Windows XP
Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2003 x64
Windows XP 2003 x64
Windows Vista

Supported chipsets are:

The following may work but are NOT supported:

- ISA and VL-bus graphics cards
- mobile and integrated graphics controllers
- 16-versions of Windows with or without Win32s
- generic 16-color 640x480 VGA configurations
- graphics cards not explicitly listed below

The following features and functions are supported 
with different graphics chipset families:

Chipset	   Timing  Gamma   Clocks  Notes
#9 T2R		Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
#9 T2R4	   Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
Banshee	   Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
Blade3D	   Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
BladeXP	   Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
Chrome20	  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
CL543x		Yes	 No	  Yes	 None
CL544x		Yes	 No	  Yes	 None
CL546x		Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
CL5480		Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
DeltaChrome   Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
ET6000		Yes	 No	  Yes	 None
ET6100		Yes	 No	  Yes	 None
G100		  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
G200		  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
G400		  Yes*	Yes*	Yes	*Primary only
G450		  Yes*	Yes*	Yes	*Primary only
G550		  Yes*	Yes*	Yes	*Primary only
GammaChrome   Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
GeForce	   Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
GeForce2	  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
GeForce3	  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
GeForce2MX	Yes*	Yes	 Yes	*Primary only
GeForce4MX	Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
GeForce4	  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
GeForceFX	 Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
GeForce6	  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
GeForce7	  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
i740		  Yes	 Yes	 No	  None
i752		  Yes	 Yes	 No	  None
i81x		  Yes	 Yes	 No	  None
i8x5		  Yes	 Yes	 No	  None
i9x5		  Yes	 Yes	 No	  None
Kyro		  Yes	 Yes	 Yes*   *Write-only
KyroII		Yes	 Yes	 Yes*   *Write-only
Mach64		No	  Yes	 Yes	 None
MGA-2064	  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
MGA-2164	  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
Mystique	  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
Parhelia	  Yes	 Yes*	Yes	*Write-only
Parhelia-LX   Yes	 Yes*	Yes	*Write-only
Permedia	  Yes*	Yes	 Yes*   *Write-only
Permedia2	 Yes*	Yes	 Yes*   *Write-only
Permedia3	 Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
P9/P10		Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
P20/P25	   Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
ProSavage	 Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
R100		  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
RV100		 Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
RV200		 Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
R200		  Yes*	Yes	 Yes	*Primary only
RV250		 Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
RV280		 Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
R300		  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
RV350		 Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
R350		  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
RV360		 Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
RV370		 Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
RV380		 Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
RV410		 Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
RV515		 Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
RV530		 Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
R360		  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
R420		  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
R423		  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
R430		  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
R480		  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
R481		  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
R520		  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
R580		  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
Rage		  No	  Yes	 Yes	 None
RageII		No	  Yes	 Yes	 None
RagePro	   No	  Yes	 Yes	 None
Rage128	   Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
Riva128	   Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
Savage2000	Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
Savage3D	  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
Savage4	   Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
SavageIX	  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
SiS305		Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
SiS315		Yes*	Yes	 Yes	*Primary only
SiS6326	   Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
TNT/TNT2	  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
Trio		  Yes	 No	  Yes	 None
Trio/DX	   Yes	 No	  Yes	 None
Trio/GX	   Yes	 No	  Yes	 None
Trio3D		Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
TrioLC2X	  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
V2200		 Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
ViRGE		 Yes	 No	  Yes	 None
ViRGE/DX	  Yes	 No	  Yes	 None
ViRGE/GX	  Yes	 No	  Yes	 None
ViRGE/GX2	 Yes	 No	  Yes	 None
ViRGE/VX	  Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
Volari V3	 Yes*	Yes	 Yes	*Primary only
Volari V3XT   Yes*	Yes	 Yes	*Primary only
Volari V5/V8  Yes*	Yes	 Yes	*Primary only
Voodoo1	   No	  No	  Yes	 None
Voodoo2	   No	  No	  Yes	 None
Voodoo3	   Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
Voodoo4	   Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
Voodoo5	   Yes	 Yes	 Yes	 None
Xabre		 Yes*	Yes	 Yes	*Primary only

Petr

[Fredledingue]

Quote

there are several plug 'n play monitors out there that DO require drivers that are just INF files.

INI or SYS files are not realy "drivers". They are settings.
That confirm what I said, there are no driver for monitors, but I agree that there some files to add in some case.
Anyway the output depends from the graphic card. Normaly special monitors should come with a graphic card.

[eidenk]

Fredledingue, on Sep 19 2006, 07:18 AM, said:

INI or SYS files are not realy "drivers". They are settings.

Is 1394BUS.SYS a setting file ? No it is a 32bit PE file just like most exes and dlls.
Is Usbport.sys a setting file ? No it is a 32bit PE file just like most exes and dlls.
etc...

Just go in your system32/drivers dir and you should find more than a few of those "settings" files.

This post has been edited by eidenk: 19 September 2006 - 02:24 PM

[Fredledingue]

eidenk,

I admit my mistake. ... now why are they doing sys files that work like dll? Why not make a dll or an ocx? I thought sys files were text files like ini ones...

[bledd]

have to fully agree with LLXX here

monitors don't NEED drivers

they just store the max refresh rate, which you can find out anyway

[CLASYS]

In some monitors, you really do need drivers, but not for the video. These are to talk to auxiliary interfaces, sometimes seen as serial or USB to help the monitor auto-adjust to system requirements. Since these are not analog video, they might need a driver in their own right, etc. Complete installation packages and system dependancies, the need for .SYS and .DLL and .EXE files, etc. could apply.

I think that EIZO/NANAO comes to mind as a vendor over the years where this could matter.

cjl

ps: Even UPS systems need drivers for the same sort of ancillary purposes [sometimes referred to as the "powerchute" sub-system?]

[erpdude8]

CLASYS, on Oct 1 2006, 11:26 AM, said:

In some monitors, you really do need drivers, but not for the video. These are to talk to auxiliary interfaces, sometimes seen as serial or USB to help the monitor auto-adjust to system requirements. Since these are not analog video, they might need a driver in their own right, etc. Complete installation packages and system dependancies, the need for .SYS and .DLL and .EXE files, etc. could apply.

I think that EIZO/NANAO comes to mind as a vendor over the years where this could matter.

cjl

ps: Even UPS systems need drivers for the same sort of ancillary purposes [sometimes referred to as the "powerchute" sub-system?]

my point exactly, CLASYS. there are some PC monitors out there like the one Drugwash mentioned that require SYS, DLL, EXE or even DRV drivers. I guess bledd did not know about the Horizon 7002D monitor using a SYS driver.