Mac newbie. monitor not turning on

[hpoliset]

Hi,

First of all let me start introducing myself as a Mac Newbie. I happened to get a Power Mac G4 from my previous work place which had yellow dog linux installed on it.

After I bought it, I happened to get Panther CD's. So I wanted to install it and using the installation CD I completely reformatted the disk. It was only when this was finished and I was ready to install did I realize that it was an upgrade.
So I bought Panter full install CD's from EBAY.

But now when I turn on the Mac, the monitor (a CRT dell monitor) continues to remain in power save mode. I checked to make sure this monitor is fine by connecting it to my PC laptop and it worked fine.

Even prior to reformatting it too, I had some problems with the monitor turning on but after several tries managed to work with it. But now it completely refuses to respond.

What can I do? Your response is appreciated.

Thanks,
Hari

[jsw]

Dumb question, maybe, but is it safe to assume that this same monitor worked properly with this same Mac before the install attempt?

It seems very odd that the monitor isn't getting a signal if it got one from the same system whose only change is a different OS - you'd expect at least some sort of signal.

[iEric]

Maybe the mac resetted the screen res to something the monitor can't handle. Is it possible for you to connect the same monitor to another computer?

[hpoliset]

I tried setting the monitor to different resolutions using a windows PC and it worked fine. But it doesn't switch on when I connect to the MAC. It always goes into the power save mode.

[Sun Baked]

I'd almost say reseat the video card and check the pins inside the connectors on the card and on the cable.

Can't rule out problems with the video card either, if the monitor won't work immediately after zapping the PRAM -- which should give you 640x480 @ 60Hz until the OS loads the current monitor settings.

Also if you are using one of the old Mac VGA adapters, remove it the machine uses standard VGA.

[Mechcozmo]

I tried setting the monitor to different resolutions using a windows PC and it worked fine. But it doesn't switch on when I connect to the MAC. It always goes into the power save mode.

It is Mac, not MAC, BTW.

I have had the same problem when the monitor could not support the refresh rate (Hertz, abbreviated Hz, it is one cycle per second. 60 Hertz is 60 cycles per second) or resolution.