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G5 Killed my CRT, What Dell 17 should I get?

840quadra

840quadra

Moderator
Original poster
Staff member
Feb 1, 2005
9,593
6,539
Twin Cities Minnesota
Well I walked into my computer room to find a great Burning electronics smell, first I was thinking, OH NO, MY QUADRA!!!

Well Thankfully it was ok, I could hear it's SCSI drives spinning and the light was still on, I wasn't too worried about my G5 because it is brand new, and well, I can replace it if it died. As I was looking for the cause of the smell, I heard a POP come out of my View Sonic 17" Monitor that was connected to my G5. I quickly unplugged it, and have replaced it with a 15" Black Acer monitor. Nice looking Monitor, just WAY too small for a G5.

I am looking on Dell for an idea of what to get, and I have two options in the 17" class (I wish Apple had a 17" LCD). I don't have enough room for a larger monitor, otherwise I would go for it!!

Here are my choices..


http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/ProductDetail.aspx?sku=320-3997&c=us&l=en&cs=04&category_id=210&first=true&page=productlisting.aspx

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/ProductDetail.aspx?sku=320-4042&c=us&l=en&cs=04&category_id=210&first=true&page=productlisting.aspx

Thanks for any thoughts or suggestions on this purchase, the way it has been going, I will have replaced any PC device that was attached to my old Pentium 450 by next month!!
 
I have the 1704FPV - it's pretty good, and I'd say is a better deal than the E173FP. The 1704FPV has DVI and VGA input but the E173FP is just VGA.

Check out this site too: http://www.xpbargains.com/best_deal.php/lcd_monitor_deals.htm

It often has Dell LCD coupons (at least three separate ones since the start of the year). If you can wait, there'll surely be another one for the 17" in a week or two. Currently there is a 40% off the 19" Dell LCD from the small business section - that's not that much bigger than the 17" (although it's the same resolution, one of the reasons I got the 17" instead).
 
plinden said:
I have the 1704FPV - it's pretty good, and I'd say is a better deal than the E173FP. The 1704FPV has DVI and VGA input but the E173FP is just VGA.

Check out this site too: http://www.xpbargains.com/best_deal.php/lcd_monitor_deals.htm

It often has Dell LCD coupons (at least three separate ones since the start of the year). If you can wait, there'll surely be another one for the 17" in a week or two. Currently there is a 40% off the 19" Dell LCD from the small business section - that's not that much bigger than the 17" (although it's the same resolution, one of the reasons I got the 17" instead).
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link and advice. I totally forgot about the DVI issue, despite just hooking up a monitor to the VGA dongle a half hour ago.

I think I can wait, this Acer 15" Monitor has a much MUCH cleaner picture then the Viewsonic had, I am wondering if the Viewsonic was slowly dying on me.

Thanks again

840
 
DELL IS SUPER!@

My lovely new DELL 17" monitor at work has a wonderful feature where most of the screen is covered in brown horizontal lines. A solid smack to the right side clears it up, sometimes.

It also has the awesome nifty feature of MANUAL degaussing, unlike my hideously overpriced Apple 17" studio display that degausses every time it turns on.

Hey the Dell was cheaper after all! BTW if your new DELL screen has odd color fluctuations just press the OSD (on screen display) button, scroll down 6 lines, press the OSD menu button again, then the RIGHT button and it will degauss. Apple's are such toys for having automated degaussing, wusses.
 
Funny. My 17" NEC CRT popped just like that a couple months ago. My roommate and I both hit the deck. I don't know much about Dell monitors, but give this forum a look it's pretty much just a compilation of great deals, I see 17" LCDs on there all the time.
 
840quadra said:
Well I walked into my computer room to find a great Burning electronics smell, first I was thinking, OH NO, MY QUADRA!!!
Click to expand...

Lol. That quadra 840av is quite the beaut. Did you get it when it first came out?
 
Thanks for the advice everyone!! I really appreciate the quick responses!

I bought a Samsung Silver colored monitor at Best Buy today. This is a 17" and will be used with this computer for about a month.. After that I am going to retire it to my 6320/CD With TV tuner that is currently located in the Kitchen with a small 15" CRT monitor. My goal is to finish a shelf setup so I can run a 19" or larger monitor on my G5 :)


If you want a poor man's TIVO setup, buy a classic macintosh with a TV tuner, buy a 160GB IDE drive, and have yourself a good classic mac, with TV Recording ability!! It also makes one of the cheapest LCD TV setups you can buy, and you have more LCD size options then current LCD TV sets!!

Sorry.. just plugging my classic Power PC setup :)
 
topicolo said:
Lol. That quadra 840av is quite the beaut. Did you get it when it first came out?
Click to expand...

I wish I had it when it was new, Back then I had an Acer Aspire Pentium 166.

I bought the Quadra in 1998 when it was 4 years old. I Fell in love with the Quadras in 93 when I was in High School :D
 
Sayer said:
It also has the awesome nifty feature of MANUAL degaussing, unlike my hideously overpriced Apple 17" studio display that degausses every time it turns on.
Apple's are such toys for having automated degaussing, wusses.
Click to expand...

That's funny, because my 17" Studio Display (which I recently picked up for the nonhideous price of $100, including shipping) can be manually degaussed whenever I want. Then again, there were three (not including color variations) different 17" Apple Studio Displays: a VGA CRT, an ADC CRT, and an ADC LCD.
 
840quadra said:
If you want a poor man's TIVO setup, buy a classic macintosh with a TV tuner, buy a 160GB IDE drive, and have yourself a good classic mac, with TV Recording ability!! It also makes one of the cheapest LCD TV setups you can buy, and you have more LCD size options then current LCD TV sets!!

Sorry.. just plugging my classic Power PC setup :)
Click to expand...

OK, you're making me feel guilty about recently putting my fully functional Quadra 660AV into storage. I've had it since it was first available in Best Buy, which I assure you was a long time ago (I think I was nine years old!). That thing took me through Warcraft 2, Marathon 1&2, Myst, and Escape Velocity with its incredible 25 mHz 68040 processor (55 mHz DSP!), 64 megs of RAM, and roomy 250 meg hard drive. Gotta say I was kinda sad when I upgraded to a PowerMac 6500 way back when. Argh, the memories!
 
Xeem said:
OK, you're making me feel guilty about recently putting my fully functional Quadra 660AV into storage. I've had it since it was first available in Best Buy, which I assure you was a long time ago (I think I was nine years old!). That thing took me through Warcraft 2, Marathon 1&2, Myst, and Escape Velocity with its incredible 25 mHz 68040 processor (55 mHz DSP!), 64 megs of RAM, and roomy 250 meg hard drive. Gotta say I was kinda sad when I upgraded to a PowerMac 6500 way back when. Argh, the memories!
Click to expand...

Sad!

I would go through Quadra Withdrawls if I didn't hear the startup chime on that thing from time to time. Did you know that the 660av and 840av were one of the first two Macintosh computers to use the still current startup chime?

< / Supid fact of the day >

Anyway, dig that thing out!!

If you have old tapes (I mean old stuff) that you can't find on CD, or to download, use your Quadra to Record them, copy the files over to your Powermac and Rip them into files Itunes can use!

The Digital Signal processor on your Quadra makes your 660av one of the best Macintosh computers for doing audio recording. Since the DSP can access memory directly without going through the main system board processor, it will offer you the CLEANEST audio recording, that many of the newer powermacs can't touch. I am in the process of recording LP tracks off of old albums my parents have, to put them on CD's, and into my mom's Quicksilver.

I know that other comptuers can record sound well, but the Quadra AV's were the only two that had a dedicated processor that was ONLY used for sound and video (unless you used versions of Photoshop that could take advantage fo the DSP).

Put the Quadra to work!!! it was built for it :)
 
840quadra said:
Sad!

I would go through Quadra Withdrawls if I didn't hear the startup chime on that thing from time to time. Did you know that the 660av and 840av were one of the first two Macintosh computers to use the still current startup chime?

< / Supid fact of the day >

Anyway, dig that thing out!!

If you have old tapes (I mean old stuff) that you can't find on CD, or to download, use your Quadra to Record them, copy the files over to your Powermac and Rip them into files Itunes can use!

The Digital Signal processor on your Quadra makes your 660av one of the best Macintosh computers for doing audio recording. Since the DSP can access memory directly without going through the main system board processor, it will offer you the CLEANEST audio recording, that many of the newer powermacs can't touch. I am in the process of recording LP tracks off of old albums my parents have, to put them on CD's, and into my mom's Quicksilver.

I know that other comptuers can record sound well, but the Quadra AV's were the only two that had a dedicated processor that was ONLY used for sound and video (unless you used versions of Photoshop that could take advantage fo the DSP).

Put the Quadra to work!!! it was built for it :)
Click to expand...


I think apple also sold a modem called a Geoport or something that used the DSP in the Quadra AV models. Man, I still have the Macworld issue where they were introduced. Truly drool worthy :)
 
840quadra said:
If you want a poor man's TIVO setup, buy a classic macintosh with a TV tuner, buy a 160GB IDE drive, and have yourself a good classic mac, with TV Recording ability!!
Click to expand...


What about the 120 GB limit? Do you also need to buy a ATA controller card?

I know that even on "newer" G3s and G4s a hard drive larger than 120 GB wouldn't work-- the computer couldn't access that large of a drive due to the controller.
 
Mechcozmo said:
What about the 120 GB limit? Do you also need to buy a ATA controller card?

I know that even on "newer" G3s and G4s a hard drive larger than 120 GB wouldn't work-- the computer couldn't access that large of a drive due to the controller.
Click to expand...

It can currently only see 120.

The 160GB drive was less expensive then the 120, since I bought 2 at the same time (one for my B&W G3)

I didn't need an ATA controller, my system was able to use the drive as is.. Maybe my older Mac is strange..
 
spinne1 said:
Unless I'm mistaken, the 128GB limit can be overcome using a 133 ATA controller PCI card and running your hard drives off of that.
Click to expand...

Hence why I asked if you also needed to buy a card to circumvent that limit...

840quadra said:
It can currently only see 120.

The 160GB drive was less expensive then the 120, since I bought 2 at the same time (one for my B&W G3)

I didn't need an ATA controller, my system was able to use the drive as is.. Maybe my older Mac is strange..
Click to expand...

You don't need a new ATA controller to use the drive-- just the part past 120 GB. The computer will see the hard drive, but only to 120GB. Past that, and it needs a newer controller that will be able to see the remaining whatever on the hard drive.
 
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