iMac dv 400MHz VGA out help?

[TexasLyon]

Hi!

I recently got a 1999 lime iMac 400MHz system with a vga port at the back. The computer works, but the monitor won't. The lights turn on, the drives spin, and the startup noise is played. I'm trying to connect it to an external monitor via the vga to see if i can get it up. Is there anything i need to do besides connect the two and power on?
Thanks!

 

[Intell]

Those are the only two steps you need to do.

 

[TexasLyon]

so if its not showing up on the external monitor, do you have any ideas what the problem could be?

 

[Intell]

Do you know if this machine was ever running Mac OS X? Also the external monitor may only be seen as a secondary monitor.

 

[TexasLyon]

I'm not sure what firmware it's running, I picked it up at a garage sale for a couple bucks. Perhaps a restore disk would help?

 

[MacHamster68]

change the pram battery that surprisingly helped on one of mine to get the internal monitor to work again , seemed it forgot to have one , and with a new pram battery it remembered again

 

[TexasLyon]

I figured it out. The computer didn't come with any RAM. So of course nothing would show up on the monitor if there wasn't any RAM, right?

 

[Intell]

Having ram makes a big difference.

 

[TexasLyon]

haha gotcha, thanks