Hi, I need some help getting three monitors to work on my mac. I have a G3 upgraded (although that's irrelevant because the same problem occurs with this disabled) 6400 with the two PCI slots filled with a rage VR and a rage orion card. Each of them is connected to a 1710av monitor. The two of them work perfectly together. Now, I want to use my built in video to drive a small 14"av monitor - the main reason is to use the tv tuner card which only works of the built in video.
Now, whenever I start my machine with the 3 monitors plugged in the VR card (although recognised by the mac) does not drive the monitor correctly - if you move the mouse towards that screen it sticks - the rest of the computer doesn't crash but the mouse is stuck - forever. Sadly this happens even before the system is booted - just after the cursor appears.
Any ideas?
Richard

[gtabbott]

I'm taking a guess here...

A number of PowerMacs of that era had some sort of graphics accleration for onboard video, probably an ATI chip. There could be a conflict occuring between the extensions to support the VR card and those that are loaded when a monitor is sensed on the built-in video port.

Do you get the same problem when you boot the machine with extensions disabled? You won't benefit from the acceleration features, but you will at least be able to see whether your problem is caused by an extension conflict.

If the problem does go away with all extensions disabled, try disabling only thos extensions that have to do with built in video, perhaps "Performa Monitors" or something like that (I don't have one of these machines, so I can't be more specific).

You may lose the moderate graphics acceleration of the built in video support, but I imagine this isn't driving your primary (or even secondary) monitor, so you won't worry about the slower response.

Good Luck,

Tod Abbott

[Vision]

The Power Macintosh 6400 does not support three monitors. Yes, it does have two PCI slots, but according to Apple, it will freeze if you have more than two monitors connected. It is not a driver issue. http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n20230

Thanks for your help. If I manage to work it out (or trash the brightness driver whatever that is) I'll let you know.
Rich