Windows 2003 on Sun X4200

Question

getting out of range on video when installing Windows 2003, right when it says starting windows GUi for the first time, no way in bios to turn resoultion down, tried setting S/W bios memory hole enabled. Please help I have 6 of these beast to do.

Answer 1

Hello Lewis. It sounds to me that the problem is between Windows and your monitor, not the BIOS. Usually, an 'out of range' message from the monitor indicates that either the horizontal or vertical frequency being used by the software (Windows) is beyond that your monitor can handle.
This is usually caused by improper initial detection by Windows, or the wrong parameters input during installation. If you have a plug-n-play monitor (which I'm assuming), Windows should easily poll the monitor for specifics and make base settings accordingly. Usually this works fine.
I recommend you bring up the system in Safe Mode, and make settings adjustments. If your particular monitor is not matched properly in Windows (it does not contain explicit model information), you will have to hand-enter the particulars. The best way to go about doing this is to first set it up as a medium resolution VESA standard type, say at 800x600x256 colors. Reboot the system normally, and make changes and adjustments once running the GUI, which you can save or back-out from.
Let me know how you make out with this, pm..