600E - force external monitor or display?

[ohthinker]

Hi folks. I have a 600E that I'm using for various 24/7 background tasks, including a printing server. It's tucked away under my desk and has been running calmly and quietly for months. I use Win98SE and the OS stays up for astonishingly long periods with no trouble.

My problem is that with the machine hidden under my desk (which is the only place I have room for it), the only convenient way to talk to the machine is through VNC. That's painfully slow, I suppose because of the kicked-back 366 mHz processor in the T600.

Thus, I'd like to use my desktop monitor and mouse (and maybe keyboard, if I can find a splitter that works, but that's another matter for another time) to talk to the 600.

I'm trying to connect through a Cybex Switchview KVM 4-port switch, on port D. And that seems to be the problem.

When the 600 boots with its lid closed, it looks to see what's connected to the external CRT port. Since the Switchview is already talking to active machines on ports A and/or B, it ignores what's happening over there on port D. Since it's not routing the monitor to port D, the 600 sees no external CRT connected, and refuses to have anything to do with the external CRT port.

If I open the 600's lid, all is well. I can boot up the 600, hit the Switchview button, hit Fn-F7, and the external monitor will work fine. But as soon as I close the 600's lid again, poof! The external monitor shuts down along with the internal LCD.

I've tried the config utility, to no avail. Twenty-eight megs of download and all it seems to be is a fancier front end to the various Windows settings. Foo.

I also thought there was an option to ignore the lid switch, but I can't find it now. Maybe in the BIOS? That might have been only on the later T2x machines, not the 600. Or maybe that was a Win 2K option, not Win98. In any case, it doesn't seem to be available on this machine.

Is there any trick I can use to convice the 600 that it should enable its external CRT port when it boots? Or at least not shut down the external monitor when I shut the lid? I guess I could clip or file off the tab that hits the switch when the lid is closed, but I hate to do that. It seems kind of ... irreversible.

OS updates aren't in the cards for this machine right now.

Any suggestions, other than just staying with VNC? Are there maybe other brands of KVM switches that are smart enough to tell the attached machines what kind of monitor is available, even when that monitor is busy with other machines?

Thanks!

[Neil]

I guess I could clip or file off the tab that hits the switch when the lid is closed, but I hate to do that. It seems kind of ... irreversible.

You could remove the LCD bezel. That would disable the switch, and be easily reversible. And since you are operating it with the lid closed anyway, it's not something that is going to be seen either.