Re: Server - no video card
On Thursday 05 June 2003 13:03, Gary Hennigan wrote:
> "Mike M" <linux-support@earthlink.net> writes:
> > I want to save money as I expand my collection of Debian servers by
> > running without a video card. On the rare occasion that I need
> > console access to a machine I would pull it off the shelf and insert
> > an AGP video card.
> >
> > I just tried it on one of my servers and the only thing I observed
> > was a beep during the boot-up sequence.
My bad here. I meant to report that everything worked and the only thing
that changed from before was that I heard a beep. I am able to ssh in and
it's doing its job with no problem that I can detect so far.
> >
> > Several questions come to mind:
> >
> > Is this an acceptable mode of operation? Are others running in this
> > mode?
> >
> > Should most motherboards being recently produced be expected to run
> > without a video card? (Maybe it's a BIOS thing?)
>
> The BIOS on a lot of machines, particularly older ones, won't allow
> you to boot without a video card. In some cases you can tweak a BIOS
> setting to tell it to ignore the lack of a video card and boot anyway,
> *but*, you have to install a video card in order to set that in the
> BIOS, usually.
OK. I remember those options. I changed it when the machine complained
about not having a keyboard in a previous exercise. I can't remember what
value I set. It must be set to ignore all errors since the machine came up.
>
> Is it a valid approach? Yeah, I suppose there's nothing wrong with the
> approach, if your machines BIOS supports booting without a video card,
> but it's a MIGHTY pain to have to add a video card when something goes
> wrong. For most cases like this I generally just get a computer with
> built-in video, set it up while connected to a monitor and then
> disconnect the monitor and throw it in the closet. Either that or I
> shell out $30 for a cheapo VGA card. If I tried setting up a server
> without a video card I know I'd be cursing myself every time something
> went wrong and I had to open up the case and install a video card just
> to diagnose the problem.
Geez, I must really be a tightwad :-). I shopped for on-board video mobos at
pricewatch but found the selection had fewer PCI slots than I needed (4-5) at
the price point I wanted ($40). I am trying to build a sub $200 server.
Debian is making CDROMs pointless as well. I am looking a 7 CDROM drives
that I rarely use. It's time I looked in to loading from a network drive.
Thanks for the advice. I going to run video card-less in a couple of boxes
for a while to see how often I need monitor access. I might do the serial
access thing mentioned in another response.
>
> Gary
--
Mike M.
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