FC4 ibook install w external monitor only

[mortens]

I have a G3 ibook 700MHz that has a busted screen - the top third of it is OK, but underneath that nothing can be seen. I had read that the firmware would automatically mirror to an external display, so I connected it up to my PC monitor (Compaq 15" LCD FP5315) and tried to install from the FC4 CDs. Unfortunately, while I can get it to boot from the CD fine (I can tell from the top portion of the real screen), it doesn't seem to want to mirror the display to the external monitor. Once I get past the boot prompt, there seems to be some sort of signal getting to the monitor, judging from the LED, but all I get is a blank screen. I have done some digging on the web, and come up with various boot options, none of which worked:

linux video=nofb
linux video=radeonfb
linux video=offb
linux video=ofonly

The last one did have one effect - I got a blank white screen instead of a blank black screen. Does anybody have any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

[suv]

when i had to temp switch from 17 inch monitor to old 15 inch monitor...had same blanking issue. It was because the 15 inch didn't like the 1280x1024 resolution i had on before. After the screen goes blank...try doing ctrl+alt+(+/-) slowly (be patient...will see no results of key press until u get it right) to cycle through resolutions to get a supported one (would try - )

[mortens]

Hi suv,

Thanks for the tip. I have tried this several times, but can't seem to get it to work. When should I be trying it - at the boot prompt, or at the CD test screen, or at the graphical Fedora prompt? Are there any specific boot options I should be using?