I have a server machine in a colo facility. The facility provides carts with monitors, keyboards, and mice. The monitors are CRTs. Last night I changed the hardware configuration of a machine, and since I was having problems I needed to see the BIOS startup screen. However, these “smart” power-saving monitors turn themselves off immediately when video sync is lost, and take more than fifteen seconds to turn on once video sync is detected.
So if I tell the machine to reboot itself, or even just press the reset button, video goes away, and the monitor turns off. A few seconds later, the BIOS has reinitialized the video, and the monitor starts turning on. But by the time the monitor is on, the BIOS display that I need to see has already been replaced by something else. In this case, the startup display of the 3ware RAID BIOS.
If the monitors would just wait 15 seconds before turning themselves off, it would be much less aggravating.
Most LCD monitors are at least quicker to turn on, but I don’t want to have to take my own LCD monitor into the colo every time I need to see the BIOS startup.