Classroom setup

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This page contains classroom setup notes for the CCARH lab in Braun, room 129.

Getting sound from the Lab4 computer to the speakers

  1. Plug in the 1/8" audio jack into the back of the computer. It is plugged into the sound card which is the bottom card on the back of the computer. The green-color hole is the place to plug it in.

    Usually step (1) should already be done, since the speaker cable is usually plugged into the computer (but sometimes it is plugged into the computer facing lab4).

  2. Check the volume setting on the taskbar in Windows. Typically the volume will be muted. Click on the volume icon in the system tray to verify that the volume level is not zero, and that the mute option is not checked.
  3. If there is still no sound, double-click on the volume icon in the taskbar to open up the detailed volume control. Verify that the audio output volume is not zero, and also the MIDI output if you are playing MIDI sounds from the sound blaster card (but usually the MIDI sounds in programs are coming from the WAVE output since the Microsoft software synthesizer is being used).
  4. If there is no sound coming from the speakers, then it is possible that the audio input switch for the speakers is not set correctly. The switch is a little box to the left of the screen on the Epson scanner computer. It should be set correctly. Just switch it around to various input until I hear sound on the speakers (that presumes that the computer is outputting audio correctly, however). Only do this as a last resort, since it is rare for the switch to be set to some other audio input. Things become difficult if the display resolution

Displaying a Laptop on the projector

  1. There is a loose VGA cable (and a white DVI-VGA adaptor for Mac computers) on the floor near lab 4. Plug the VGA cable into the laptop computer's VGA output.
  2. The laptop must now be told to send video out to the VGA connection. This is dependent on the type of laptop. Often windows laptops have a hardware key (such as Fn+F7) which toggles through the display options. Windows 7 computers often auto-detect that a cable is plugged into the VGA video out and will start sending a signal automatically. Mac OS X has a display option in its main settings under the apple menu.
  3. Once the laptop is connected, there is a video switch attached to the left side of the lab4 computer (underneath the counter). Turn the switch to the "laptop" setting.

Displaying Lab4 on the projector

  1. The projector cannot handle resolutions greater than 1280x1024. Its preferred resolution is 1024x768. The usual resolution of lab4's monitor is 1600x1200. Therefore, you must decrease the resolution of the screen temporarily when using the projector.
  2. Right-click on the far right side of the screen with the mouse. This will bring of a menu. Select the "Properties..." option in that menu.
  3. Click on the settings tab in the Properties window which appears.
  4. Choose a resolution of 1280x1024 or lower (1024x768 is preferred).
  5. If no video is being displayed, then make sure that the video selector switch attached to the left side of the computer is not set to "laptop".
  6. It will take several seconds for the video to be displayed. You can usually see the text "perfecting image" when the projector has found a video signal, and it is getting ready to display that signal. If it cannot find a video signal, you will usually see the text "Scanning..." being display from the projector.

Restarting the Lab4 computer

When the computer is restarted, there is confusion in the detection of display screens. The computer wants to use the display projector as the screen, so the normal screen will become blank after Windows starts up. The easiest way to work around this problem is to turn on the projector, and open the Nvidia control panel on the right side of the taskbar. Then in an obscure menu item in the Nvidia control panel, select the correct screen. The most direct process is to unplug the projector's cable from the back of the computer in order to prevent it from being detected when the computer is being restarted. That involves unscrewing it from the back. The projector's cable should be the DVI cable furthest from the window.