I searched here and didn't see a posting dealing with this, but if I missed it, my apologies for reposting this problem.

The hardware:
- g3 powermac (blue and white)
- apple display (smoke)
- panther OS
- other software, etc....

The symptoms:
- on startup the display has the message "out of frequency range" and then gives a 10 second timer before going into sleep mode.
- the CPU seems to be operating fine, but I can't tell without an operational display.
- the mac startup screen is never displayed.

Probable causes:
- I set the display settings to an incompatible range and after shutting down it is impossible for the display to startup in the chosen settings?
- A game didn't release the settings control back to the system (completely guessing here)

So... does anyone know if there is a way to reset/override/reboot/hijack/erase/rip out/redo/cancel the settings going to the display during startup? I will be trying the <option-apple-p-r> keystroke to reset the pram. Hopefully it'll work. I'll let you all know if it does. In the meantime.. any suggestions?

Responding with a fix.

Resetting the pram by holding down the <option-apple-p-r> keys at startup allowed the system to startup (you'll have to hold the keys down for about 30 seconds. When I did this the "caps lock" light blinked and flashed and the startup "bongggggg" sounded. That's a really nice sound to hear when things aren't going so good.

So far so good? Almost... I still had to change the display resolution and frequency to another setting that works with this monitor (my apologies, I don't remember the resolution, but the frequency is 75Hz). It took 3 tries of restarting and resetting pram when I didn't choose a compatible display setting, but I found a combo that works and is readable.

How did this happen in the first place? I have no idea. I have a feeling someone at home is learning about the system preferences. I'm just glad I found a fix.

Problem solved, and the missus is happy again.

Thanks,
Canoe

Glad you found the fix for yourself.

And yes, your first idea for the cause was the most likely culprit. If the video settings are set to a resolution & frequency that the monitor cannot handle, you get what you saw.

I believe in Panther you are now auto-asked if you want to keep the settings after X amount of seconds, and then it changes back to what it was, just in case it's set way out of bounds, so what happened to you doesn't happen.

yeah - thanks for going to the trouble of posting the fix