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Sony Trinitron 17" CRT G200 problems

It is definitely not a power issue. On modern monitors and VGA cards that are DDC capable, pins #11, #12 and #15 are used for bi-directional data transfer between monitor and video card (video cards send power saving commands to the monitors and monitors tell their capable resolutions and range of frequencies to video cards etc.) In original VGA standard, these pins are used to detect the type of the monitor by video card (i.e. color/mono). Since old video cards does not send DDC data on these pins (like the video card in your IBM 5160), new monitors simply behave like there is no connection on these DDC pins and just display the picture according to the signal coming from video and sync pins if signals are in the allowable range.

In my opinion, one of these DDC lines is broken in your monitor (or something else inside of the monitor related with DDC is broken) and it cannot get the appropriate DDC signal from the broken line (for example pin#15) but getting signal from the other (for example pin#12) and interprets this condition as power-off case and keeps it powered off.

I'd try to connect the monitor to the video card just from video (1-2-3-6-7-8 ) and sync pins (10-13-14) In this case, it should behave like it is connected to a pre-DDC video card, like in your IBM and I expect that it will work. Just buy a VGA cable and remove pins #12 and #15 using long nose pliers and hook it to the 2nd input of your monitor. These are the monitors with really good image quality and they are not easy to obtain them in good shape (particularly low hours sets) , so I'd do everything possible to revive it again.
 
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Removed the two additional pins: 9 and 11 same problems.

As soon as I flip the power switch on the IBM 5170 the monitor springs to life. The same instant. Like its jolting it with power to turn it on. The monitor is not in power save mode as there are no leds on the power button. It's like as it were switched off. Power save mode changes the power led to orange.
 
Oh man. I just found the problem. Jesus I feel like a dick! The darn power cable was connected to the PSU of my IBM 5170 so that's why it was turning on and off when I switched on the IBM. Doooooh! Sorry about that. I have so many cables I did not trace it. Thanks for all the help anyhow. At least I know a little more about VGa cables now :)
 
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