Display hassles - suspect I need a new graphics card
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From: Stephen Horne on 30 Dec 2009 19:22 I got a new monitor last April - the best that someone else could pay for, meaning 1920x1080 native resolution LCD - an LG W2261. Since that point I've had a fair few problems, none of which seem to be the monitors fault exactly, and on both Linux and Windows. I'm pretty sure the problem is with my obsolete graphics card (rebranded ATI RADEON X700 series), or more precisely, with the drivers - I don't think they much like 1920x1080 monitors. In OpenSUSE 11.1, the only issue I had was instantaneous on boot. I'd get a text-mode screen telling me my chosen resolution is invalid. Press enter, select a resolution from a list. 1920x1080 is never listed (though higher resolutions are), so I just enter the code for 1280x1024 to get through the boot process. When that annoyed me, I added the vga=366 option into GRUB to get past this, and everything was fine. Since OpenSUSE 11.2, though - installed as an update to 11.1 - things have been a bit more problematic. The issue is that, during the boot process, about half-way through the progress bar growing, the screen goes black and stays black. The machine still seems to be booting up as normal - drive noise etc. The monitor is *not* in powersaving - it just seems to be getting an all-black signal from the graphics card. Connection is via DVI. The card also has VGA and TV outputs, neither in use. Boot in failsafe and (with the lower resolution) everythings fine. Go into SAX2 and I can click on the combobox for the resolution then reselect the same resolution that it already shows selected - 1920x1080 - then do the apply, test, accept that it will be used next restart etc. Reboot the machine and everything is fine - until the next time it happens. Looking at the Hardware details in YaST2, the most obvious suspicious thing is that the framebuffer section contains a big list of screen resolutions which doesn't include 1920x1080. This black screen during boot issue almost exactly mirrors symptoms I used to have in Windows, which I finally solved when I figured out which new drivers to download - same black screen that isn't monitor powersaving, occuring while a progress bar is on the screen mid-boot, equally intermittent. The main difference is that in Windows, the display would magically restart by itself a few minutes after booting, whereas with Linux I need to do some failsafe fiddling. The last ditch fix with Windows was a keyboard shortcut to force the resolution, which would typically work for a few seconds before the screen went black again, but which would eventually stick. So - I'm pretty sure that this is just one of those things where either I wait and hope for the non-OSS driver update that may never happen because the vendor isn't making money from it any more, or else I buy a new graphics card. Most likely the driver has inconsistent ideas about whether it supports my monitors native resolution or not. Just wanted to run it by some people with some more Linux clue, in case I'm missing an easier (no cost) fix. After all, it's not just the graphics card that's obsolete on my machine, and it makes more sense to put the money into the new-machine-when-I-can-afford-it fund.
From: Peter Köhlmann on 30 Dec 2009 19:24 Stephen Horne wrote: > > I got a new monitor last April - the best that someone else could pay > for, meaning 1920x1080 native resolution LCD - an LG W2261. Since that > point I've had a fair few problems, none of which seem to be the > monitors fault exactly, and on both Linux and Windows. Poor Troll So much "issues"... Why do you want to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that dirt is *much* smarter than you are? -- The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the stupidity of your action.
From: Death on 30 Dec 2009 19:39 Peter Köhlmann wrote: > Stephen Horne wrote: > >> >> I got a new monitor last April - the best that someone else could pay >> for, meaning 1920x1080 native resolution LCD - an LG W2261. Since that >> point I've had a fair few problems, none of which seem to be the >> monitors fault exactly, and on both Linux and Windows. > > Poor Troll > > So much "issues"... > > Why do you want to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that dirt is *much* > smarter than you are? Man...I thought I was hard. -- Vita brevis breviter in brevi finietur, Mors venit velociter quae neminem veretur.
From: Stephen Horne on 30 Dec 2009 20:12 On 31 Dec 2009 01:39:33 +0100, Death <death(a)rottingcorpses.x-x> wrote: >Peter K�hlmann wrote: <snip> >Man...I thought I was hard. I have him killfiled. Houghi has me killfiled. My bad day was two days ago, so now I don't really care who has the last word. If Peter wants to call me names, let him. I called him a few, after all, and bitching about who said what first isn't going to improve things. To me, that's the end of it.
From: David Bolt on 30 Dec 2009 20:12
On Thursday 31 Dec 2009 00:22, while playing with a tin of spray paint, Stephen Horne painted this mural: > I got a new monitor last April - the best that someone else could pay > for, meaning 1920x1080 native resolution LCD - an LG W2261. Since that > point I've had a fair few problems, none of which seem to be the > monitors fault exactly, and on both Linux and Windows. > > I'm pretty sure the problem is with my obsolete graphics card > (rebranded ATI RADEON X700 series), or more precisely, with the > drivers - I don't think they much like 1920x1080 monitors. Grab another card and try it. You'll probably find an nVidia card is a better choice, although some prefer ATI. I didn't care about the chipset maker, and even preferred ATI some years ago, but that was because they were slightly cheaper. Now I just go for the nVidia cards. My last one, an Asus badged EN9400GT is driving my 24" Acer at 1920x1080 without a problem. > In OpenSUSE 11.1, the only issue I had was instantaneous on boot. I'd > get a text-mode screen telling me my chosen resolution is invalid. > Press enter, select a resolution from a list. 1920x1080 is never > listed (though higher resolutions are), so I just enter the code for > 1280x1024 to get through the boot process. When that annoyed me, I > added the vga=366 option into GRUB to get past this, and everything > was fine. I use vga=0x31a, which leaves a bit of a border around the text, but it's not a problem. > Since OpenSUSE 11.2, though - installed as an update to 11.1 - things > have been a bit more problematic. > > The issue is that, during the boot process, about half-way through the > progress bar growing, the screen goes black and stays black. The > machine still seems to be booting up as normal - drive noise etc. The > monitor is *not* in powersaving - it just seems to be getting an > all-black signal from the graphics card. Or it's being driven out of spec. Try booting into runlevel 3, logging in and then using startx. If the screen goes black, you can use the ctrl-alt-bkspc keystrokes (twice in succession) to kill X and get back to a command prompt. > Boot in failsafe and (with the lower resolution) everythings fine. Go > into SAX2 and I can click on the combobox for the resolution then > reselect the same resolution that it already shows selected - > 1920x1080 - then do the apply, test, accept that it will be used next > restart etc. Reboot the machine and everything is fine - until the > next time it happens. Did you select the monitor type? If not, try it. If the LG model isn't listed, select an LCD 1920x1080(a)60. > Looking at the Hardware details in YaST2, the most obvious suspicious > thing is that the framebuffer section contains a big list of screen > resolutions which doesn't include 1920x1080. What results do you get from hwinfo --monitor Mine are: moray:~ # hwinfo --monitor 30: None 00.0: 10002 LCD Monitor [Created at monitor.95] Unique ID: rdCR.fu2wipuLxN9 Hardware Class: monitor Model: "ACER V243H" Vendor: ACR Device: eisa 0x00dc "ACER V243H" Serial ID: "LHG080034231" Resolution: 720x400(a)70Hz Resolution: 640x480(a)60Hz Resolution: 640x480(a)67Hz Resolution: 800x600(a)56Hz Resolution: 800x600(a)60Hz Resolution: 1024x768(a)60Hz Resolution: 1024x768(a)70Hz Resolution: 1152x864(a)75Hz Resolution: 1280x1024(a)60Hz Resolution: 1920x1080(a)60Hz Size: 531x299 mm Detailed Timings #0: Resolution: 1920x1080 Horizontal: 1920 2008 2052 2200 (+88 +132 +280) +hsync Vertical: 1080 1084 1089 1125 (+4 +9 +45) +vsync Frequencies: 148.50 MHz, 67.50 kHz, 60.00 Hz Driver Info #0: Max. Resolution: 1920x1080 Vert. Sync Range: 56-75 Hz Hor. Sync Range: 30-83 kHz Bandwidth: 148 MHz Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown > So - I'm pretty sure that this is just one of those things where > either I wait and hope for the non-OSS driver update that may never > happen because the vendor isn't making money from it any more, or else > I buy a new graphics card. Most likely the driver has inconsistent > ideas about whether it supports my monitors native resolution or not. Possibly. Supposedly, the monitor details are read from the monitor and used to drive the monitor at a compatible resolution. It could be the driver is getting some settings wrong. > Just wanted to run it by some people with some more Linux clue, in > case I'm missing an easier (no cost) fix. After all, it's not just the > graphics card that's obsolete on my machine, and it makes more sense > to put the money into the new-machine-when-I-can-afford-it fund. I prefer the "buy-the-best-I-can-now" and upgrade as and when I can. Works quite nicely, for me at least, and has resulted in my small collection of PCs. Regards, David Bolt -- Team Acorn: www.distributed.net OGR-NG @ ~100Mnodes RC5-72 @ ~1Mkeys/s openSUSE 11.0 32b | | openSUSE 11.2 32b | openSUSE 11.0 64b | openSUSE 11.1 64b | openSUSE 11.2 64b | TOS 4.02 | openSUSE 11.1 PPC | RISC OS 4.02 | RISC OS 3.11 |