Re: [gentoo-user] Monitor goes off on boot

["Daniel da Veiga" <danieldaveiga@gmail.com>]

On 3/8/06, Ghaith Hachem <blacksadness@gmail.com> wrote:
> i know ati drivers suck but i booted the live cd on my x300se card so
> i guess it's not really the problem.. maybe the screen don't support
> the resolution set by default (1024 x 768 was the resolution the live
> cd set by default on my pc and it worked great)
>

The livecd uses the VESA drivers, that should support most if not all
cards, its a generic driver, so, what you are getting is probably a
VSync problem, Xorg tries to probe the monitor for supported
resolutions and H/VSyncs, what happened must be that it is using a
Vsync not supported by your monitor.

Use CTRL+ALT+F1, edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf, try setting the VSync to
lower values (60 for instance), also try setting a lower resolution
(800x600 should work). Man xorg.conf for details. X -configure can
"try" to create a xorg.conf probing your devices (it usually misses my
mouse). Check the X System How To at www.gentoo.org to see how
configure xorg.

Keep in mind that you can use the command-line installer instead, or
follow the instructions and do it by hand (I consider the later a
great learning experience that can save your ass sometimes).

> On 3/8/06, Holly Bostick <motub@planet.nl> wrote:
> > A.R.S. KA9QLQ Alvin Koffman schreef:
> > > Well I'm stumped. Every time I boot the live cd it gets to where
> > > Gnome should start then the monitor goes off. Does any one know what
> > > video drivers the live cd uses? Alvin
> > >
> > > For the best jerky you've ever had go to http://alk.jerkydirect.com/
> > >  My home page http://ka9qlq.tripod.com This PC is windows free with
> > > Mepis Linux 3.4-3 http://www.mepis.org/ 1(747)632-4973 SIP Get Gizmo
> > > 1 cent per minuet calling http://www.gizmoproject.com/
> >
> > What video card do you have and what drivers?
> >
> > I've had similar problems (not with this graphical live CD, since I
> > installed Gentoo before it existed, but with X applications and X
> > itself), because I have an ATI card. ATI cards do do that (just shut
> > down the monitor) if 1) using the wrong drivers ("radeon" when card
> > model is one above the 9(2/5?)50 (sorry, can't remember which model is
> > the stopper for the Open Source drivers), and/or 2) DGA is enabled for
> > the fglrx drivers (this will do exactly what you described; it has many
> > times for me, and it is just one of the many PITAs with the fglrx drivers).
> >
> > The thing is-- in theory, I have no evidence to support this-- that
> > GNOME (I am a GNOME user as opposed to a KDE user, though I don't use
> > either of those DE's regularly or "first" during a new install due to
> > their size) appears to require 3D support be working in order to load
> > properly. Or at least, the hardware acceleration must be working if
> > you're using drivers that supposedly support said acceleration. As I
> > said, I have no evidence for this /per se/; it's just my theory based on
> > experience. If you're using the 'vesa' drivers (which don't support 3D),
> > I betcha GNOME will load fine (at least it always does for me), but as
> > soon as you load drivers in your X config that are supposed to support
> > hardware acceleration/OpenGL/3D, GNOME will break if that support is
> > broken (even though, afaik, no basic operation of GNOME actually uses
> > 3D-- that's why this is a "theory" and seemingly rather a crackpot one,
> > but it's the only theory that fits my experience).
> >
> > So I would suggest first changing your xorg.conf to load the vesa
> > drivers, which should load (that's what they're for, default drivers
> > that should always be able to load and display), then editing your
> > xorg.conf to resolve the "obvious" problem that it must have.  Some
> > option or driver causes your video card to stop sending a signal. I know
> > that >=9600 ATI cards do this when DGA is enabled on the fglrx drivers,
> > and also that >=9(2/5?)50 cards do strange things when using the
> > "radeon" drivers which don't support these models for hardware
> > acceleration, as opposed to the "fglrx" drivers which do-- but  the
> > LiveCDs will tend to (in my experience) recognize my 9800SE as an ATI
> > card and load the "radeon" drivers incorrectly because the "fglrx"
> > drivers that the card needs are not open source... and the "radeon"
> > drivers don't actually work properly for my card. But you may have a
> > different brand of card, or it could be a different option causing this.
> >
> > You might want to copy /var/log/Xorg.0.log to a backup location before
> > you try to start X with the vesa drivers (since the vesa drivers should
> > load correctly, it will overwrite the log with the errors and you need
> > to know what they are, so backup the log with the errors first, is that
> > I'm suggesting).
> >
> > But the first thing we'd have to know is what is the video card, and
> > what are the loaded drivers; then we can work on things like what video
> > options you set in the kernel, and what you've got for modelines and the
> > like in xorg.conf (though I doubt that the issue is modelines, since
> > that just knocks you out fo X completely with a "no screens found"
> > error, not kills your signal between video card and monitor while
> > leaving X actually running).
> >
> > Anyway, hope this helps.
> > Holly
> >
> > --
> > gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Cheers,
> Ghaith
>
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>


--
Daniel da Veiga
Computer Operator - RS - Brazil
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