Fuzzy band in X running on an ancient laptopForum: X and Fluxbox Topic: Fuzzy band in X running on an ancient laptop started by: ericl Posted by ericl on Dec. 04 2007,20:17
At the risk of being burned alive for cross-posting, here goes. I also posted this message in the Laptops forum since it could go either way.I installed DSL 3.4.7 on an old Thinkpad 560 and am trying to get X to work correctly. The laptop is a 2640-10U with a Trident Cyber9382 chipset and a 11.3" DSTN display. After lots of head-beating, I discovered that the only thing would work was XF86_VGA. I downloaded a binary (I think version 3.x), found some XF86Config settings that mostly worked and was able to get a desktop to appear at 800x600x16. The problem now is that there is a strange band that is about an inch tall and screen width at the bottom that is fuzzed out. All other parts of the screen appear to be OK. I took a (bad) picture of it and you can see it here: < http://i187.photobucket.com/albums....een.jpg > I know that the hardware is working fine since this laptop was running Win95 at this resolution with no display problems. So...what could be the problem? Is this something fixable in XF86Config settings? Is there another XF86_SVGA binary that I can download to try? Honestly, I went to so many different websites I can't remember where I downloaded the one I'm using. Also, fwiw, I tried Xvesa and the fb server with no luck. I tried all the different combinations of VGA=xxx cheatcodes at boot and none of them worked on my hardware so fb was out. Xvesa would only work in 640x480x4 even though my display is capable of 800x600x16. I tried every other combination and got a screen full of multicolored bands. Posted by humpty on Dec. 05 2007,13:15
did you try the trident server ?
Posted by curaga on Dec. 05 2007,16:43
Or the xorg extension?
Posted by ericl on Dec. 05 2007,18:00
I'll try these suggestions. I searched the forum for "trident" and found a link to an Xtrident binary so I supposed I'll give that a try. I'll have a look at Xorg as well.It's frustrating that XF86_SVGA specifically supports the Trident Cyber9382 but something along the way is not working right. It's almost usable as long as I work in the upper 70% of the screen. Any other suggestions are welcome. I've tried tweaking my modelines in XF86Config running XF86_SVGA but it doesn't seem to have much effect. Even after RTFM at xfree86.org that describes all the modeline numbers, it's still a mystery to me. I'm particularly confused about the first number -- the clock. Several example XF86Config files claiming to work on the Thinkpad 560 have different values which don't work for me. How do I determine a list of valid clocks to use for my hardware? Posted by curaga on Dec. 05 2007,18:16
Xfree's or Xorg's autodetection (ie "X -probeonly")
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Dec. 05 2007,19:30
Did you check if you could increase the allocated video memory in the BIOS - if applicable?
Posted by roberts on Dec. 05 2007,20:00
Here is another config < file > for you to consider.
Posted by roberts on Dec. 05 2007,20:10
Another option to try... At the very first boot prompt instead of typing dsl boot: lowram vga=771 Then in the xsetup screen choose Xvesa, 800x600 8bit Posted by ericl on Dec. 05 2007,20:13
I did try this -- probeonly does not seem to list the available clocks. It lists the max clock as well as something about a programmable clock. I don't have the machine in front of me right now so I'm going by memory. Posted by ericl on Dec. 05 2007,20:15
I don't think this is an option. The old Thinkpad 560s did not have an on-screen BIOS access screen. Rather, there is an old DOS program to access the limited set of settings. Posted by ericl on Dec. 05 2007,20:24
This appears to be a config for XF86 4.x and I think I am using a version 3 binary. I read somewhere that the config files are pretty different. I have tried every XF86Config that I could find online for the TP560 and the fuzzy line is the best that I have been able to get. So far, information that I have gotten at < http://arctic.org/~dean/tp560/ > has gotten me where I am so far.
I have tried this as well without success. I used every code listed at < http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Vga%3Dxxx > and the system always barfs and tells me to select a valid mode. Using "lowram" does not seem to help on this system. Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Dec. 05 2007,20:38
On that link you referenced, it says it needs to use cy9382.tar.gz - did you use that as well?Well, just to put it out there: you can also try XFree86 4.3. This page < http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Trident_Cyber9382 > reports XOrg working under the vesa driver, although the trident driver might've been fixed since then. Posted by ericl on Dec. 05 2007,22:50
I looked at the cy9382 program and it looks like it's supposed to move the viewable area to a different part of the screen. There're references on the page to some different XF86Config files that are supposed to work without using cy9382. In short, no, I have not tried it yet.Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm going to poke around this for a little longer before I decide to throw it out the window. Posted by humpty on Dec. 06 2007,15:15
somebody got it xfree.3.3.6 working with a 9320, if it's any help.< https://www.agol.dk/elgaard/picframe.html > |