Fedora Core 3 corrupted video display during installation

Sir Nerdalot · 07-07-2005, 03:36 AM

I have a Dell OptiPlex GX150 (with built in Intel Video). I have reasonably successfully installed fedora Core 3, but when it came to the final reboot, the text part of the boot sequence was fine. When it switched to the graphical login, the video becomes corrupted, and the screen just shows mulit-coloured lines. I have had it boot a couple of times almost normally (I get the graphical display, with just a few odd lines on it. When the desktop finally appears, it is at very high res., then crashes with a corrupted screen as before.
I get the feeling that this is a video driver problem, so tried to install a second video card in the AGP slot (PC refuses to see it, separate issue passed to DELL).
Does anybody have any experience of a similar problem on a DELL Optiplex GX150, which probably uses an Intel 915 (815?) chipset.

pingu · 07-07-2005, 04:04 AM

This is most likely a result of wrong driver, or wrong settings for card or monitor.
Please post your /etc/X11/xorg.conf - if you can't use gui then [ctrl]+[alt]+[F1] and login in text-terminal.

logo · 07-07-2005, 05:16 AM

Hi! I have a onboard intel i810 card and it does the same thing to me. What you must do is:
1. at boot time, press a key and get into kernel arguments config
2. here, behind the words rhgb and quiet (can't remember exactly) insert 3 (just the letter 3), which will cause you to boot in text-mode
3. login as root and go into /etc/X11 directory and use vi to edit xorg.conf
4. in xorg.conf, find a line that says something like:

Code:

    Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Videocard0"
        Driver      "i810"
        VendorName  "Videocard vendor"
        BoardName   "Intel 810"
    EndSection

and add the line Option "noaccel", so it will look like this

Code:

    Section "Device"
      Identifier  "Videocard0"
      Driver      "i810"
      VendorName  "Videocard vendor"
      BoardName   "Intel 810"
      Option      "noaccel"
    EndSection

5. save it like this and reboot, this time without the letter 3 in the kernel arguments
And that's it, this worked for me. Hope you'll have the same luck as I.

pingu · 07-07-2005, 05:58 AM

Nice answer, logo!
With one exception: there is no need to reboot.
Instead, try it by issuing
# startx
If everything is ok, logout/kill GUI and issue #init 5
If gui is messed up, press [ctrl]+[alt]+[backspace], it should kill X.

Sir Nerdalot · 07-07-2005, 01:52 PM

Thanks logo, that worked a treat. First reboot showed some corruption of the video, but it didn't lock up, and corrupt. This enabled me to reduce the colour depth to thousands, not millions. Now seems stable.

Thanks again. Very impressed with the quality of free support. I've had support from Microsoft that wasn't even worth free!

Not quite so newbie now!

logo · 07-07-2005, 02:20 PM

Thank you, I'm glad I could help.
Actualy, I also learned this trick here, on linuxquestions.org, so I can't really take any cradit for it (nor give it to someone else, cause i can't remember who told it to me

).
Once again, I'm happy I could be of service.

RayLeticia · 07-07-2005, 08:13 PM

I use several Dell system. All of them had problems with the graphics from the installation of Fedora core #3. I got it to work using some of the already posted things, like modifying the the graphic configuration file. But, the best thing that worked for me, was to download and install the Dell Firmware updates. I had to update the firmware just to get Fedora to see a SCSI drive in one system. After the firmware updates, I had no more graphics problems and the kernel updates for Fedora core #3 didn't crash any more. I just installed Fedora core #4 without any problems.

jmboulos · 07-18-2005, 01:47 PM

Thanks a lot logo!

Your answer was excellent for a newbie like me to understand and worked like a charm.