External monitor picture displays incorrectly across screen

Laen · 11-12-2007, 09:12 PM

Hello!

I'm having difficulties trying to get my external monitor work with an ASUS laptop using the Intel 945GM video card. The picture below is taken while running Ubuntu 7.10 live CD, but the problem persists with other distros like openSuse 10.3, so it must be an issue with the intel driver or maybe it can be fixed with a certain config.

Here's the picture. (166 kb)

The monitor runs natively at 1680x1050 and the OS correctly detects that. The only problem is that that picture appears as you see in the photo. My monitor lacks manual resizing of the image, so I can't really make it wider to fit the screen. As a result I get the right resolution, but looking just as bad as if it were the wrong one anyway.
In the mean time, the laptop screen displays the upper left corner of the desktop.

Thanks in advance for any input.

forrestt · 11-13-2007, 02:01 PM

It's hard to tell from the pic, but that doesn't look as if it is the correct resolution (1680x1050). I would think that if it were the correct resolution it would be squished to make it that size. It looks more like 1280x1024 or perhaps 1400x1050. It may be that your video card doesn't support the detected resolution of your monitor.

For more/better info on your card try:

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Intel_...ccelerator_950

HTH

Forrest

Laen · 11-13-2007, 02:09 PM

As you said, it's hard to tell from the pic, but I actually have the screen resolution settings panel which states that the screen is set to 1680x1050. Also, I can sort of recognize that it's the correct resolution only narrowed.

That does seem like a great page with some info on the new driver. I'll try it out later tonight and post the result. Thanks!

UPDATE: Sadly the information there didn't change anything. I remember having a somewhat working config with the older driver (i810) at some point so I guess I'll have to revert to that and play around with it. It's a stupid situation since the new driver at least seems to work out of the box when it comes to resolution, while i810 is a pain and it only worked under certain conditions which make using Linux with an external screen especially inconvenient.

toloban · 12-01-2007, 01:16 AM

Ok you might have solved this... I had a similar problem.

"gtf 1680 1050 60" gives:

Code:

  # 1680x1050 @ 60.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 65.22 kHz; pclk: 147.14 MHz
  Modeline "1680x1050_60.00"  147.14  1680 1784 1968 2256  1050 1051 1054 1087  -HSync +Vsync

Try "xrandr -q" to know the name of the output, in my case it is "VGA".

Code:

xrandr --newmode 1680x1050@60 147.1 1680 1784 1968 2256 1050 1051 1054 1087 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --addmode VGA 1680x1050@60
xrandr --output VGA --mode 1680x1050@60

If this fixes the display, you can add a permanent "modeline" using these values in the xorg.conf file.

I worked for me, my monitor is almost the same, an LG.

Laen · 12-01-2007, 07:35 PM

It worked!!

It's strange because I've tried putting the gtf recommended modeline in xorg.conf before and it didn't seem to make a difference, but xrandr made it work this time.

Thanks a bunch

. I didn't think I'll find an answer to this one.

toloban · 12-03-2007, 02:02 PM

I'm glad it worked although it is not the ideal solution. Yes, it looks like modeline lines are ignored in xorg.conf and the old XFree86.conf if they are in a monitor section.

This works for me in one computer which still uses Xfree86, adding a "modes" section, but doesn't seem to work in xorg:

Code:

Section "Modes"
    Identifier "X"
    ModeLine       "1680x1050_60" 147.1 1680 1784 1968 2256 1050 1051 1054 1087 -hsync +vsync
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    ...
    UseModes       "X"
    ...
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    ...
    Modes       "1680x1050_60"
    ...
EndSection