issues with 82845G Graphics Controller
 

Hi,

I have installed the latest debian on a dell optiplex gx260 which has a 82845G chipset and there are some strange problems.
The system is configured with autologon as a standard user.

Sometimes, after logging on, the screen goes black but if I connect to it with vnc, I get a working desktop.
Yesterday I booted it without a display attached to it and now I cannot set it to the right screen resolution anymore (1440 x 900) which was working fine before.

I have googled and searh the forum but cannot find the right information.
According to Intel, the latest driver should be in the distro but I cannot find any details about that (version/date).

grep Driver /etc/X11/xorg.conf returns
/usr/bin/lspci | grep VGA returns
xrandr returns
Any suggestions on solving this are more then welcome!
Peter

The contents of Xorg.0.log will give you some information about what is happening on startup.

I didn't expect that your /etc/X11/xorg.conf would have anything in it on a clean install. You could try renaming it (so you can reinstate it if you need to), and create an xorg.conf that is empty. On Debian Lenny, an empty xorg.conf is the default; the content means that some later configuration changes have been made.

Hi neonsignal, thank you for your reply!
Attaching Xorg.0.log doesn't work due to an 'invalid file' error... :( (pasting here is also a no go since the file has 600 lines of text)

I just copied & deleted the original xorg.conf, rebooted but no difference.

Now I get a 'failed to start x server' error... :banghead:

I assume you mean you created a new xorg.conf that is empty. I don't think X will start if you have no xorg.conf file at all.

If they behaviour continues to vary even though you haven't made any changes, it may indicate a hard drive (or memory issue), rather than some particular problem with the X setup.

In order to attach Xorg.0.log to a forum post, I think you would have to rename it to 'Xorg.txt'.

# 5
' xorg.conf ' isn't a must with the latest xorg.

Other threads about Dell GX 260 : Intel Graphics issues ..
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-gx260-771584/

.. and ..
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-gx260-769120/
.. where two examples, xorg.conf are attached.
.....

Ok, it was indeed a matter of extension that kept me from uploading the logfile so now it's enclosed.

Does it show somewhere if this problem is related to a bad HD/memory - even though I don't think that this is a problem since the system has worked flawlessly before.

No, I didn't recreate xorg.conf and it seems that knudfl is right because after that error message I rebooted and got it working again.
Recreating it leaves it empty anyway.

Is it normal that before I was able to choose 1440x900 and now I'm not?

It does happen that X sometimes doesn't detect all the possible resolutions (some devices do not quite follow the standard). The automatically detected settings can be overridden by setting up xorg.conf, but I just wanted to be sure that you could at least get X starting reliably without it.

If X is starting consistently, ignore my suggestion about other devices failing.

If you have a look in your /etc/X11 directory, you may find older versions of xorg.conf with some working settings. The relevant sections are the Monitor section (particularly HorizSync and VertRefresh), and the Screen section (particularly the Display resolutions).

I'm don't know what changed your xorg.conf in the first place.

Well, X starts most of the times but I wouldn't call it reliable since sometimes the screen just goes black.
On the other hand, if having autologon enabled I can see through vnc that the system works.

Is it normal that before logging on (autologon disabled) there are different display settings compared to being logged in?
I noticed that the image is not at the same place -> refresh rate?

There are no older version of xorg.conf and the one I've created remains empty.

Uhm... how come it says 'total 68'?

Yes, that is normal, the display manager shows the login screen in a low resolution, since different logins may have different X settings (and not all necessarily work on all displays).

You probably need to follow up the links that knudfl provided, and see if this corresponds to the same issues that others have had. You might also find an xorg.conf with settings for your graphics.

That's just the size of the directory, not the number of files in it.

Ok I used the puppylinux configuration and I can now select other resolutions as well.
Should I just go ahead and see what it brings?

The only thing is that my mouse is not functioning but with vnc it is, how is this possible?

If the xorg.conf you tried is working, then go with it.

Some of it is not relevant to your system, but you can always edit it if you need to, as you learn what different parts of it mean. 'man xorg.conf' will give you a description, but there is a fair bit to read through.

The mouse driver is also set up by xorg.conf, and the xorg.conf you tried had a specific setup which doesn't match yours. It works with vnc because vnc isn't using the mouse driver on the target computer, it is using the mouse driver on the computer you are jumping in from.

You can have a fairly minimal mouse setup in xorg.conf, and the system will (hopefully) work out the rest, eg

:( at first it was working, I selected 1440x900 as resolotion, rebooted and the image was darker then it should be. Rebooted once again and got a 'failed to start x server' error again - see the enclosed logfile.

Rebooting again bypasses the error again...

Ok, thanks A LOT for helping out! Gotta go to bed now since it's 4:37 a.m. over here!

Another couple of things to try (it might be a problem with the intel driver).

In xorg.conf, try replacing this line:
with
If that doesn't help (or doesn't work at all), go back to the intel driver and try uncommenting the acceleration line:
If the 'no acceleration' solves the problem, it points to a driver issue. The system will work without the acceleration, but it will significantly slow down desktop effects and may make 3D games unusable.

Thanks for your tips: I just changed those settings in my xorg.conf file and it's a big improvement!
I also activated the no acceleration option immediately since the system doesn't need any 3-D related stuff.
Rebooted the system about 20 times and now it's a lot more consistent.

There is one issue though: the colors are still not what they should be. I tried to change the refresh rates in the monitor section according to the display connected but that didn't go well.

I don't know what is the problem behind the colors.

It could be the color depth, set in the screen section using a line like this:
And for individual resolutions in the Display subsections using:
Not sure why puppy linux xorg.conf had a depth of only 16 bits. Having less bits uses less graphics memory, which can sometimes allow the card to support high resolution screens (and other features). If you can get high enough resolution with 24 bit color, then it is a better option, though the change would primarily affect the graduation of color in images, rather than have gross impact on the color appearance.

Another possibility is that it is caused by one of the Intel driver options. These can be found in the xorg documentation. I don't understand these options well enough to advise you; the only two that I think would affect color are the ColorKey one and the Dac6Bit one.

It could also just be the monitor settings (as you have already tried). These aren't easy to get right; sometimes people make use of a modeline file (especially when the automatic recognition of the monitor parameters does not work correctly).

:( no difference by changing the color depth...

I noticed something strange: the system does an autologon and immediately starts gqview in fullscreen mode. The first image doesn't fill the screen completely so it has a black frame which is added by gqview.
The next ones are all 1440x900 dpi images and it's from there on in the presentation that the screen switches to darker colors.
If I exit the fullscreen loop, gqview keeps on switching images in it's window and the colors - on those smaller, 'preview' images as well the toolbars, background - are fine.
By moving the gqview windows to the left side of the screen, all colors get darker again including the colors of that window. This is the same for another window as well.

I guess it must have something to do with display settings but the question now is what/where...