I have installed Mandrake 9.2 onto my work DELL PC.

When booting up the screen seems all out of sync. The screen size is set to 1024x768 but it seems even though the actuall linux displayed page is 1024x768, but my actual monitor is still displaying 640x480.

Applications open and I can only see a quarter of the page at a time and I have to scroll left right up and down to move the monitor window around the application window to see it all.

I have tried setting my display to 640x480 but some of the pages go off the bottom of my screen and I can no longer scroll to see the rest of the page. So I am unable to press any buttons such as OK Canel etc as I can not see them

I think it may be a problem with the actual dell, as I had tried booting from the Knoppix v3.3 CD and this also gave the same wierd screen problem, although at home on my PC it ran fine.


Any idea how I can fix this ?

No, that's an option.
A screen that's bigger than your monitor.

The only way I can come up now is to run xf86config as root.
You'll configure X again but somewhere on the ride the program will ask
you if you want a screen bigger than your monitor.

Be sure to backup /etc/X11/XF86Config or /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 in case
something goes wrong.

Thanks iceman47.

I will have a try at what you suggested.

BTW I'm a complete linux newbie so I'm not really sure what I'm doing and with a screen thats gone completely daft, I am really struggling to find my way around.

I have started to do as you suggest Iceman47, but I cannot find a video driver in the list supplied when running XF86Config.

My PC is a DELL GX270 2.4Ghz with a built in video card. 64mB Intel 82865G Graphics Controller.

Any suggestions on what I should select (possibly 2 - unsupported VGA compatible)

When booting I get an error message

When I'm in the setup (XFDrake I think it was) it appears Mandrake does have the correct driver installed, and everything looks fine, although the machine crashes when I try to test the configuration. Now I can't get Linux to boot so I'm reformatting and reloading again from scratch.

I have installed the latest drivers for my video card, and also done as Iceman suggested but I still have the problem with having a desktop larger than my screen. The xf86config, did ask me if I wanted to prevent this and I did say yes.

On the front of my monitor if I press the OK button a menu appears underneath this it shows the current settings, it says the monitor is running in 640x480 @85Hz and it suggests I change this to 1024x768 but how do I do this.

The monitor is a Dell E772p which is correctly showing in Mandrake config.

Any idea's on how I can resolve this ?

Thanks

I have the same problem

What PC is yours Chu ? Is it also a Dell ?

I fixed the problem on mine.

In the Bios on my Dell there is a setting for the Video Buffer by default it is set to 1mB. It was also possible to change this to 8mB doing so now allows my monitor to display at 1024x768@85Hz

I think this is seperate from the actual video ram as mine is set to 64mB


hope this helps

Thank your very much. I think I am a Linux newbie and I had exactly the same problem. This saved me a great deal of time and effort.

Asaf

Hey Assassin or asofu,

i've got an Inspiron 1100. i'm having screen size problems running Knoppix on my laptop too. I'm want to change my video buffer in bios from 1mB to 8mB but can't.

Using the up and down keys in bios will only let me access and change the date and time, but not the video buffer or anything else on the page. How did you do it?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

On mine you use the SPACE key to toggle settings. On other PC's its sometimes the PageUp PageDown keys

Have you tried changing other settings in your BIOS to see if you are using the correct keys ?

nope, mine's the up n down arrows to switch between the settings. i checked to make sure. Guess I can't change it then. dw. thx anewayz.