Not Enough Hz?
 

Hello everyone. I have been, like everyone else, interested in linux for a long time, but never really found a distribution that seemed to "fit", until i saw ubuntu, it seems like it would be perfect for me. So i downloaded the dapper live cd and burned it, and started rebooting my computer.

Alright, so i get to the first screen that asks if i wanna boot in graphical mode, etc . . . when i choose that option, my main monitor cannot show something at that frequency (like my BIOS, it runs at 36hz vertical and 60 horiz), so i tried it on my TV (my second monitor with my ATI AIW 9800 Pro), this usually shows me my bios unlike my monitor, but anyway, the screen hz when the liveCD starts, still cannot be shown on my main monitor, or my tv, the screen looks like its repeated and burrned image over and over so its not comprehendable. I tried my old mitsubishi 17" CRT, and it shows it needs somewhere around 90hz, which my LCD cannot display either, nor will the CRT or even my TV (or setting up my portable DVD player monitor as the main display reacts the same)

I was wondering if anybody else had a similar problem, or even a solution to this.

Thanks!
WH

You could use the alternate install cd which lets you do the actual installation in text-mode, and after the installation edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf and set the appropriate refresh rates for your screen there; that way the default values won't disturb the installation. I'm pretty sure that if something helps, this is it. At the same time you can also check out if the other settings are all right - they should be. I'm not sure if Ubuntu even defines the refresh rates in xorg.conf, but you can define them yourself. Read the man-pages about it,

i tried that as well, it gives me the same problem. it made sense to me, i read up on it and i saw that it was text only, but it must refresh at the same rate as the picture im thinkin. i have an idea im gonna try today, i will use an S-Video cable and my lil brother's tv, im thinkin it might work, it should handle the 90 hz or so. i dont know, ill update when i try it. i have not found anybody on any forums having the problem i am, and i couldn't boot PCLinuxOS either, same thing. strange

Alright, a few corrections, it tries to display at 78 vertical hz and 36 horizontal. Also, PCLinuxOS just shows me a black screen all across the board, so thats probably a boot disk error. This does seem odd, since my monitor will do from 60-75. I tried the S-Video idea, although instead of a static mess, the mess of a display was scrolling along the right while the other one was not, so that was neat to look at, at the very least. :cry: oh well, maybe ill try yet another monitor i have, or just borrow a buddy's monitor. I still find it hard to believe im the only one with this problem. Back at it, i just gotta remove my messy debian install off my second drive. . . (the worst day to have my internet line cut)

I think I have the same problem and I wrote a post about it on ubuntuforums:

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=268588

It's pretty annoying the console doesnt just work by default on monitors that cant go higher then 60Hz...

dang, i was gonna set it up with my friend's monitor thats DVI, it can go up to 85hz, but if the console wont display, whats the point, right?

dangit. oh well, off to another distro i guess, that will support my 60-75 monitor. and then an ATI video card (i know thats gonna be fun). Unless there is a fix to this, i probably will not get ubuntu, to my dismay :cry: well, maybe when i get my laptop . . .

What kind of monitors are you guys using? Almost any monitor made in the last 15 years can handle higher refresh rates than just 60Hz. Are you sure you're not confusing the fact that Ubuntu's generic video drivers will not allow anything higher than 60Hz. That's easy enough to remedy... just install the proper commercial drivers and reconfigure your xorg.conf file. I'm running 5 different distros on my system and none of them provided generic drivers that would allow anything over 60Hz refresh rate. Once I installed the proper nVidia drivers, I was all set. I'm running at 75Hz+ now.

Luck!

BenQ FP747 (LCD), it can do 75Hz too.

My problem however is not with X, it works fine there (using driver = sis), the problem is only in the console. And my problem is not that it cant go higher then 60, its that my monitor cant handle whatever the console is running at by default. Its like the console uses higher then 75Hz or something :S

What console are you using? Gnome Terminal? Konsole? Other?

Im using Ubuntu Edgy. It's the console that shows before starting X. It appears to be using vesa vga by default. I added video=vesafb to the grub-command and now it at least shows a console when doing ctrl + alt +f1 once Im in X, but it still says 'out-of-range' before X is started.

Ah... IC. Unfortunately, I don't have a clue what could be causing that. Have you posted at Ubuntu's forum about this?

By the way, how's Edgy? Are you liking it?

Im liking Edgy, but Im a pretty new Linux-user, so I cant give you details what exactly I like :P

I posted at http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=268588

Don't worry... I'm new myself. Booted to Linux the first time just this past July. :)

Enjoy!

If you can't get someone to figure this problem out for you here, which I'm sure will happen shortly (there's a good group of knowledgeable folks here), see if Bruno at All Things Linux can straighten you out. Tell him Eric sent you. :)

Later...

~Eric

Tnx Eric for your help, I will wait and sleep a little first :)

Greetz from Erik :)