Hi all....I am new around here and a recent Windows convert (although I am keeping it for now until I get used to Fedora) and I have a few questions I hope can be answered so that I can become a total windows convert:

The type of problems that I am having are of the display type.

On computer #1 (HP 1.3GHz Celeron, 512M RAM, MoBo video card) I cannot get the screen to refresh. To clarify, if I click on the computer icon, to get the box that launches to display drives, I have to sweep over the area to get the icons to come up. Scrolling webpages have to be constantly mini and then maximized to read text. I recently reinstalled FC3, because the COTS upgrade locked up FC3 during boot up. Prior to the reinstall, it worked fine.

Computer #2 (Dell Inspiron 1100 Laptop...2.2GHz P4 396M RAM, and Intel video card) will not display anything over 640x480 resolution. Any higher than that, and I get a weird mismash of colors on the screen, and I cant tell what is going on. The little screen box on the monitor is really annoying.

Anyway, I hope that someone can answer these questions and make a total convert out of me. Thanks in advance!

Hmm. Are you sure you have told the computers the right monitor? You should be able to set it in your Display Settings which should be in your menu (but if you can't find it just type "system-config-display" into the terminal).

-Tuxluver

Yeah....the actual monitor was detected on my desktop, and I had to tell FC3 the type for my laptop.

The desktop had the refreshing problem the first time I installed it, but then it mysteriously went away after about a day. It then resurfaced when I re-loaded it today.

I did some more research here on what was going on with the desktop, and I found that the Intel 811 chipset video driver had known faults.....so I updated X11 and now everything works all hunky-dory.

Now to figure out what is going on with the laptop.......

On the PC try editing /etc/X11/xorg.conf in this section:

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "Monitor 1024x768"
HorizSync 31.5 - 57.0
VertRefresh (?) - (?)
Option "dpms"
EndSection

And set the VertRefresh to something reasonable (mine's set to 50.0 - 70.0).
Hope this helps.

Edit: Oops, didn't see your post until after I posted, glad you got the desktop working. But come to think of it, take a look at that part of your laptop's config, it might help with it too (maybe).

-Tuxlover

Thanks for the reply....I tried the same fix on the laptop, and it didn't work, so I will try the rewriting the x11 file next.

Thanks a lot!

*EDIT*
Hmmm....that didn't work either. I even went in and made the conf file look just like the one on the desktop, all to no avail. When I go preferences->screen resolution, the only options I get are 640x480 and 0HZ. However, if I go into system settings->display, then all the options are there.......any ideas?

Hmm. That is very strange, it's almost like GNOME is acting up. Could you post your xorg.conf?

Here it is.....

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "LCD Monitor 1024x768"
DisplaySize 320 240
HorizSync 31.5 - 57.0
VertRefresh 40.0 - 70.0
Option "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "i810"
VendorName "Videocard vendor"
BoardName "Intel 845"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 16
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

OK......got it figured out. Here is the skinny:

A bunch of Intel's integrated video cards have this issue. The thing is that they use system memory for graphics, and most BIOS default settings are at 512k or 1M, hence the ultra low resolution. The fix is to go to this site and download the Linux graphics driver

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scri...*&submit=Go%21

This is for a variety of chipsets, including:
Intel® 830M Chipset
Intel® 830MG Chipset
Intel® 845G Chipset
Intel® 845GE Chipset
Intel® 845GL Chipset
Intel® 845GV Chipset
Intel® 852GM Chipset
Intel® 852GME Chipset
Intel® 855GM Chipset
Intel® 855GME Chipset
Intel® 865G Chipset
Intel® 910GL Express Chipset
Intel® 915GV Express Chipset
Intel® 915GM Chipset

Hope this helps anyone with the same problem as I had!

I assume you're using the default drivers. Why don't you try installing these drivers and see if it helps:

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scri...5&DwnldID=8211

EDIT: Wow, you did it again, and you posted a link to the same place. I really didn't see your post before I posted! That's really weird....

-Tuxlover

Well...looks like I spoke too soon. When I rebooted the laptop, it hangs on the "configuring kernel parameters" part.....dang..x.looks like it is back to the drawing board.
I think that it is trying to go to the 1028x768 resolution while booting, and the driver hasn't loaded yet because the screen flashes like it should, then it goes back to text. Anyone know of any commands that I can enter to make it default to 640x480 while booting?

I wouldn't think it would make it fail to boot just because of X, but if you use a rescue CD and change the xorg.conf file to be a 640x480 monitor, that might help.

EDIT: I almost forgot, if that doesn't work, edit the /etc/inittab and switch the runlevel to 3

-Tuxlover

I just wiped the HD and started over fresh. Now what I do is reduce the resolution to 640x480 before I shut down, and it works fine......for now.

I think you'll want to edit /etc/inittab and replace:
with:
If you do that X won't start until you type "startx", that way you can safely change things and reboot and still be assured that you can change back anything that you change that might mess it up. BTW, are you enjoying Linux (apart from the funny hardware problems)?

-Tuxlover

I'll give that a shot and see what happens.......

I love Linux thus far. It isn't as user friendly as Windows, but I think that half the fun is figuring it out. Granted, the early hardware issues had me clawing the walls (I think I deleted and reinstalled a total of 7 times), but now that I am starting to get the hang of it, I really like it. Plus, I get to laugh at all the Windows users whenever they have to load 15 patches a day to keep viruses out.
I still use Windows XP, but only to move media around. I have 3 computers (all networked....1 wired and 2 wireless), and the one hooked up to my TV/Stereo in the living room has about 6800 MP3's, and I haven't got Windows file recognizition and networking down yet, but those are my next 2 projects.
I am also looking forward to upgrading to 64bit Linux within a month, after I build my next system.

Thanks for the help, by the way!