I just changed my screen from a Dell Trinitron cathodic tube to a Dell 1905FP UltraSharp flatscreen.

Linux console mode works fine. These are the good news. The bad news are that when trying startx, the flatscreen goes black and reports an error "Cannot display this video mode".

This is the output of lspci:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82820 820 (Camino) Chipset Host Bridge (MCH) (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82820 820 (Camino) Chipset AGP Bridge (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801AA PCI Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801AA ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801AA IDE (rev 02)
00:1f.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801AA USB (rev 02)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801AA AC'97 Audio (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G400 AGP (rev 04)
02:09.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82557/8/9 [Ethernet Pro 100] (rev 08)

I have a Debian, kernel 2.4.19-usagi.

Here are some specs for the flatscreen, hope they help:
Screen type: Active matrix - TFT LCD
Screen dimensions: 19 inches (19-inch viewable image size)
Preset display area: Horizontal 376 mm (16.7 inches), Vertical 301 mm (13.4 inches)
*** Resolution ***
Horizontal scan range 30 kHz to 81 kHz (automatic)
Vertical scan range 56 Hz to 76 Hz (automatic)
Optimal preset resolution 1280 x 1024 at 60 Hz
Highest preset resolution 1280 x 1024 at 75 Hz
*** Preset Display Modes ***
Display Mode H Freq (kHz) V Freq (Hz) Pixel Clock (MHz) Sync Polarity (H/V)
VESA, 720 x 400 31.5 70.0 28.3 -/+
VESA, 640 x 480 31.5 60.0 25.2 -/-
VESA, 640 x 480 37.5 75.0 31.5 -/-
VESA, 800 x 600 37.9 60.3 49.5 +/+
VESA, 800 x 600 46.9 75.0 49.5 +/+
VESA, 1024 x 768 48.4 60.0 65.0 -/-
VESA, 1024 x 768 60.0 75.0 78.8 +/+
VESA, 1152 x 864 67.5 75.0 108 +/+
VESA, 1280 x 1024 64.0 60.0 135.0 +/+
VESA, 1280 x 1024 80.0 75.0 135.0 +/+

Sorry for the length of this post. A lot of thanks in advance,

Ford

Problem solved but another problem arose.

I booted Knoppix 3.7 from the CD, and it automatically configured X Window.
Then I replaced (with minor changes, as the "InputDevice" section to have the mouse work) my old XF86Config-4 with the XF86Config-4 generated by Knoppix.
Now the flatscreen works with X.

I have a minor problem, though. The max resolution I can get now is 1152x864. This is quite annoying. I would like to use X with resolution 1280x1024, as with my old cathodic tube.
The flatscreen support this resolution (is even mentioned as "optimum" on the OSD config).
Any ideas?

As this is not a hardware problem anymore, I reposted this under the Linux-Software forum. Please go there to follow the discussion:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=310351

Thanks

It would be nice to explain how you solved the problem with video mode...

Well, I have to admit that, more than three years later, I don't remember that anymore.

The Way back machine is still working I see

Best guess would be the CRT monitor supported a higher refresh rate, than the flat screen. so a change needed to be made in the xorg.conf file to accommodate the new display.

Flat screens are usually limited to 60 or 75 Hz.


Even 3 years later my Dell SE197FP LCD has the same limitations.
This display is happy at 1280x1024 @ 60Hz