driver prob: ATI Radeon Xpress 200 M on Fedora Core 4 amd x86_64 trouble
 

Hi, I have recently bought a Compaq R4025CA (R4000 series) with an AMD 64 and an Ati Radeon Express 200M video card. I have searched and searched for drivers with no luck, and i can't get the display to work right (crappy resolution, can't play movies properly, no wide screen, etc.)

I'm aware its a fresh out of the factory video card, but this webpage -> "ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-28493.html" shows an error report from xorg that has the ATI RADEON XPRESS 200M listed as one of the compatible devices. what can I do? I seem to have a newer version than the one on that site, but mine doesn't show that it supports xpress 200m. Please help. :(


I'm using:
FEDORA CORE 4 test 2
on a Compaq 4025CA laptop
15.4" widescreen
AMD 64 2.0Ghz stepping processor
ATi Radeon (Mobilty?) Xpress 200 M

currently running the crappy display with a "vesa generic driver" - nothing else works.

sorry forgot to mention that the driver in question is the r128 or Rage 128 (or compaible?)

Thanks!

Good luck!
 

Ubuntu (Hoary) has the driver (I think you may need to upgrade to the 2.6.11 kernel -- you have to do that to get the touchpad to work anyway), and the bad news is that it doesn't work.

It requires both a different kernel module (radeon instead of ati_agp) and also a different X driver ("ati"). Ubuntu auto-detected both. However when you use this driver the machine locks up pretty quickly after logging in. I tried turning off ACPI, APIC, etc. to no avail. I came to the conclusion that it was a problem either with the driver or the firmware, both of which are proprietary and therefore have no guarantee of being fixed anytime soon. So I decided to return the laptop. I'm bummed 'cause it's a good machine and the Dell Inspiron 6000 I'll probably get instead uses the much slower Pentium M processor.

Cheers,
Tavis

Hi. TRUE, i tried Ubuntu, detected the graphics card fine but it froze at the login screen. So me too decided to return the laptop (it was also too big and noisy :P) and got the Gateway 6510GZ instead. so far, i'm impressed by its appearance and performance, but i haven't put linux on it yet... we'll see how i goes. (sorry to abandon all the compaq r4000 owners out there...)

you can get past the Ubuntu lockup on the Compaq R4000 by hitting ctl-alt-f1 when the GUI cursor first shows on the screen. Then, edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf( sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf ) and look for the "ati" driver section( /ati ). When you find the driver section, add Option "noaccel" to the line after Driver "ati". Then save the file( :w! ) and quit ( :q! ). You'll then need to restart the xorg server with this command and you should end up with Ubuntu 5.04 running on the Compaq R4000( sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart ).

Getting IDE DMA running is another story and I'm still working on that. Well, I have it working with the 2.6.11 kernel but then I can't get the ATI fglrx driver working.... Other than that, wireless is working with ndiswrapper, sound is working, ethernet is working, touchpad and keyboard working, usb working, pcmcia working. The only thing not yet working( or worked on ) is the memory card slot. Oh, there's a kernel patch that fixed the 50% CPU usage problem by disabling a apic timer in the io_apic.c file. Runs nice and cool now and a bit quicker even with DMA turned off.

glxgears = ~1600 fps
fgl_glxgears = ~200 fps

UPDATE:
I got IDE DMA working on the 2.6.10 kernel! So the Compaq R4000 is pretty much fully operations( as far as I'm concerned ). Here's what I did:
1) copy drivers/ide/pci/atiixp.c from the 2.6.11 kernel
2) edit line 346 so that "return" moved to line 347 as "return 0"
3) replace in include/linux/pci_ids.h, lines 346 and 347 with:
3a) #define PCI_DEVICE_ID_ATI_IXP200_IDE 0x4349
3b) #define PCI_DEVICE_ID_ATI_IXP300_IDE 0x4369
3c) #define PCI_DEVICE_ID_ATI_IXP400_IDE 0x4376
4) compile and install the new kernel with IDE DMA working!

Just in case anyone cares. The fglrx driver 8.13.3 works with the Radeon Xpress 200m in the Presario R4000 series laptops.

This is with kernel 2.6.12. It seems to be stable and correctly renders 1280x800@24b rather nicely.

I started with the vesa driver until I got everything sorted out. After successfully loading the fglrx module I altered the xorg.conf and it just worked.

Can you explain this point please
 

Hi, I'm having trouble configuring the Radeon Xpress 200m in a Toshiba. I'm using the kernel 2.6.12 (and I tried also the 2.6.11) The ATI module appears to be correctly installed. Anyway, I couldn't make it work.

When I run the fglrxconfig, there is no option for the Radeon Xpress 200m. What did you do after installing the module for the kernel?

Thanx much,

Chris.

I remember NOT seeing the 200M but I also remember that screen as being just informational. If not, just pick some other Radeon board.

I already tried
 

Hi,

The problem is that it doesn't let you choose any card. It just ask you for information about the vertical and horizontal sync rates. As I understand, this is to pick the correct monitor, but I couldn't pick one combination that allow me to start X with 1280x800, just 1024x768

Any other hint?

Can you post your Modeline?

Thanx,

Chris

Not to be picky but you could have atleast told us you were having problems setting up another screen resolution. "couldn't make it work" sounds alot more like non-functional than 'works at 1024x768 but not 1280x800'.

Anyway, I don't run at 1280x800 but you could try generating your own modline with the "gtf" command. Start with 60Hz and then move up to what your monitor supports:
gtf 1280 800 60

Thanx anyway
 

Hi,

I still cannot change to 1280x800. I tried with some Modelines, including the one I got running gtf with no luck. I saw other threads, saying that it'll work once my video card is working propertly (which I think is going to take a while(ATI Radeon Xpress 200) ).

It always goes back to 1024x768, which is nice, but is visible is not the native resolution or aspect ratio.

Thanx again.

I would recheck to see that the driver is actually loaded and operational. Check the /var/logs/Xor.conf.log(?) and see what that looks like, check glxinfo and also 'glxinfo | grep direct' to see if DRI is working. Check fgl_glxgears and see if that runs.

If all that works and verifies OK, then the driver is loaded and you're probably looking at modlines and/or Xorg [driver] section options.

thanx
 

Hi,

Actually, it shows that the driver is not been loaded.

What I did until now, is to get the patch from liviana, and run the fglrxconfig
The problem is that I cannot pick any configuration that works with the xorg.conf that is generated with the fglrxconfig.

The problem is that I may not be picking the correct options in the fglrxconfig script. Everytime my screen just crashes after the script, and I have to go with the VESA drivers.

Thanx much for the help.

Chris

Hi, locutus42, good to hear you can make IDE DMA working. I am still struggling with this issue. I ran /sbin/hdparm -tT /dev/hda which gave:

/dev/hda:
Timing cached reads: 660 MB in 2.00 seconds = 329.72 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 6 MB in 3.70 seconds = 1.62 MB/sec

which is way too low since I can't turn on use_dma. I am running CentOs. I did try Ubuntu but apparently it doesn't support Powernowd with a Turion 64 which is used by my V2000Z. I tried different distros and finally I decide to use CentOs which does run powernowd correctly.
Do you have any clue to make powernowd work with Turion 64 processor? Or is there any way to make IDE DMA with kernel 2.6.9 (I assume it will work if I can copy atiixp.c from kernel-2.6.11 to 2.6.9 and repeat the same procedure as you described, but how to get atiixp.c) ? Thx a lot!

I was looking through forums and happened to see you guys need some help!

I have Fedora Core 4 running smoothly on my R4000 the graphics part is very simple

once you install the fglrx driver you have only 3 more steps

1. run fglrxconfig (you can pretty much choose the default on every question, don't worry about the scree vert & hort sync will get to that)

2. vi or nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

replace the monitor section with this

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "LCD Panel 1280x800"
HorizSync 31.5 - 90.0
VertRefresh 60.0 - 60.0
Option "dpms"

3. In KDE 3.4 right click on desktop, click display and choose the 1280x800

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What is a problem to you, is trivial to me!