Hi,

I am relatively new to Linux. I currently have the SuSE 8.0 pro distribution installed on three different machines. One of these is a relatively new integrated motherboard (SIS 730S 266MHz Matsonic MS8308D/E). When I loaded SuSE 8 it didn't recognize the built in ethernet chip and misidentified the graphics chipset. I finally remedied the ethernet problem by installing a second pci card which now works fine. The problem I am having is with the video.

The built in graphics is described as an onboard "128-bit 2D/3D 100Mhz AGP Graphics Accelerator" complying with AGP V2.0. It is supposed to support resolutions up to 1920x1440 Hi colors, etc., and hardware DVD accellerator. But while the boot log seems to recognize it as an SIS 730S chipset, the only drivers available are for the 630S AGP (which the installer selected by default).

I cannot get this to work in any resolution beyond 1280 x 1024. When I try it renders an obviously much lower resolution mode (on the order of 800 x 600 or possibly 640 x 480). I tried configuring it with different color resolutions, but it made no difference. I'd really like to operate this thing at 1600 x 1200.

The other symptom is that even in 1280 x 1024 x 16M mode, which is what I'm currently running, the refresh rate is obviously 60Hz, even though it thinks its 83Hz. The screen flicker is going to drive me nuts.

I have installed the latest SuSE patches, and I went to the SIS site looking for 730S drivers, but found nothing.

Can anyone give me some advice as to how to proceed in solving this?

Regards,
Jeff Cunningham

I went poking around looking for information on the SIS site, which btw seems to only like IE... weird for a company that actually had a pile of Linux drivers. In addition they had a patched up version of the NIC driver there for onboard. Its a .c and a .h so in order to get it to work, tail the file to read what the compile command is (hopefully they used that custom), and then modprobe it and see.

Getting the absolute most out of X-Windows can be a real drag. I'm certain SuSe 8.0 shipped with Xfree 4.2.0, so at least that shouldn't be an issue. Check the file /etc/X11/XF86Config and make certain that everything in there is accurate. You might also want to put in the module "fb" as this vid chipset relies heavily on framebuffering (if it isn't already in there). The switching to silly LOW modes is what X does when you try to make it go too far. Also in there, make certain that your monitor's manufacturer specs match what is in for horiz and vert refresh rates.

Normally I would recommend using one of the configuration utilities like xf86config, but if you want to get to the end of your gear's capabilities, hack the config file by hand.

Yes, a little caution is in order, you can smoke your monitor.

Luck,

Finegan

all you need to do is download one of the latest 2.4 kernels (I know 2.4.18 has this option, but 2.4.12 does not) and under select the generic SiS AGP support under XFree86 4.2 options

verigoth

Thank you for the response. How do I tell which version of the kernel I am using? And, could you possibly point me to some instructions on installing a later version?

Much obliged.

Jeff Cunningham

Hi again,

I checked what's going on in the bootlog file /var/log/XFree86.0.log
I don't entirely understand it, but several things stand out. First, I am running the latest version (4.2.0) of XFree86.

Second, the 1600x1200 modes won't load because of "bad mode clock, interlace double scan".

Other pertinent information I noticed:

-- detected memory clock: 100.226 M
-- video ram 16384 KB
Total adapter bandwidth is 200.452 M
== min pixel clock 16M
-- max pixel clock 139 M
II monitor using hsync range 24.00-93.80 K
II monitor using vsync range 50.00-75.00 K
II clock range 16.25-139.09 M

I don't know what to make of this info. Does anyone have any ideas? I would hack this file if I knew what to do.

Jeff

Hi, back, sorry out all weekend. Verigoth's idea is solid, maybe SuSe 8.0 shipped with a kernel before they got proper SIS chipset support in there (although I doubt it). From the command line:

uname -r

That will tell you what kernel you are running. My guess really is that its something on the order of 2.4.16 as SuSe 8.0 came out a few weeks ago.

Cheers,

Finegan

Would you believe 2.4.18-4GB?
That's what it says, anyway

Regards,

-jeff

I never tried anything beyound 1024x768 because it would blow up my screen anyway. But the way it looks like sis730 is not fully supported in Linux - no hardwareacceleration. I did play around briefly with the options in the 2.4.18 kernel but all i got out of that was black screens.
Please correct me if I'm wrong and tell me how to set it up.

Believe it, of course, SuSe 8 released a few days after 2.4.18 hit the streets, which from the pre-releases it was obvious that that kernel kids were stabilizing a bunch of stuff so that the distros would have a solid kernel to base releases off of. 2.2.16 was the same way back in the day, I think everyone (Slack, Deb, Mandy, RH, and Caldera all had one for certain) had a release on 2.2.16.

This is kinda good news. No matter what, you have the newest coolest toys to try and push your video setup as far as it can go. I can't think of anything aside from trying to compile that source from the SiS website, if you've already poke your way through XF86Config a lot anyway.

Cheers,

Finegan