Dell C600 ATI M3 Video driver w/ Debian
 

Hi,

This was one big convoluted message about 5 different problems, but I decided to split them up into 3 messages. I have solved two of them already. Update: All but this one have been solved.

The computer: A Dell Latitude C600 (P-III @ 1GHz w/ 512 MB RAM & 20GB HDD, ATI Mobility 3 video card, Maestro ESS sound & 3COM 10/100 NIC) with a docking station. The docking station has a Dell 17" monitor, PS/2 mouse, PS/2 keyboard, a USB CD-RW & a 3COM NIC (detected as eth1 and the built in NIC is eth0).

OS: Debian Sarge (2.6.11-1-686) & KDE 3.3

The problem: The generic ati driver won't work. I can use the vesa driver which is OK, but slow. When I use the ati driver, my monitor unsync's like it's in power save mode. The propriety ATI driver doesn't cover this chipset. The Mobility M3 is based on the Rage 128 chipset.

Thanks in advance.
RK

Can anyone help me? Please?

RK

Pretty please?

I have a C600 as well. Looks like we have the same video card - here's the lspci output:
VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility M3 AGP 2x (rev 02)

The ATI driver works fine for me. It fixed some frame dropping when playing DVDs, along with some odd behavior with certain games, as compared to the VESA driver.

Here are the relevant lines from my xorg.conf in case it's a settings issue:
Section "Monitor"

Identifier "My Monitor"
HorizSync 31.5 - 50.0
VertRefresh 40-90
Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI"
Driver "ati"
VendorName "ATI Technologies Inc"
BoardName "Rage Mobility M3 AGP 2x"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen 1"
Device "ATI"
Monitor "My Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
Subsection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubsection

I wish it were that simple. I did, however, pull the laptop out of the docking station to see if it was the monitor. The left side of the LCD was fine, but the right was severely corrupted with vertical lines. The LCD worked fine with the VESA driver. Here's my config file:

Section "Device"
..Identifier "ATI"
..Driver "vesa"
..#Driver "ati"
..#VendorName "ATI Technologies Inc"
..#BoardName "Rage Mobility M3 AGP 2x"
..#BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
..Identifier "DELL"
..HorizSync 30-96
..VertRefresh 50-160
..Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
..Identifier "Default Screen"
..Device "ATI"
..Monitor "DELL"
..DefaultDepth 24
..SubSection "Display"
....Depth 8
....Modes "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
..EndSubSection
..SubSection "Display"
....Depth 16
....Modes "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
..EndSubSection
..SubSection "Display"
....Depth 24
....Modes "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
..EndSubSection
EndSection

I have also checked at various screen resolutions, different (lower) sync & refresh rates, and I have gone through the /usr/share/doc/xserver-xfree86/README-ati file and have tried every dang'ed option in there. I have also tried the 'r128' driver since the M3 is based on the Rage 128 chipset. The only thing that has remained contant is: Works only with VESA.

RK

I have a c600 also and I run suse9.2 with no problems at all

Joe

Dell Latitude C600
 

Hi There,


I have a Dell laptop, its a Dell Latitude C600. I would like to tweak the video to the max, so that I may get best video possible. When I run (from the command line) glxgears, I can get a very high frame rate. So I guess what I am asking is what must be done to tweak the video for the best performance, and simply just great video. I am not sure if I have to recompile the kernel for the best video and/or tweak the info in the Xorg and XFR86Config. I had another system before where I tweak the XFR86 and added the chipID. But as for the Dell Latitude C600, the video card on this laptop is ATI Rage 128 Mobilty. So can someone be so kind as to provide me with good information as to what must be done? I appreciate it very much. Thank you.


Al_Khidr,

What Distro are you Using?

Distro
 

Hi averagejoe84:


The distro I am using is Mandriva 2006. I seem to encounter the same problem with all the Mandrake, Mandriva, Redhat, and Fedora Core. Now in one case on my PC, when using Mandrake and my Video Card was an ATI 128, I found the ChipID that I put in the xorg config section. And my frame rate was off the charts, well not exactly off the charts, but you know what I mean. Like everyone else with Dell Latitude C600, I too have to use the VESA as oppose to the ATI Rage 128 Mobility driver. So what should I do without having to change distros. Cause to tell you the truth, I kinda like Mandriva 2006. I've considered using Gentoo and compiling everything from source, and then I would expect to not have any problemos. So in advanved, thank you for any help you can provide.....




Al_Khidr,

Hi!

I checked my xorg.conf and it claims that I am using the r128 Driver, I dont have any problems with my display. however when I run glxgears I am getting only about 125.6 FPS, When I was running SUSE I had to use a drive that was 3rd party, http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/ this is where I found the driver to get full acell. on SUSE, I havent had a chance to mess with it much In Fedora Core 4.


Joe

Same comp, different problem
 

I was just looking for a solution to a different problem, but with the same computer.

I don't want to steal somebodies thread, but I think that 2Gnu has the solution to my problem.

....
I am having trouble with the mouse drifting,
Could you post your whole xorg.conf?

Hello I don't think the problem is with your X-ORG when I had that laptop and many others after it with track points (the nub on the keyboard) the track point likes to get stuck and this causes the mouse pointer to drift even when not being used. good luck


Joe