mandrake geforce 440 go problems
 

i had mandrake 9.2 running on my toshiba laptop for a while along side windows xp. i recently decided i wanted to dedicate more space to my linux partitions because i was using mandrake more then windows. so i shrunk my windows partition with partition magic and deleted my current linux partitions. then i did a clean install of mandrake 10 to the empty space on my drive. everything went fine, except now there is "static" and distorting around the mouse pointer and the edges of windows in linux only (at first i thought my screen was going bad, but it still works fine in windows). right now my display is set as a flatpanel 1600x1200 and it is running at 1600x1200x24bits with the geforce 4 setting. also if i change the resolution to 1280x1024, it doesnt fill up the screen, it is just a box in the middle with a lot of black space around it. but i had none of these probs with mandrake 9.2. my laptop has an nvidia geforce4 Go 440. unfortunatly i dont remember how i had it set up in mandrake 9.2. what card should i select in the xfree setup? and can i cause damage by selecting the wrong one?:confused:

thanks

try installing the nvidia drivers:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux.html

no, i dont think you are supposed to use the generic nvidia drivers for the 'go' chipsets. besides it worked fine in mandrake 9.2 just yesterday and that was just a plain install, i didnt use any drivers or anything. i think its just a setting somewhere........

you might get a functioning video setup by using one of mandrake's included drivers, but you'll NEVER get a fully-functioning setup this way... you NEED to install the official nvidia drivers if you want to use all your card's advanced features... it doesn't matter if you have a "Go"...

anyways, if you really don't wanna install the real drivers, try setting the "nv" driver in your X configuration file...

can you be more specific....... im still pretty much a :newbie: with config files, but i am trying to learn as much as i can.

also, i just tried the knoppix CD on my laptop and it works fine with no distortion or anything. i really dont need any 3d acceleration, i just want mandrake 10 to work like 9.2 did..........

okay what you wanna do is open the X configuration file with a text editor... you'll wanna go down to the section called "graphics device" and change the driver... i've pasted a section of my X config here... you can see that mine is set to "nvidia" cuz i use the official drivers... you can try using "nv" or "vesa"... you'll need to be root to edit this file... if you're having a hard time editing it from your mandrake cuz of the current video problems, you can edit this file from your knoppix cd...

the file is usally one of these:

/etc/X11/XF86Config-4

/etc/X11/XF86Config

/etc/X11/xorg.conf


here's my graphics section:

# **********************************************************************
# Graphics device section
# **********************************************************************

# Any number of graphics device sections may be present

Section "Device"
Identifier "Nvidia TNT2 M64 32MB"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "DPMS"
#VideoRam 4096
# Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
EndSection


here's what you wanna try (just worry about the driver option, nothing else for now):

# **********************************************************************
# Graphics device section
# **********************************************************************

# Any number of graphics device sections may be present

Section "Device"
Identifier "whatever"
Driver "nv"
#Option "DPMS"
#VideoRam 4096
# Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
EndSection


or maybe:

# **********************************************************************
# Graphics device section
# **********************************************************************

# Any number of graphics device sections may be present

Section "Device"
Identifier "whatever"
Driver "vesa"
#Option "DPMS"
#VideoRam 4096
# Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
EndSection