Hello people.

I finally decided to call for help... After upgrade to Slackware 13.0 (then 13.1, then -current) I still have problems using the secondary video output on my old and trusted Toshiba Satellite (Intel chipset 852GM/855GM). This used to work with Slackware 12.x!

The problem manifests itself by jumpiness on the secondary port. The
jumps appear with any video update (eg. window focusing, but also with
the updates from the Clock or the CPU graph). This is very annoying,
particularly because I use this machine to teach. In only one
combination (with a NEC NP-100 projector) I can solve the problem by
reprogramming the Framerate to 70 or 75 Hz.

After reading many mails and references on the 'net, testing a lot of the solutions to no avail, I'm more confused than ever. And no visible improvement either. Here are a couple of the tests I did:

1) I added i915.modeset=1 to LILO. This helped in the sense that now,
in text mode, the 2nd video output remains working, which is slightly
useful. But no improvement after startx.

2) Xorg.0.log says:

(II) intel: Driver for Intel.....

then, continues with:

(II) VESA: driver for VESA chipsets: vesa

Why are both drivers signalled here? (solved this by generating
a new config with Xorg -configure, but no difference)

3) The intel driver says (in Xorg.log): compiled for 1.7.6,
while X -version says 1.7.7 (is this significant?)

4) After this, the line

(EE) intel(1): No kernel modesetting driver detected

appears in the Xorg log. This wasn't there when no xorg.conf was
present.

5) On the other hand, without an xorg.conf, there was a line complaining
about a missing 'fbdev', this seems solved afterwards.

6) Just in case, tried software cursor on/off.

7) Maybe unrelated: After enabling modesetting (which should have been
enabled by default), LCD brightness resumes correctly after 'sleep'
(before, it would switch to low brightness every time).


In short: HELP! What's wrong with the Intel drivers - this used to work
well before!

Thanks in advance for suggestions or links to those...
John

Something to try is install the intel drivers from salix, they are different and seem to work better than those installed with slackware.

Thanks for the suggestion. I checked, and the default drivers seem both 2.11.0. Would you suggest installing the older 2.9 drivers?

Try either, it may be the same version, but the driver is different, check the sizes of some of the files inside.

Ok - sorry for the lack of patience ;-)

I tried the following:

1) Install 2.11.0 from SalixOS - I cannot detect any difference.

2) Install 2.9.1 from SalixOS - Doesn't work, as far as I can see,
hangs during startx.

3) Reinstalled 2.11.0 from Slackware-current... Back to square 1

4) Tried to configure the entry in xorg.conf corresponding to the
VGA output (which I suspect to tbe connector) to VESA. When
reentering X, a colorful display of blocks on the main display,
which then initialized correctly. External display remained
black.

5) So, tried reversed (0.2.0 main, 0.2.1 connector) Works (on both
displays), but same interference as originally.

Could there be a conflict with both displays accessing the same
memory?

John

Well, maybe post xorg.conf.

Also, this jumping, is it like scrolling up or down or left or right ? or just flickering or something ?

Definitely left-right oriented... As mentioned before, it happens only when something refreshes part of the display, say refocusing, or the CPU graph in the task bar. Cursor movement inside the same window does not cause the flickering.

At the moment, there is no xorg.conf at all. I tried to use the xorg.conf-vesa which is included, but could not get the external display working (tried intel/vesa, vesa/intel, and vesa/vesa).

Might be of interest - the xorg.conf generated by Xorg -configure
(Attached - I hope).

John
(I'm recompiling the kernel at this moment - strangely, though several messages say kernel mode setting is disabled in Slackware kernels, I found the option _set_ in the default .config).

Attached Files

xorg.conf.new.txt (4.0 KB, 17 views)

My suggestion is that for every device (call them monitors, even if it is a projector) have the right HorizSync and VertRefresh values in the respective Monitor section of xorg.conf. If this still doesn't work you may need to try a modeline.

Note that you have 2 monitor sections in your generated xorg.conf, one for each output I suppose, make sure they each have these values, get them from the manuals if you have them or tweak them until you get the display stable. I think HorizSync is more important here because it scrolls horizontally.

Did you disable kms before trying 2.9.1? Add nomodeset in your boot options in lilo.

Another thing that you should try, is a newer kernel.

Yes, I did add nomodeset to LILO. It took effect too, as during the boot sequence, the display didn't convert to VGA mode anymore

Ok - will try that too... Some patience - the poor A10 takes a couple of hours to compile.

Thanks!
John

Thanks - I'll try it, but somehow doubt this will be a solution. The jumpiness appears only when refocusing windows, it's quite stable when nothing happens on the screen. If it were sync-related I'd suspect the problem to be there always...

Cheers,
John

Add something like:

on the device section, to exactly specify the monitors layout.

Where "Monitor0" is the monitor identifier and "VGA-0" is the video output identifier. To identify the outputs, you can use the KDE4's System Settings.

Hello all,

Thanks for all the suggestions!

What solved the problem was upgrading the kernel. I compiled and installed 2.6.35.5.

At first I thought I broke something - no cursor appeared in XFCE! It seems a bug in this kernel didn't allow the cursor to appear - a specific bug for the i855gm chip. After applying a patch http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kerne...71bc1deed7d3ce and recompiling,
all was well,

... and the secondary output was ok too!

Again, thanks for the input,

John