Screen corrupted when X starts SUSE 10
 

Hi,

I've just completed a fresh install of SUSE 10 Eval on the following machine
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
DFI Lanparty NF4-Ultra D
1GB Geil Ultra X DDR400 RAM
Nvidia 6800GS
Sony CPD-G420 monitor

As soon as X starts, the screen becomes corrupted. By this I mean the colours are bizarre and corrupt, the screen overlaps itself, its like the desktop has been streched out to 4 times the size of the screen (so all the icons are really big etc), and been folded over to fit.

A similar problem occured on an old version of KNOPPIX I tried to use to format the drive, but on a new version of KNOPPIX the problem didn't happen (also works fine for Windows).

I tried to run SAX2, but the screen is corrupted for that as well.

I would have originally thought it was a moniter detection issue, but I changed the xorg.conf to all the correct settings for my monitor, even trying modelines I got from the internet, but to no avail.

I should also note that the download of the Nvidia driver failed during the install, so its using the standard nv driver. I would try updating it, but I can't use YAST because the screen is too corrupt.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Chris

Try booting to run-level-3, but this time when you run sax2, use an option that comes with sax2. After loggin in (at run level 3) as user "floyd", type "man sax2" to learn the options. Perhaps try "sax2 -l" or "sax2 --vesa".

I assume you know how to boot to run level 3, and you know how to get root permissions so you can run sax2?

Tried that, SAX still wouldn't work, no matter what res I tried with the --vesa option.

However, while mucking around I found that yast has a curses version as well as an X version! So I was able to go in and install the nvidia driver and voila! It works!

Guess the open source driver doesn't work properly with the 6800GS or something, it is a new card after all (albeit based on an older design).

Thanks for your help tho.

Congratulations on your success. I didn't know about the curses version. Could you post more detail on this?