help: hang on X start with PSW500au and s3 virge

[Randall Wayth]

Hi Folks,
I have recently aquired an abandoned PWS500au and installed Debian on 
it. The existing video card in the machine was horrible: some TGA crap 
which only displays colour with 8 bits. So I aquired a second hand 
s3virge. This is a 2MB model without the memory expansion chips. This is 
running sarge with X4.3. The problem exists with a 2.4.18 or 2.6.8 kernel.

Starting X with this new card invariably causes the whole machine to 
hang after the screen flickers for a moment and (sometimes) shows some 
horizontal lines. I have tried various options in the config file 
(attached below) but it always hangs. I have googled on this quite a bit 
to no avail, so I am hoping someone out there has solved this problem 
before. As far as I can tell, it *might* be one of two things:
- the "known bugs" part of the s3virge man page 
<http://www.xfree86.org/4.4.0/s3virge.4.html> says "The VideoRam generic 
driver parameter is presently ignored by the s3virge driver. On PPC this 
is reported to cause problems for 2M cards, because they may autodetect 
as 4M." Since this is a 2M card, it could be trying to access memory it 
doesn't have.
- something to do with bios emulation. I don't know anything about this, 
but a few posts from the past have mentioned it.

Any help much appreciated.
Thanks,
Randall.
config file:
Section "Files"
       FontPath        "unix/:7100"                    # local font server
       # if the local font server has problems, we can fall back on these
       FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
       FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
       FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
       FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
       FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
       FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo"
       FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
       FontPath        "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
EndSection
Section "Module"
#       Load    "GLcore"
#       Load    "bitmap"
#       Load    "dbe"
#       Load    "ddc"
#       Load    "dri"
#       Load    "extmod"
#       Load    "freetype"
#       Load    "glx"
#       Load    "int10"
#       Load    "pex5"
#       Load    "record"
#       Load    "speedo"
#       Load    "type1"
#       Load    "vbe"
#       Load    "xie"
EndSection
                                                                                                

Section "InputDevice"
       Identifier      "Generic Keyboard"
       Driver          "keyboard"
       Option          "CoreKeyboard"
       Option          "XkbRules"      "xfree86"
       Option          "XkbModel"      "pc104"
       Option          "XkbLayout"     "us"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
       Identifier      "Configured Mouse"
       Driver          "mouse"
       Option          "CorePointer"
       Option          "Device"                "/dev/psaux"
       Option          "Protocol"              "PS/2"
#       Option          "Emulate3Buttons"       "true"
       Option          "ZAxisMapping"          "4 5"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
       Identifier      "Generic Mouse"
       Driver          "mouse"
       Option          "SendCoreEvents"        "true"
       Option          "Device"                "/dev/input/mice"
       Option          "Protocol"              "ImPS/2"
       Option          "Emulate3Buttons"       "true"
       Option          "ZAxisMapping"          "4 5"
EndSection
Section "Device"
       Identifier      "Generic Video Card"
       Driver          "s3virge"
       ChipSet         "86c325"
       VideoRam        2048
#       Option          "UseFB"         "false"
       Option          "NoAccel"
#       Option          "slow_edoram"
       BusID           "PCI:1:10:0"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
       Identifier      "Generic Monitor"
       HorizSync       30-69
       VertRefresh     48-120
       Option          "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
       Identifier      "Default Screen"
       Device          "Generic Video Card"
       Monitor         "Generic Monitor"
       DefaultDepth    16
       SubSection "Display"
               Depth           1
               Modes           "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1280x960" 
"1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
       EndSubSection
       SubSection "Display"
               Depth           4
               Modes           "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1280x960" 
"1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
       EndSubSection
       SubSection "Display"
               Depth           8
               Modes           "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
       EndSubSection
       SubSection "Display"
               Depth           15
               Modes           "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1280x960" 
"1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
       EndSubSection
       SubSection "Display"
               Depth           16
               Modes           "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1280x960" 
"1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
       EndSubSection
       SubSection "Display"
               Depth           24
               Modes           "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1280x960" 
"1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
       EndSubSection
EndSection
                                                                                                

Section "ServerLayout"
       Identifier      "Default Layout"
       Screen          "Default Screen"
       InputDevice     "Generic Keyboard"
       InputDevice     "Configured Mouse"
#       InputDevice     "Generic Mouse"
EndSection

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