Joshua D. Knowles wrote: > I recently installed Red Hat 7.3 on my Vaio notepad. Everything works > except for the display, which has the following strange behaviour. If I do > startx then I do not get a functioning display and I have tried lots of > different settings in Xconfig - none work when I probe. > HOWEVER, if I do startx with my laptop > plugged into an external monitor AND THEN switch back to the laptop's > display then I get a full, high-resolution picture and everything is fine > from then on! (But I don't really want to walk round with a 19" CRT > monitor). > > Does anyone know why I get this strange behaviour and how to fix it? I > guess there must be a quick fix since the display works perfectly after > I do the switch. > > The details of the display and the video card are: > > 1400 x 1050 15" display > ATI Rage Mobility M1 8MB graphic card > I am using the XFree86 4.2 driver > > Thanks a lot for any replies, > > Joshua >
i just got back from vacation and checked my mail... i may be able to fix your problem. i actually had posted about this a few weeks ago on a few different lists. here's a summary of my vaio display issues: the redhat 7.3 installer detected and tested my video card perfectly during the install (showed a nice 1400x1050 gnome screen)... upon reboot, x would not work... it would bring up a messed up wiggly grey screen with a little flashing white box in one corner. however, if i then plugged the laptop into my 17" monitor, switched to the crt and then back to the lcd, x worked fine. the fact that redhat's installer worked bothered me... so i went digging around at the redhat installer console (ctrl-alt-f2 while redhat is installing) and discovered that the install program itself is running a 640x480 framebuffer xserver at :1 and the 'test config' section loads up a normal xserver on :0. so i rebooted, told grub to pass 'vga=788' to the kernel, and booted up. now i have really nice big consoles, a tux on my screen at bootup, and x works with no problems. to clarify, i am not using a framebuffer xserver. i just have the kernel activate the framebuffer device at bootup and that mysteriously makes x work fine. strange... but i'll take it! :-) so, at your grub screen, append 'vga=788' to the kernel line and boot... please do let me know if that helps! i'm really curious if this was just a fluke with my specific laptop... good luck!! -mike ps - my laptop is an fxa59 -- -------------------------------------------------- | Michael D. Labriola | | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | | | Admiralty Drive West Apt F4 | | Middletown, RI 02842 | | (401)846-4085 | -------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
