stilist Posted March 20, 2004 Share Posted March 20, 2004 This may have been discussed previously in the forums, but I'm going to ask it here anyhow. I have installed Red Hat 9 - no trouble with any of the installs. The problem comes when I try to boot it up. It loads all (or most) of the drivers successfully (excepting firstboot and mdmonitor). What happens is when it comes to these, it evidently is trying to do something, but I can't tell what. My monitor goes blank and tells me there's no signal coming from my computer. I also had the problem that I couldn't run the graphic installer - so I'm figuring it's got something to do with the video card.... I'm not sure what, though, because I was able to load up the test resolution I wanted using the boot line. My problem is that I don't know how to set a video mode on the command line. Perhaps if I could do that, it might work. In case it matters, here are my specs: Red Hat 9 (sub-version, I don't know) S3 video card mx70 monitor (detects correctly) max res 1280x1024; like I said, it tests correctly 20G HD (with full Linux install, 3 partitions (all XFS), methinks) Athlon 2000 processor Any ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimM17 Posted March 20, 2004 Share Posted March 20, 2004 This is usually caused by xwindows trying to use a refresh rate not supported by your monitor. If you can boot into text mode you can change the config file and lower the refresh rate. the config file is /etc/X11/XF86Config and you want to find the section that looks like: Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor0" VendorName "Monitor Vendor" ModelName "PL150" DisplaySize 300 230 HorizSync 30.0 - 62.0 VertRefresh 50.0 - 60.0 Option "dpms" EndSection Usually the problem is that the VertRefresh is too high. Try lowering the second value (60.0) in this case. If it is 80 or something, it may be too high. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stilist Posted March 20, 2004 Author Share Posted March 20, 2004 Ok, I'm gonna run off and try that... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaKeY Posted March 20, 2004 Share Posted March 20, 2004 Does your motherboard have onboard video? It might be initializing the onboard video instead of your card. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stilist Posted March 20, 2004 Author Share Posted March 20, 2004 No, it's on a video card... (I've got the HP Pavillion 304w). Also, the config thing looks like it'd work (I read the file, saw things similar to that)... problem is, I don't know how to edit files with Linux command line. I read through INFO, but didn't see a topic for it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kongit Posted March 20, 2004 Share Posted March 20, 2004 I believe redhat has nano. type in nano filename to edit something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stilist Posted March 20, 2004 Author Share Posted March 20, 2004 Sounds good... I'll try that later tonight. Now that I think about it, I should probably have known that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stilist Posted March 20, 2004 Author Share Posted March 20, 2004 I tried that with the settings you've got (except the ModelName, I left that alone)... didn't help at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted March 20, 2004 Veteran Share Posted March 20, 2004 If your "Monitor" section is ok, you probably need to adjust your "Screen" section. The way Linux (XFree, actually) works, is that you define one or more "Monitor"s, you define one or more "Device"s (video cards), and then you put them together with a "Screen" definition. That way a Video Card "Device" that supports resolutions A, B, and C and a "Monitor" that supports resolutions B, C, and D can be put together in a "Screen" and be told to support resolutions B & C only. This is a simplified version, but it helps me understand it better. ;) For example, here is my "Screen" section: Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen0" Device "Videocard0" Monitor "Monitor0" DefaultDepth 16 Option "NoLogo" "on" SubSection "Display" Depth 16 Modes "1600x1200" "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1280x960" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection EndSection In your case, there may be modes specified that are not available. Remove them from your list, and viola!, you will have a working configuration. AND... if you boot and get just a blank/undisplayable screen, there is a trick to walking through the listed resolutions to test them without having ot edit anything. Use CTRL+ALT+[NUM PAD PLUS] and CTRL+ALT+[NUM PAD MINUS] to have X switch through your listed resolutions. Perhaps if you post your XF86Config file, it would help us.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stilist Posted March 20, 2004 Author Share Posted March 20, 2004 Heh... can't exactly post my config file, because that's on a different hard drive... WinXP came with the backup CD on a hard drive partition... and you can't create partitions with XP unless the disk is empty. :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted March 20, 2004 Veteran Share Posted March 20, 2004 Heh... can't exactly post my config file, because that's on a different hard drive... WinXP came with the backup CD on a hard drive partition... and you can't create partitions with XP unless the disk is empty. :rolleyes: Oh. You can't save it to a floppy? :whistle: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stilist Posted March 20, 2004 Author Share Posted March 20, 2004 Through a bit of toying with the resolution/refresh setup, as well as doing the key trick, I managed to get 'er running just fine. I still need to play with them a bit more to get all my modes recognized, but at least I can see something... it won't be long. Thanks for the help! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kongit Posted March 20, 2004 Share Posted March 20, 2004 Through a bit of toying with the resolution/refresh setup, as well as doing the key trick, I managed to get 'er running just fine. I still need to play with them a bit more to get all my modes recognized, but at least I can see something... it won't be long. While toying with the x config is fun, it is better to know what your computer has and how to set it up so you don't have to toy. :whistle: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted March 20, 2004 Veteran Share Posted March 20, 2004 While toying with the x config is fun, it is better to know what your computer has and how to set it up so you don't have to toy. :whistle: Aww.... c'mon.... Everyone is a noob once. (Some of us twice) :D I'm just glad he is getting it figured out (and learning in the process) ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stilist Posted March 20, 2004 Author Share Posted March 20, 2004 Yup, you've got to learn somehow. By the way, I'm using Red Hat right now. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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