Startup/Login screen resolution & F8 thinks webcam is an audio device...

[Raymond C. Rodgers]

Hi folks,
 As the subject implies, I have two separate problems that I'd like a 
bit of assistance with. I'm running Fedora 8 x86_64.

 First, I recently bought an HP w2207h wide screen LCD display, and it 
works pretty well with one exception: It doesn't particularly like 
non-widescreen resolutions, and will toss up an annoying on screen 
display stating that the resolution and/or refresh rate are out of range 
right in the center of the display, blocking anything there, until 
either a) the reolution/refresh rate is changed or b) it decides that 
you're not paying it any attention and puts itself to sleep. Its 
preferred resolution is 1680x1050 at 60 Hz, and I have no problem with 
the resolution once I'm logged in, but I'm not sure how to change the 
resolution for the start/boot-up process (in case I need to watch the 
details while booting up), or at the log-in screen. As you might guess, 
I'm not exactly an expert at poking around in xorg.conf; can anyone 
offer me some suggestions?

 The second problem is that I also just got a RocketFish webcam. It 
doesn't work by default under Fedora, and I'm not entirely concerned 
about that, but what is interesting is that as long as it's plugged into 
my system, Fedora fails to recognize my motherboard's built-in audio 
chipset  (ADI AD1986A) which it normally has no problems with, and 
decides that what little audio support that is in the webcam (a built-in 
microphone) should be the default audio output device. This is obviously 
wrong. The simplest answer, I suppose would be to unplug the webcam when 
booting into Linux, but I'm sure there has to be a correct answer. Like 
I said, I'm not worried about getting the webcam to work properly under 
Fedora, I just want my sound working. The audio chipset doesn't even 
show in the sound device preference panel with the camera plugged in. 
Any suggestions on this one?

Thank you for your time,
Raymond