F12b ATI Rage Mobility 128

[Todd Denniston]

Robert G. (Doc) Savage wrote, On 11/03/2009 06:08 PM:
> On Tue, 2009-11-03 at 09:25 -0800, Adam Williamson wrote:
>> On Tue, 2009-11-03 at 10:57 -0600, Robert G. (Doc) Savage wrote:
>>
>>> Robert,
>>>
>>> I may be seeing something similar on a 32-bit ThinkPad A22p with ATI
>>> Rage Mobility 128 video. Unless I select base bideo during initial
>>> installation, the right 1/3 of an 800x600 window in a 1600x1200 display
>>> is torn/garbled such that the Next and Cancel buttons are effectively
>>> masked. After the initial reboot I get a normal full screen with
<SNIP>
> When I rename it to xorg.conf.save and reboot, my poor ThinkPad A22p
> struggles to bring up a 1280x1024 screen that's torn/folded along
> several vertical lines in its right 40%. It looks like a very wrong mode
> line setting. Native resolution of the A22p 15" display is 1600x1200,
> but System -> Preferences -> Hardware -> Display doesn't offer any
> screen resolutions above 1280x1024.
> 
> Here's the lspci -vv output:
> 
> 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility M3 AGP 2x (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
> 	Subsystem: IBM IBM Thinkpad A22p
<SNIP>
> 
> As I said, this is an old laptop. The vesa driver actually works, but
> now I understand that's a band-aid fix. If your X team has someone with
> time and inclination to fix this, I'd be happy to work with them. If
> not, no problem.
> 
> --Doc Savage
>   Fairview Heights, IL
> 

This sounds like the same issue I was just having with an old Dell inspiron 8k (info at [1] marker 
below), on CentOS 5. With the Dell I was able to press the Fn + Font sequence[2] which changed it to 
displaying the resolution the card was using, instead of expanding the image to fit the physical 
screen.

I understand we are talking of a much newer X in F12, but old tricks may yet work, and similar old 
problems may exist like:

After installing I noticed in the Xorg.log that the monitor was not giving X _any_[3] info back and 
so X was dropping back to 800x600 instead of 1400x1050.  I had to tell X the Hsync and VRefresh  of 
the  monitor[4] and then the r128 driver (from the ancient xorg-x11-drv-ati-6.6.3) which anaconda 
had chosen worked like a champ.
So definitely provide Xorg.log info to the devs in any bug reports you do, so they have a chance to 
notice what X could not find correctly.


Hope this helps more than confuses.

[1]
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility M4 AGP (prog-if 00 [VGA 
controller])
         Subsystem: Dell Unknown device 00a4

[2] happens to be Fn + F7 on the Dell.

[3] without a monitor section Xorg.log sees:
(II) R128(0): initializing int10
(II) R128(0): Primary V_BIOS segment is: 0xc000
(--) R128(0): Chipset: "ATI Rage 128 Mobility M4 MF (AGP)" (ChipID = 0x4d46)
(--) R128(0): Linear framebuffer at 0xe8000000
(--) R128(0): MMIO registers at 0xfcffc000
(--) R128(0): VideoRAM: 8192 kByte (128-bit SDR SGRAM 1:1)
(**) R128(0): Using flat panel for display
(II) R128(0): Primary Display == Type 2
(II) R128(0): Panel size: 1400x1050
(II) R128(0): Panel ID: IBM ITSX95
(II) R128(0): Panel Type: Color, Single, TFT
(II) R128(0): Panel Interface: LVDS
(II) R128(0): PLL parameters: rf=2700 rd=12 min=12500 max=25000; xclk=10500
...
(II) Loading sub module "ddc"
(II) LoadModule: "ddc"
(II) Reloading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libddc.so
(II) R128(0): VESA VBE DDC supported
(II) R128(0): VESA VBE DDC Level none
(II) R128(0): VESA VBE DDC transfer in appr. 2 sec.
(II) R128(0): VESA VBE DDC read failed
(==) R128(0): Using gamma correction (1.0, 1.0, 1.0)
(II) R128(0): <default monitor>: Using default hsync range of 31.50-37.90 kHz
(II) R128(0): <default monitor>: Using default vrefresh range of 50.00-70.00 Hz
(WW) R128(0): Unable to estimate virtual size


[4] boy I am glad I always backup etc before reinstalling.
the Dell monitor was made to work with:
         HorizSync   31.5 - 90.0
         VertRefresh 60

-- 
Todd Denniston
Crane Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC Crane)
Harnessing the Power of Technology for the Warfighter