Arch Linux

Dr.U

Member

From: Ettlingen, Germany

Registered: 2005-03-03

Posts: 68

[SOLVED] Strange resolution(s) after Xorg shutdown

This problem is driving me nuts and I have not yet found any messages in the forum that really address it. I'm also not sure that it is a "Laptop Issue" but since it is occurring on my "laptop" I decided to post this here.

The Problem: Everytime I exit Fluxbox and return to the console I have a bizarre-looking display that has the following characteristics:

-> the background is composed of alternating dark blue and black lines running across it and the text is of poor quality (usually just barely readable).

->sometimes it seems as if the resolution is about right (i.e. as it was during booting), but the text at the right edge is extending somewhat off-screen (so that when I do a shutdown of the system the stuff in []'s on the right edge is either off-screen of only the first [ is visible), and my command prompt is probably a couple of lines below the bottom edge, so that I can't see the last deveral lines. After entering "clear" it is visible as usual at the top left corner, so I can enter commands without typing "blind".

-> other times the resolution is really different (smaller text, even poorer quality now), the first several characters on the left side of the output appear also on the extreme right side of the console and the vertical is really strange: it repeats itself about two or three times from top to bottom. If this is not clear then maybe this helps: after typing "clear" I see my command prompt 3 times: at the upper left corner and then again at about 1/3 of the way down the screen on the left edge and then finally again about 2/3 of the way down on the left edge. When I now type anything, it appears at each of the 3 command prompt positions...

My system: an MSI Notebook with 15.4" Widescreen (1280x800), nVidia GeForce Go 6100, Arch is completely up-to-date and I'm using the latest nvidia driver from our repositories (nvidia-169.12-2).

Fluxbox looks great. My problem is limited to the consoles after exiting Fluxbox. I have tried changing my grub kernel line, using vga=769, vga=771, vga=773 and vga=normal (whatever that means -- I found that somewhere in a forum), but these values change nothing in the console appearance either before starting Fluxbox (when my console is OK), or after exiting Fluxbox (when the console problems appear).

Finally, after exiting Fluxbox, getting the strange console, and re-starting Fluxbox, Fluxbox looks fine (so I'm concluding that Xorg is working and restarting properly), then when exiting Fluxbox again I get returned to the strange console. Is Xorg not shutting down properly?? The Xorg.0.log has not been of any help to me, but there is the following in it:

(II) Primary Device is: PCI 00:05:0
(WW) NVIDIA: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:0:10:3) found

And in my xorg.conf I have:

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Card0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    BusID          "PCI:0:5:0"
    VendorName     "nVidia Corporation"
    BoardName      "MCP51 PCI-X GeForce Go 6100"
    Option         "NoLogo" "true"
    Option         "RenderAccel" "true"
    Option         "DPI" "96 x 96"
EndSection

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

-- Dr. U
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five. "
(Groucho Marx)

Last edited by Dr.U (2008-06-17 07:06:07)

Dr.U

Member

From: Ettlingen, Germany

Registered: 2005-03-03

Posts: 68

Re: [SOLVED] Strange resolution(s) after Xorg shutdown

Although it seems that I have been the only person experiencing this problem,   I thought it best to post an update here since maybe someone with the same problem can also be assisted. Basically, the short info here is that the recent update to the latest Arch packages

nvidia 173.14.05-4
nvidia-utils 173.14.05-1

has solved the problem. I have no idea why no one else reported having such a problem, but I'm glad that it is now history

Regards,
  -- Dr.U