[SOLVED] 1440x900 resolution distorted

Axis · 2008-12-06 23:21:40

Looking for some help here. I recently purchased a Hanns-G HW191A widescreen monitor whose optimal resolution is 1440x900. I can manage to get this resolution working however the sides of the screen are distorted.

Here is a screenshot of how it looks:

Hardware info:
Dell Latitude D610 with ATI Mobility Radeon X300 chip
Hanns-G HW191A widescreen LCD monitor
Catalyst drivers, using fglrx

Here are the display sections from my xorg.conf file

Section "Monitor"

# HorizSync is in kHz unless units are specified.
# HorizSync may be a comma separated list of discrete values, or a
# comma separated list of ranges of values.
# NOTE: THE VALUES HERE ARE EXAMPLES ONLY.  REFER TO YOUR MONITOR'S
# USER MANUAL FOR THE CORRECT NUMBERS.
#    HorizSync    30-64         # multisync
#    HorizSync    31.5, 35.2    # multiple fixed sync frequencies
#    HorizSync    15-25, 30-50  # multiple ranges of sync frequencies
# VertRefresh is in Hz unless units are specified.
# VertRefresh may be a comma separated list of discrete values, or a
# comma separated list of ranges of values.
# NOTE: THE VALUES HERE ARE EXAMPLES ONLY.  REFER TO YOUR MONITOR'S
# USER MANUAL FOR THE CORRECT NUMBERS.
    Identifier   "My Monitor"
    HorizSync    31.5 - 82.0
    VertRefresh  40.0 - 150.0
    Modeline "1440x900" 106.5 1440 1520 1672 1904 900 903 909 934
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
    Option        "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
    Option        "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
    Option        "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"

# The chipset line is optional in most cases.  It can be used to override
# the driver's chipset detection, and should not normally be specified.
#    Chipset    "generic"
# The Driver line must be present.  When using run-time loadable driver
# modules, this line instructs the server to load the specified driver
# module.  Even when not using loadable driver modules, this line
# indicates which driver should interpret the information in this section.
# The BusID line is used to specify which of possibly multiple devices
# this section is intended for.  When this line isn't present, a device
# section can only match up with the primary video device.  For PCI
# devices a line like the following could be used.  This line should not
# normally be included unless there is more than one video device
# intalled.
#    BusID      "PCI:0:10:0"
#    VideoRam    256
#    Clocks    25.2 28.3
    Identifier  "Standard VGA"
    Driver      "vga"
    VendorName  "Unknown"
    BoardName   "Unknown"
EndSection

Section "Device"

    #VideoRam    262144
    # Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
    Identifier  "** ATI (generic)                      [ati]"
    Driver      "ati"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
    Driver      "fglrx"
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen 1"
    Device     "** ATI (generic)                      [ati]"
    Monitor    "My Monitor"
    DefaultDepth     24
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     8
        Modes    "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     16
        Modes    "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     24
        Modes    "1440x900" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0"
    Device     "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
    Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
    DefaultDepth     24
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     24
        Modes    "1440x900" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
EndSection"

The display doesn't load at all with the generic ATI driver. If you need more info let me know. Any assistance would be appreciated.

Last edited by Axis (2008-12-09 19:11:47)

R00KIE · 2008-12-07 00:02:12

The generic ATI driver you are referring to is the radon driver from the xf86-video-ati package right? I believe the name changed not so long go so you can check that.
I have an ATI card on my desktop and I think (I can't remember now, not completely sure) that the vesa driver can make it work at 1440x900. The radeon driver works great (its an old card though a X600).
I guess you can get better assistance if you tell us the model of the card as probably someone has one and can help you.

Axis · 2008-12-07 00:09:19

R00KIE, thanks for the reply. Yes, I was referring to the xf86-video-ati package. I got no display on my monitor or laptop with that driver, though it did show up on my laptop with the external monitor disconnected. Mentioned in the original post I am using an ATI Mobility Radeon X300. I'm going to try out the vesa driver, thanks.

UPDATE: I installed the vesa driver and ran xorgconfig again. This resulted in only having a 1400x1050 resolution which was larger than the screen. So I kept the xorg.conf file the same but changed "vesa" with "fglrx" and now the screen looks a bit better. There is still distortion but not quite as much.

Don't know if this is a sign of progress or just a glitch but it does look a bit better.

Last edited by Axis (2008-12-07 00:41:04)

R00KIE · 2008-12-07 06:38:35

Oh yes you are right, you did mention your card, my mistake (caught a nasty cold that is driving me insane).
I'm not quite sure of this but trying to use the vesa driver or the radeon driver doesn't work so well when you still have parts of the binary driver on your system. At least in my case pacman complained about conflicts between the radeonhd and the binary driver (while trying to make a radeonhd 2400 work). But it's better than someone else confirms this.
On my desktop (I have just tried it) with the system up-to-date I can't even create a new xorg.conf file (complains about the number of screens detected .... ) so I have just sorted my keyboard map with hotplug and I have no xorg.conf and I can get the correct resolution. Just have the xf86-video-ati package in your system and maybe the autodetection can sort the rest.
Oh and the vesa driver uses something like 1024x768 so thats a last resort .

zhuqin · 2008-12-07 14:06:35

Hi, I have a laptop with a X600se card, and an external 19" LCD too, here's my solution:

$ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Card0"
    Option        "AccelMethod"    "EXA"
    Option        "PanelSize"        "1440x900"
    Option      "AccelDFS"        "on"
    Option        "EnablePageFlip"    "on"
#    Option        "EXAVSync"        "on"
#    Option        "BackingStore"    "on"
#    Option      "DynamicClocks"    "on"
EndSection

and meanwhile, add

xrandr --dpi 90 --output VGA-0 --auto --output LVDS --off

to your gnome-session.
At least it works for me, good luck!

Edit: in case you may ask, I use xf86-video-ati instead of fglrx.

Last edited by zhuqin (2008-12-07 14:09:09)

Axis · 2008-12-07 20:11:18

Hey guys, tried all the above suggestions, still no luck. I do think it's something in the xorg.conf file that needs adjusting, because as I said before there is a bit less distortion on the sides now than there was before, using the same driver. I'm thinking maybe the vert/horiz sync rate or the refresh rates. Strangely enough i can't find the sync rates for this monitor online or in the manual.

i'd just lke to add that other resolutions work fine, it's just the 1440x900 optimal resolution that does this.

Last edited by Axis (2008-12-07 20:13:34)

R00KIE · 2008-12-07 20:47:42

Did you try with no xorg.conf at all and let the X server try to autodetect everything?
Or maybe that is related to the new hotplugging being enabled, try putting this in your xorg.conf

   Section "ServerFlags"
     Option "AutoAddDevices" "False"
   EndSection

Although its a different card this maybe be related too http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=60374

Last edited by R00KIE (2008-12-07 20:50:09)

Axis · 2008-12-09 19:11:29

Success!

So I decided to do a clean re-install. Didn't touch the Catalyst driver but instead installed the xf86-video-ati driver. Ran xorgconfig then added "1440x900" to the list of resolutions in xorg.conf. Restarted X and it worked! Only issue now is that my panels in GNOME seem to be a bit wonky, as if they don't notice the extra screen space. I can drag the bottom panel down and it will extend, but no such luck with the top panel.

In any case, the main issue has been resolved. Marking this as solved, thanks for the help guys!

R00KIE · 2008-12-10 21:53:35

If you don't mind loosing your gnome desktop configurations just delete or rename them and I guess when you start gnome again it will create new configurations and probably things will be the right size.

Axis · 2008-12-11 01:29:58

R00KIE wrote:

If you don't mind loosing your gnome desktop configurations just delete or rename them and I guess when you start gnome again it will create new configurations and probably things will be the right size.

That worked, thanks!

Arch Linux

#1 2008-12-06 23:21:40

[SOLVED] 1440x900 resolution distorted

#2 2008-12-07 00:02:12

Re: [SOLVED] 1440x900 resolution distorted

#3 2008-12-07 00:09:19

Re: [SOLVED] 1440x900 resolution distorted

#4 2008-12-07 06:38:35

Re: [SOLVED] 1440x900 resolution distorted

#5 2008-12-07 14:06:35

Re: [SOLVED] 1440x900 resolution distorted

#6 2008-12-07 20:11:18

Re: [SOLVED] 1440x900 resolution distorted

#7 2008-12-07 20:47:42

Re: [SOLVED] 1440x900 resolution distorted

#8 2008-12-09 19:11:29

Re: [SOLVED] 1440x900 resolution distorted

#9 2008-12-10 21:53:35

Re: [SOLVED] 1440x900 resolution distorted

#10 2008-12-11 01:29:58

Re: [SOLVED] 1440x900 resolution distorted

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