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#1 2009-12-19 23:53:30

crypt
Member
Registered: 2009-12-19
Posts: 11

xorg and screen resolutions

hey, I recently migrated to arch from Ubuntu when their latest update broke a few important things on my computer.  I wanted something more stable, and was looking to learn more about the inner workings of the system, so one of my friends recommended arch.

The installation went off without a hitch, and I'm able to use xfce perfectly fine, but with one major problem.  My screen resolution is stuck on 1920x1200, which is a little bit too high for my eyes (and ruins games like starcraft, which are hard-coded to only work at lower resolutions).  The graphical resolution-change shows 1920x1200 as the only available mode, and when I run xrandr in a terminal it shows only that one resolution.

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1200, maximum 8192 x 8192
VGA-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
LVDS connected 1920x1200+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 367mm x 230mm
   1920x1200      60.0*+
DVI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

Now originally, I thought that this was a problem that could be solved wth xorg.conf... but after searching the internet, none of the common fixes worked.  My xorg.conf file was auto-generated, so I added the lines that I thought would give me options for resolution.  In the "Monitor" section (I only have one), I added
        Modeline     "1600x1000_60.00"  133.14  1600 1704 1872 2144  1000 100$
        Modeline     "1920x1200_60.00"  193.16  1920 2048 2256 2592  1200 120$
and restarted X, but got no change.

In the "Screen" section (again, only one) I added "Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600"" and got no change.

I am using hal, which I've read a bit can interact somehow with xorg.conf(?), but I didn't understand exactly how, so I didn't know if that's causing the problem or how to fix it.  For what it's worth, hal is started in my rc.conf file, so I'm sure that hal gets started before X.


The only solution that I've found is to type

xrandr --newmode "1600x1000_60.00"  133.14  1600 1704 1872 2144  1000 100$
xrandr --addmode LVDS 1600x1000_60.00

into a terminal.  That adds the resolution so that xrandr picks it up, and lets me select it in xfce's display settings, but only temporarily.  As soon as I reboot or log out and log back in again, the settings are back to 1920x1200 being the only option again.

I also went to the archwiki, which had "unrecognized supported resolutions" as a common problem, and it suggested I use a program called read-edid to find horizontal sync values and add them to the "Monitor" section, but after doing that, it gave me this output...

parse-edid: EDID checksum passed.

    # EDID version 1 revision 3
Section "Monitor"
    # Block type: 2:0 3:f
    # Block type: 2:0 3:fe
    # Block type: 2:0 3:fe
    Identifier "SEC:5531"
    VendorName "SEC"
    ModelName "SEC:5531"
    # Block type: 2:0 3:f
    # Block type: 2:0 3:fe
    # Block type: 2:0 3:fe
    # DPMS capabilities: Active off:no  Suspend:no  Standby:no

    Mode     "1920x1200"    # vfreq 60.002Hz, hfreq 73.202kHz
        DotClock    161.630000
        HTimings    1920 1968 2000 2208
        VTimings    1200 1202 1208 1220
        Flags    "-HSync" "-VSync"
    EndMode
    # Block type: 2:0 3:f
    # Block type: 2:0 3:fe
    # Block type: 2:0 3:fe
EndSection

so I didn't see anything about horizSync values in there?

This is pretty frustrating... as it seems like my computer is bypassing xorg.conf altogether and using some default settings from elsewhere.... except I have no idea where that elsewhere could be.  Does anyone have any ideas?

Oh, yeah.  I'm using a Dell Inspiron E1705 with an ATI Radeon X1400 graphics card (with the open-source driver).  I'm not sure if that has anythign to do with it, but just in case.

Last edited by crypt (2009-12-20 01:37:24)

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#2 2009-12-20 07:00:49

Dheart
Member
From: Sofia, Bulgaria
Registered: 2006-10-26
Posts: 956

Re: xorg and screen resolutions

I have the same problem with resolutions so I created a script which my DE runs when it boots up.
What's your DE?

[dheart@lightbringer ~]$ cat /usr/local/bin/xrandr_75.sh 
#!/bin/bash
xrandr --newmode "1280x800_75.00"  107.21  1280 1360 1496 1712  800 801 804 835  -HSync +Vsync &&
xrandr --addmode LVDS1 1280x800_75.00 &&
xrandr -r 75

Here's the example script I'm using replace it with your value (and the last line shouldn't be xrandr -r 75 but something else like xrandr -s 1600x1200)


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#3 2009-12-20 08:31:35

Knives
Member
Registered: 2008-12-26
Posts: 25

Re: xorg and screen resolutions

Add this to your xorg.conf:

Section "Screen"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
        Modes      "1920x1200_60.00" "1600x1000_60.00"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Last edited by Knives (2009-12-20 08:32:11)

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#4 2009-12-21 01:07:41

crypt
Member
Registered: 2009-12-19
Posts: 11

Re: xorg and screen resolutions

yeah...  tried that before, knives.  It didn't work, but I'm still not sure why.

Your solution worked just fine, Dheart, thanks.  I'm using xfce, but I actually just stuck the commands in my .xinintrc folder.  I think that works basically like a startup script would, and it seems to work fine and get things working.

I'm still curious as to why this might be happening, though.  The Xorg.0.log, at the bottom, just says

(II) RADEON(0): EDID vendor "SEC", prod id 12629
(II) RADEON(0): Printing DDC gathered Modelines:
(II) RADEON(0): Modeline "1920x1200"x0.0  161.63  1920 1968 2000 2208  1200 1202 1208 1220 -hsync -vsync (73.2 kHz)
(II) RADEON(0): EDID vendor "SEC", prod id 12629
(II) RADEON(0): Printing DDC gathered Modelines:
(II) RADEON(0): Modeline "1920x1200"x0.0  161.63  1920 1968 2000 2208  1200 1202 1208 1220 -hsync -vsync (73.2 kHz)
(II) RADEON(0): EDID vendor "SEC", prod id 12629
(II) RADEON(0): Printing DDC gathered Modelines:
(II) RADEON(0): Modeline "1920x1200"x0.0  161.63  1920 1968 2000 2208  1200 1202 1208 1220 -hsync -vsync (73.2 kHz)

over and over again at the bottom.  So I guess something's wrong with how DDC gathers the available resolutions?

Last edited by crypt (2009-12-21 01:08:06)

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