display divided by six???

BarryM

OK I've had this problem or ages now and can't figure it out at all - in the meantime I have to continue using windows

I've got a Acer K501N with a 15.6" HD/LED display and nvidia Geforce G102M video card. I can install ubuntu easily but when it boots up my screen display is divided into six identical copies of my desktop - two columns of three. When I move the mouse it moves is all six.

I've tried different drivers, altering settings like resolution etc. within ubuntu and even tried a live CD of a different distro (mandriva I think) and it's exactly the same so I think it might be something to do with the kernel maybe??? I don't know how I can sort this out as I am a newbie but I really wanna get up and running on linux and dump this MS crap.

Help please....

TsaniApani

Try another distro. Seriously, its the easiest thing to do. I have one machine that does the same thing but works fine with about every 5th distro out there...

mfillpot

Do the live CDs and installed copies all do the same thing on your system?

TsaniApani

If I recall correctly that machine has the same problem with a variety of live distros, but I definitely recall that machine has never been able to install any version of Fedora upto about 10, when it finally got drilled through my thick skull to not bother with them, although the problem is slightly different where it just displays grey patches all over the screen.

The wonderful thing about having many distros to choose from is chances are one will find all your hardware and you don't have to waste your time configuring things, or worse yet, paying/begging for help as when stuck with a proprietary OS...

BarryM

I've tried two differentr distros - Mandriva and ubuntu. I've run them both live CD and installed them. They're exactly the same. It looks to me like either a driver problem (and I've downloaded some from Nvidia site) or something to do with the kernel seeing as both distros behave exactly the same.
I don't have any experience with linux so I'm just guessing but I'm more than comfortable when it comes to dealing with hardware issues on PC's running MS Wombles...
I've messed around with a bunch of different settings after I've installed them on my HDD but have reached the point of dangling my laptop out the window and threatening the worst. I really really wanna dump MS but I've struggled with this problem since around October last year. HELP....

TsaniApani

BarryM wrote:

HELP....

Don't give up! I neglected to mention in my earlier reply that the distro that resolved the problem for me was PCLinuxOS 2009...

BarryM

OK, so I've tried Fedora which didn't seem to work at all. Now I've managed to get Mint up and running. Trouble is, as soon as I load the Nvidia drivers that problem with the six screens appears again. This means I gotta go with the basic drivers and can't use things like compiz or anything that really uses linux to show off it's graphical capabilities.
These are proprietry drivers. Any ideas where I go from here?

mfillpot

It sounds like the problem is with how the drivers interact with your video card. Are you sure that you are installing the correct drivers for you video card?

TsaniApani

mfillpot wrote:

It sounds like the problem is with how the drivers interact with your video card. Are you sure that you are installing the correct drivers for you video card?

I've had that problem go away by changing only the display to an old 1024x768, but if you've got a laptop try Mandriva 2008, not 2009...

BarryM

I've taken some screenshots in case it might help. screenshot-2 shows that my display is only being detected as 640x480 and screenshot-4 shows that I've got drivers installed for a Nvidia GeForce G102M and that is the card that I've got installed.
These shots were taken with the nVidia drivers installed but don't show how the whole screen is divided up. [file name=Screenshot_4.png size=97515]http://www.linux.com/media/kunena/attachments/legacy/files/Screenshot_4.png[/file]

Goineasy9

The "X Server Display Configuration", right above the line your showing, contains the set up information. If you can set up your monitor there, you can save the configuration (The preview shows you how Nvidia will set up your xorg file). If you can't reset your resolution there, there must be a problem with the driver.

BarryM

OK Karma, I've tried what you've suggested and was able to manually input the screen resolution (1366x768 as it narmally runs in MS) . This gives a strange result - the resolution seems to change alright but the screen is still divided into six. This means that instead of viewing the whole desktop in any of the six segments, I can only see a smaller portion of the desktop and by moving my mouse to the edge I can pan around the desktop.
I think this is progress to a degree because it would suggest that my video card and drivers are capable of doing what I need. I still think there is an issue with how it's all interacting with my monitor. As I've mentioned earlier, it's a 15.6" HD LED screen and at 1366x768 resolution it's not too common. I can't seem to find out anything about how linux is recognising the screen. Any ideas how I can investigate this?
I've attached two more screenshots including an error message that appeared when I tried to apply the changes suggested by Karma.
Thanks a million btw guys. I feel I'm making some progress with this now - even if it IS a bit slow.

BarryM

.

i_rock

I don't know if you found a solution.

I had this issue with ubuntu and opensuse.

I solved it in opensuse with the following configuration :
Geforce G105M Graphics - opensuse 11.1

it seems that the most crucial part is:

Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "True"

and to have:

Modeline "1366x768" 69.50 1366 1414 1446 1446 768 771 775 806 -hsync -vsync

I got this solution obtained from
http://forum.ubuntu-fr.org/viewtopic.php?id=330782

I attached my xorg.conf file: [file name=nvidia_gforce_g105m_xorg_2010_02.txt size=5473]http://www.linux.com/media/kunena/attachments/legacy/files/nvidia_gforce_g105m_xorg_2010_02.txt[/file]

BarryM

Thanks Karma, Still haven't got a solution yet but I'm off to check out what I can get out of your last post... I'll let you know how I get on.

BarryM

SUCCESS!!!:cheer:
Thanks Karma! I've been struggling with this for so long. I really wanted to move over to Linux - any distro that would work - but I've been struggling for months to get full capabilities out of it. I really was beginning to resign myself to using a limited Linux or eventually using more and more of MS.
I'm so happy I'm off to donate €100 to the Linux project.
Excellent community & fantastic looking, and from my experience so far, extremely functional OS.

Thanks again!

Goineasy9

Wow, Seb, monumental first post to the forum. Don't be a stranger.