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2562
May 25th, 2004 22:00
Monitor (Dell FP1901) not working on Linux (Red Hat Enterprise 3 WS)
I purchased a Dimension 4600 with Dell FP1901 monitor from Dell, along with Red Hat 3 WS.
I know how to install Red Hat, so it went smoothly. Everything works fine except the monitor.
Installation indicated "Unknown monitor", and would not work in graphical mode. So I used text mode.
At X config, I chose the "Dell 1900FP" monitor, and chose the digital option (I am using the white cable).
Afterwards I reviewed /etc/X11/XF86Config, which seemed to list the correct options, based on the monitor specs.
But the monitor simply does not work in graphical mode. A few lines flicker across it, and then it says "2: Digital Input. Cannot Display This Video Mode"
The monitor works okay with Windows XP, so I am hesitant to blame the monitor.
Red Hat says to ask Dell for support. Dell says to ask Red Hat. I am going to have to return $2000 worth of stuff to Dell unless I get a clue.
Here are the relevant portions of my /etc/X11/XF86Config file:
Section "Monitor"
sheralyn
4 Posts
0
May 25th, 2004 22:00
As I was saying... Here are the relevant sections of my XF86Config file:
Section "Monitor"
sheralyn
4 Posts
0
May 25th, 2004 22:00
Section "Monitor"
EndSection
Section "Device"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
EndSection
I tried removing the first three modes, so it would display in "1024x768" but that didn't help. At the same time, I also set Depth and DefaultDepth to 16, in case that would help.
I think the video card is okay. Red Hat install recognized it, at least.
Suggestions very welcome. If I can't crack this in the next few days (I've already wasted two days on it), I will have to return the machine.
Thanks,
Sherry.
sheralyn
4 Posts
0
May 25th, 2004 23:00
I found the answer -- here is what worked, in case anyone else has a similar problem.
The root problem was a bad driver, even though RedHat recognized it as nvidia geforce fx. I had to download the new driver from nvidia. There are very good instructions on the nvidia website.
But I couldn't do that with a broken monitor. To get the monitor working, I did three things:
* in /etc/X11/XF86Config, change
Driver "nv"
to
Driver "vesa"
* in /etc/X11/XF86Config, remove
Load "dri"
* in /etc/grub.conf, add "vg=791" to the 'kernel' line
This will now support almost any display, so you can get the driver you want. Once you download the driver, you can undo the above changes. (And in this case you want to change the driver to "nvidia" and not "nv".)
(Note that in order to log in at all, I first had to edit the boot line to specify "single" so it would load into single-user mode, then edit /etc/inittab to specify initlevel 3, so it wouldn't automatically load into graphics mode.)