No terminals when i ctrl-alt Fxyz vid card problem?

[arkaoss]

I HD installed this onto a newer p4, which has a built in intel 845 vid card.
And if I boot, and try to Ctrl Alt Fxyz to a diff terminal it just blanks the screen, an runing thru a KVm, and an 18 lcd.
Is it the vid card?

[arkaoss]

an additional anoyance, if i logout to switch user, it goes to black screen rather than the user switch.
I just loaded this machine with 3.3/sept 24 so I thought it'd be ok.
I've been using knoppix on another machine at home for a few weeks, I know i'm doing things the right way.. so I'm pretty sure its the hardware, I'm kindof asking if anyone else has similar hardware, and results .

[rneff]

So you are saying that you dont see anything in tty1 (ctl-alt-fn1) ever? While it is booting up what is the last thing you see on the screen before it goes to the gui?

[arkaoss]

well I see less than I'm used to during the initial initialization, gonna do a reboot on it.
Ok it boots off floppy, (havn't bothered to finish installing 2k on the other half of this dualboot, and initailizing it's bootloader.)
and the floppy has a simple load, shows loading vmlinuz for a about 10-15 dots, then pops the penguin and it's already got like 1/2 thru the pci cards and then it rolls a few more.. then i saw loading xwindows, and it blacks out.... and loads the login

But wierd thing is, i did ctrl-alt-F3 and i got a tty (which i wasn't geting erlier), albiet a wierd tty, one with a large block cursor, and a little part in the bottom middle that was out of color.
I went to tty 4-6, and back to 7 the gui, but then i went to 2 and it blacked out again... and i couldn't get back to the gui... so i dunno what that was..

[rneff]

I am not sure either. Sounds like a pretty weird problem. I would guess that it is the kvm, or even video card. Did you try simply uplugging the kvm for one test?

[arkaoss]

not the KVm because it worked when another box was conected to it. and it seems to do it all the time now.. another detail, is when i exit KDE, instead of showing the background process's shutting down, it goes black.

[rneff]

I dont know. I cant think of anything else. Maybe someone else has some ideas...

[Stephen]

not the KVm because it worked when another box was conected to it. and it seems to do it all the time now.. another detail, is when i exit KDE, instead of showing the background process's shutting down, it goes black.

Sounds like it could be problems with the frame buffer have you tried edit the file /etc/lilo.conf as root and changing the line vga=791 to vga=normal then you would have to run /sbin/lilo -v as root also to have the changes take effect then reboot and see how it goes.

[arkaoss]

well thanks a million, dang I feel sheepish, that worked..
but now...
it still won't display X when I try to swap back to it.... any suggestions.. something about maybe the x settings I could look at?

[Stephen]

well thanks a million, dang I feel sheepish, that worked..
but now...
it still won't display X when I try to swap back to it.... any suggestions.. something about maybe the x settings I could look at?

Well it seems that X does not like your card/kvm/monitor setup but there is a couple of things, have you looked at the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 and checked the HorizSync and VertRefresh settings and made sure they match your monitor? Also you could check to make sure the X server did not get killed off when you switch to the console as root in the console startx if it gives you an error saying server is already running you will most likely have to CTRL + C to get a prompt back. If it is running also as root in the console /etc/init.d/xsession restart to start the session again and see if it will get you back to a graphic screen. note: any unsaved work in the session you left will be lost.

[arkaoss]

hmm Ok, thank you very much, I'll have to check out my LCD tomorow....

[arkaoss]

here's a few lines from my xf86config-4 file:
-----------------------
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
Option "DPMS" "true"
# HorizSync 28.0 - 78.0 # Warning: This may fry very old Monitors
HorizSync 70 - 80# Warning: This may fry old Monitors
# VertRefresh 50.0 - 76.0 # Very conservative. May flicker.
VertRefresh 50-85# Extreme conservative. Will flicker. TFT default.
----------------
there's more .. but I think it's not needed, after a bunch of "defaults" :
--------------------
vendorname "ViewSonic"
modelname "VG800"
ModeLine "1280x1024/61Hz" 110 1280 1328 1512 1712 1024 1025 1028 1054
EndSection
------------------------
end of applicable section

Uhm the monitor, a viewsonic 18 in lcd, it's says it's runnin at 79.7 Horiz and 74.7 vert.

[arkaoss]

i dunno.. If anyone can suggest other places where vid settings might be.
I do know that when I switch tty's and switch back, it is actually displaying nothing, while still letting keystrokes, and by expirimenting, mouse strokes thru.
and after a reboot, I doo see the switcher for users.. but once tty's are swaped... there's no getting vid feed back.
Any one want to point out where thos settings are spawned?