Knoppix 7.0.4-EN CD & DVD notes & comments

[knopper]

Annoyance I've noted on 7.0.x incl 7.0.4 on some nvidia cards 7800 and 8800 maybe more systems is repetitived blanking of the screen (ie, 10-15secons On, 2 Seconds Blanked Off) dont think it related to what I've read (nvidia driver / compis usage / powerthrottle on card mhz speed change) but for a workaround to not using the no3d cheat code on the kernel command line append drm_kms_helper.poll=0 Will stop screen flickering but I think problems is still there.

I've seen the occasional "blank" 2 or 3 times directly after starting up when using the framebuffer gma500_gfx on an eeepc 1101 HA, but surprisingly, it goes away after a while. It may be related to system load, which is high at the beginning, and could be a timing problem in the X server which skips interrupts or cannot do refreshs in time. I have no explanation why it happens on nvidia, too, but the option drm_kms_helper.poll=0 sounds interesting. It may be that the X server needs a while to find the correct interval to read possible mode setting changes, and "blanks" if it gets an invalid mode or timeout back from the chipset. Do the "blanks" disappear for you after a while, or is it rather a constant flickering every 10 seconds, indefinitely, when you boot tithout the option?

Regards
-Klaus

[jacksonon]

I've seen the occasional "blank" 2 or 3 times directly after starting up when using the framebuffer gma500_gfx on an eeepc 1101 HA, but surprisingly, it goes away after a while. It may be related to system load, which is high at the beginning, and could be a timing problem in the X server which skips interrupts or cannot do refreshs in time. I have no explanation why it happens on nvidia, too, but the option drm_kms_helper.poll=0 sounds interesting. It may be that the X server needs a while to find the correct interval to read possible mode setting changes, and "blanks" if it gets an invalid mode or timeout back from the chipset. Do the "blanks" disappear for you after a while, or is it rather a constant flickering every 10 seconds, indefinitely, when you boot tithout the option?

Regards
-Klaus

Yeah when my brother upgraded from 6.7 to 7.0.2 from linux magizine when he got to his desktop, his screen would blank indefinitely, at the time I tired to help him but wasnt paying much attention because I wasnt having the problem (Im a little more savvy with linux but not much). I think he tried installing offical nvidia drivers and he ended up using some cheat code as I suggested. I could not remember which one at the time. He has an 8800 ultra. I downloaded 7.0.4 for myself last night and the same thing started happened on my computer with 7800 ultra. I didn't want to go disabling stuff with cheat codes so just searched the problem on google and it does look to be cropping up in a lots of places. The setting suggested worked so I thought i'd just leave the info here, today I learned nomodeset will work too. dmesg shows at 10 second intervals nouveau load detected on output A. Screen blanks in console (ctrl+alt+f1) aswell. I dont know the cause because but 7.0.2 was fine for me which is strange, only thing I can think are common to us are DVI-VGA adaptors in use, KVM switchs in use or because of GS versions of cards? even in windows opening the control panel causes a screen blank that I've never noticed with any other nvidia cards.