Video trouble (ati)

[nkoozer]

I'm using ATI 3d rage pro. I can't get Knoppix to use the 'ati' driver without crashing. It uses 'vesa' but with that I can't get a useable display because it always uses interlacing. I tried to discourage it from using interlacing by setting the vertical sync to a low value, but that seems to have no effect. When I set the driver to 'ati' in the XF86config file, I get a black screen and the machine hangs. The only escape is a hardware reset. When I borrow the whole video section from the XF86Config that I use in other distros, I still get the black screen and hang. I installed to hard disk to make it easier to manage, and the 'ati' driver still doesn't work. Has anyone encountered & fixed this problem?
TIA,
Neil

[Stephen]

I'm using ATI 3d rage pro. I can't get Knoppix to use the 'ati' driver without crashing. It uses 'vesa' but with that I can't get a useable display because it always uses interlacing. I tried to discourage it from using interlacing by setting the vertical sync to a low value, but that seems to have no effect. When I set the driver to 'ati' in the XF86config file, I get a black screen and the machine hangs. The only escape is a hardware reset. When I borrow the whole video section from the XF86Config that I use in other distros, I still get the black screen and hang. I installed to hard disk to make it easier to manage, and the 'ati' driver still doesn't work. Has anyone encountered & fixed this problem?
TIA,
Neil

I have one of them cards that I have used for many years in an older machine here one thing that I needed was knoppix xvrefresh=60 xmodule=ati to get it to boot. For the HD install you can go to here and get the Gatos driver for the card you are looking for the ATI-4.3.0-14.i386.tar.gz file. Once downloaded extract the file in some convenient location and copy the ati_drv.o and atimisc_drv.o that are in the resulting directory tree into the directory /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/ and try them, you may want to backup the originals before overwriting.

[w84me]

I am using ATI 3d Rage II PC2TV and had similar problems.
When trying to load Knoppix the screen went black. I noticed later it did the same thing when I tried Easy Linux and also failed on Win XP.
For some odd reason my problem was my monitor, even though it could go 1024 by 768 (to play Civ III).
I bought a refurbished Dell monitor and they all load fine now.

note: The old monitor still works with Mandrake,Win98,2000.....

[nkoozer]

I have one of them cards that I have used for many years in an older machine here one thing that I needed was knoppix xvrefresh=60 xmodule=ati to get it to boot. For the HD install you can go to here and get the Gatos driver for the card you are looking for the ATI-4.3.0-14.i386.tar.gz file. Once downloaded extract the file in some convenient location and copy the ati_drv.o and atimisc_drv.o that are in the resulting directory tree into the directory /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/ and try them, you may want to backup the originals before overwriting.[/quote]

Thanks. I tried that driver and I get the same result (black screen & hang). On the black screen there is a X-windows-style "X" on the screen also. I had to reset, and then I had to do a lot of manual fsck to get running again. I have around 10 of these cards because they work so well that I've replaced all my S3's and others with these. They work with all machines & with Slackware, Mandrake, Fedora, SUSE, and Pink Tie. Anybody have any ideas (especially a cure)?
Neil

[Stephen]

Thanks. I tried that driver and I get the same result (black screen & hang). On the black screen there is a X-windows-style "X" on the screen also. I had to reset, and then I had to do a lot of manual fsck to get running again. I have around 10 of these cards because they work so well that I've replaced all my S3's and others with these. They work with all machines & with Slackware, Mandrake, Fedora, SUSE, and Pink Tie. Anybody have any ideas (especially a cure)?
Neil

That is the X server running you just have no screens defined can you post the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 that you are using. You may also want to try (before you do this but save a copy of the original XF86Config-4 file first) at a console login without the X server running use CTRL and ATL and BKSP keys all at the same time to kill it off once booted to the black screen then login as normal user and type su then enter and the root password to become root and dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86 to reconfigure the X server or cd /root to change to the root directory and then X -configure and use the command it tells you to to test the new screen you will see the same greyish black plus X cursor if it works properly use the command mentioned above to kill off the X server and copy the file to the XF86Config-4 and then use /etc/init.d/kdm restart to test and hopefully to get a new KDE login screen from either of these methods. BTW you do not have to reset your computer you should be able to use the CTRL and ALT and F[1-6] keys to get to a console login and login as normal user and su to root and use either shutdown -r now to reboot or substitute -h in the command to shutdown the system immediately.

[nkoozer]

I am using ATI 3d Rage II PC2TV and had similar problems.
When trying to load Knoppix the screen went black. I noticed later it did the same thing when I tried Easy Linux and also failed on Win XP.
For some odd reason my problem was my monitor, even though it could go 1024 by 768 (to play Civ III).
I bought a refurbished Dell monitor and they all load fine now.

note: The old monitor still works with Mandrake,Win98,2000.....

I have a monitor that does that, too, but I'm using a good one for this. My Hitachi CM715 crashes hard if it receives negative sync pulses. Then I can't even turn it off with the on-off switch; I have to unplug it.

[nkoozer]

[...]
That is the X server running you just have no screens defined can you post the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 that you are using. You may also want to try (before you do this but save a copy of the original XF86Config-4 file first) at a console login without the X server running use CTRL and ATL and BKSP keys all at the same time to kill it off once booted to the black screen then login as normal user and type su then enter and the root password to become root and dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86 to reconfigure the X server or cd /root to change to the root directory and then X -configure and use the command it tells you to to test the new screen you will see the same greyish black plus X cursor if it works properly use the command mentioned above to kill off the X server and copy the file to the XF86Config-4 and then use /etc/init.d/kdm restart to test and hopefully to get a new KDE login screen from either of these methods. BTW you do not have to reset your computer you should be able to use the CTRL and ALT and F[1-6] keys to get to a console login and login as normal user and su to root and use either shutdown -r now to reboot or substitute -h in the command to shutdown the system immediately.

I'll try the reconfigure, but in the mean time here's the bottom of my version of the XF86Config-4 file. The layout section at the top refers to screen 0. This was extracted from my Slackware system which runs from another partion on this same mahine.

# ************************************************** ********************
# Monitor section
# ************************************************** ********************

Section "Monitor"

Identifier "Micron"
HorizSync 30-95
VertRefresh 50-120

Modeline "1280x1024" 135.00 1280 1296 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066 +hsync +vsync
Modeline "1024x768" 94.50 1024 1072 1168 1376 768 769 772 808 +hsync +vsync
Modeline "800x600" 56.30 800 832 896 1048 600 601 604 631 +hsync +vsync

EndSection


# ************************************************** ********************
# Graphics device section
# ************************************************** ********************

Section "Device"
Identifier "Video Card"
Driver "ati"
EndSection

# ************************************************** ********************
# Screen sections
# ************************************************** ********************

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen 0"
Device "Video Card"
Monitor "Micron"
DefaultDepth 16

Subsection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1280x1024" "800x600" "1024x768"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600"
ViewPort 0 0
Virtual 1664 1260
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024" "800x600" "1024x768"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection
-------------------------------------------------------

The black screen & hang also occurs if I do nothing but replace the "vesa" with "ati" in the driver line in the original file. When I'm in the black screen, ctrl-alt-bksp has no effect. Niether does ctrl-alt-del or anything else, and the mouse doesn't move the "X". When I reboot after the hang, the X log file is very short (about one screen or less), but I don't have an example right now.

When there are no screens defined, the sever complains & returns without hanging.

Back before programmable monitors were invented, I used to create my own modelines in order to center the display, so I'm familiar with things like keystrokes and the normal way things work, although I don't know debian-specific things.

This particular machine runs Slackware and WinXP in other partions, and both work fine.

I think the next thing I'll try first is to put this hard drive in another machine to see if it's just some obscure hardware thing that somehow excapes when other systems are running. I'm leaving on a trip, so I'll be out of touch till the end of the week.