I have a dual boot CentOS 5.2 / FC4 machine, and recently I have bought a new widescreen tft monitor. I used to use a plain 4:3 crt, and after plugging the 16:9 tft naturally X needed reconfiguring. This was easy in FC4, and seemed as easy in CentOS, but with a wrong result. Basically, what I did was to run system-config-display to reconfigure for the new monitor and resolution. All goes well, but after X restarts, I see a strange picture: the resolution indeed goes to 1680x1050 as is supposed to, but is squeezed/shrinked/scaled horizontally to match a 4:3 aspect ratio, leaving two (unequal) black bands on the left and right side of the monitor. This is specific to 1680x1050 resolution, while lower ones display ok up to the fact that the virtual screen is usually bigger than the displayed part so scrolling is necessarry (and this is annoying, for I cannot see the panel and the top of the window simultaneously). The very same hardware and virtually same X configuration work perfectly ok on FC4, which suggests that this is not a hardware problem, nor an X problem. Further, as I see, FC4 has older version of virtually all software than CentOS. I have tried various acrobatics with xorg.conf, but nothing helped; read Xorg.0.log inside out and back, compared to FC4, and everything seems essentially identical. X seems to work as everything is ok, so is mplayer (even in fullscreen), but the black bands remain there and the whole desktop is scaled to 4:3. The monitor "autoadjust" button also doesn't help (although it works in general). I'm out of ideas where to look for the cause of this. If you wish, I can post xorg.conf and log files from both OSes, but they are mainly identical and I see nothing suspicious. Btw, this is on an nVidia GeForce 4 using the default nv driver. The vesa driver doesn't support widescreen resolutions, while nvidia binary driver crashes X completely on start (but this is a known motherboard problem common to FC4 as well). Is there some kernel setting or whatever that might "force" the graphics card to 4:3 aspect irrespective of X configuration? Some "filter" between what X tries to display and the actual signal to the monitor? What else can I try? Any advice appreciated! Best, :-) Marko
On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 3:08 PM, Marko Vojinovic <vvmarko at panet.rs> wrote:> > I have a dual boot CentOS 5.2 / FC4 machine, and recently I have bought a new > widescreen tft monitor. I used to use a plain 4:3 crt, and after plugging the > 16:9 tft naturally X needed reconfiguring. This was easy in FC4, and seemed > as easy in CentOS, but with a wrong result. >As some wise person suggested to me when I had this problem about three months ago, did you also set the screen resolution in System->Preferences? IIRC, that solved the problem on my machine. HTH mhr
On Sat, 2008-11-01 at 22:08 +0000, Marko Vojinovic wrote:> I have a dual boot CentOS 5.2 / FC4 machine, and recently I have bought a new > widescreen tft monitor. I used to use a plain 4:3 crt, and after plugging the > 16:9 tft naturally X needed reconfiguring. This was easy in FC4, and seemed > as easy in CentOS, but with a wrong result. > > Basically, what I did was to run system-config-display to reconfigure for the > new monitor and resolution. All goes well, but after X restarts, I see a > strange picture: the resolution indeed goes to 1680x1050 as is supposed to, > but is squeezed/shrinked/scaled horizontally to match a 4:3 aspect ratio, > leaving two (unequal) black bands on the left and right side of the monitor.This sounds like the "Modes" line in the "Subsection Display" may not have the right settings. The manual/CD for the monitor should have the right settings. I would compare those against what the configuration process generated and manually edit if needed. Why the difference between FC4 and CentOS, I can't guess. I don't have the URL, but some time ago I googled and found a very detailed description of the modes, their effects, "blanking" (the "black bands") and the relationship of all those. Go googling if you think if might help.> <snip>> Btw, this is on an nVidia GeForce 4 using the default nv driver. The vesa > driver doesn't support widescreen resolutions, while nvidia binary driver > crashes X completely on start (but this is a known motherboard problem common > to FC4 as well).Have you tried the nvidia drivers from rpmforge? It has drivers for both the older and newer nVidia cards, all ready for CentOS. I'm using the older driver now (standard CRT though, not a newer LCD/TFT wide-aspect screen) and it works flawlessly. I've also used the stuff from the nvidia site, but abandoned it as soon as I found the older driver on rpmforge. So I can't say if that's a better way to go. Several on the list have espoused that route and had good results.> > Is there some kernel setting or whatever that might "force" the graphics card > to 4:3 aspect irrespective of X configuration? Some "filter" between what X > tries to display and the actual signal to the monitor? What else can I try?All I can think of is that "Modes" line I mentioned above.> > Any advice appreciated! > > Best, :-) > Marko > <snip Sig stuff>HTH -- Bill
Hi, It is really strange, I would expect problems with FC4. Could you send your xorg.conf and describe your graphic hardware? BR Vaclav Marko Vojinovic wrote:> I have a dual boot CentOS 5.2 / FC4 machine, and recently I have bought a new > widescreen tft monitor. I used to use a plain 4:3 crt, and after plugging the > 16:9 tft naturally X needed reconfiguring. This was easy in FC4, and seemed > as easy in CentOS, but with a wrong result. > > Basically, what I did was to run system-config-display to reconfigure for the > new monitor and resolution. All goes well, but after X restarts, I see a > strange picture: the resolution indeed goes to 1680x1050 as is supposed to, > but is squeezed/shrinked/scaled horizontally to match a 4:3 aspect ratio, > leaving two (unequal) black bands on the left and right side of the monitor. > > This is specific to 1680x1050 resolution, while lower ones display ok up to > the fact that the virtual screen is usually bigger than the displayed part so > scrolling is necessarry (and this is annoying, for I cannot see the panel and > the top of the window simultaneously). > > The very same hardware and virtually same X configuration work perfectly ok on > FC4, which suggests that this is not a hardware problem, nor an X problem. > Further, as I see, FC4 has older version of virtually all software than > CentOS. > > I have tried various acrobatics with xorg.conf, but nothing helped; read > Xorg.0.log inside out and back, compared to FC4, and everything seems > essentially identical. X seems to work as everything is ok, so is mplayer > (even in fullscreen), but the black bands remain there and the whole desktop > is scaled to 4:3. The monitor "autoadjust" button also doesn't help (although > it works in general). > > I'm out of ideas where to look for the cause of this. If you wish, I can post > xorg.conf and log files from both OSes, but they are mainly identical and I > see nothing suspicious. > > Btw, this is on an nVidia GeForce 4 using the default nv driver. The vesa > driver doesn't support widescreen resolutions, while nvidia binary driver > crashes X completely on start (but this is a known motherboard problem common > to FC4 as well). > > Is there some kernel setting or whatever that might "force" the graphics card > to 4:3 aspect irrespective of X configuration? Some "filter" between what X > tries to display and the actual signal to the monitor? What else can I try? > > Any advice appreciated! > > Best, :-) > Marko > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > >
On Saturday 01 November 2008 22:08, Marko Vojinovic wrote:> Basically, what I did was to run system-config-display to reconfigure for > the new monitor and resolution. All goes well, but after X restarts, I see > a strange picture: the resolution indeed goes to 1680x1050 as is supposed > to, but is squeezed/shrinked/scaled horizontally to match a 4:3 aspect > ratio, leaving two (unequal) black bands on the left and right side of the > monitor.[snip]> The very same hardware and virtually same X configuration work perfectly ok > on FC4[snip] Ok, just for the record, I resolved the issue, in the following way: - took the exact modeline parameters for 1680x1050 (known to work) from FC4's Xorg.0.log and copy-pasted it into CentOS's xorg.conf - also took the DisplaySize, HorizSync and VertRefresh parameters from the Fedora's log and put it into xorg.conf - Disabled the DDC (undocumented option!!!) <----- CRUCIAL PART !!! - took the modeline parameters for various other resolutions since without DDC nothing gets autoconfigured - restarted X Now everything works perfectly, and my hacked xorg.conf is just the default one with the following "Monitor" section: Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor0" ModelName "LCD Panel 1680x1050" # hacked DisplaySize --- note that the values are *wrong*, # monitor is actually 470x300 mm DisplaySize 370 280 HorizSync 31.5 - 90.0 VertRefresh 60.0 - 60.0 Option "dpms" # turned off the DDC; didn't know which option would do # the job so put them both there Option "NoDDC" "true" Option "DDC" "false" # various modelines, taken from Fedora's log: Modeline "1680x1050" 147.14 1680 1784 1968 2256 1050 1051 1054 1087 -hsync +vsync Modeline "1400x1050" 122.00 1400 1488 1640 1880 1050 1052 1064 1082 +hsync +vsync Modeline "800x600" 40.00 800 840 968 1056 600 601 605 628 +hsync +vsync Modeline "640x480" 25.20 640 656 752 800 480 490 492 525 -hsync -vsync EndSection Hopefully someone with a similar problem maybe finds this useful. ;-) Best, :-) Marko