Uduntu 8.04 Resolution Trouble

[jlmflys]

I have a Compaq CQ60 with a Nvidia graphic card and I am having trouble with the resolution. When I go to system/preferences/screen resolution the only option it gives me is 800X600 resolution. I need 1366x768. I have tried to enable the Nvidia driver in the system/administration/devise drivers, but when I do, and reboot the system all I get is a black screen. I then have to reboot in safe mode and repair the X server to get my system running again, or at least so I can see it. It goes back to the way it was before trying to enable the Nvidia driver. My system is a dual boot with windows and the resolution is just fine when I boot to Vista. I hope someone can help me with this situation. Thanks.

[D-cat]

Interesting.

What video card is it? Please post the output of:

lspci -nn | grep -i video

[jlmflys]

I tryed the above command and received no return. This is what I got if I removed the grep command.

00:00.0 RAM memory [0500]: nVidia Corporation Unknown device [10de:0754] (rev a2)
00:01.0 ISA bridge [0601]: nVidia Corporation Unknown device [10de:075e] (rev a2)
00:01.1 SMBus [0c05]: nVidia Corporation Unknown device [10de:0752] (rev a1)
00:01.3 Co-processor [0b40]: nVidia Corporation Unknown device [10de:0753] (rev a2)
00:01.4 RAM memory [0500]: nVidia Corporation Unknown device [10de:0568] (rev a1)
00:02.0 USB Controller [0c03]: nVidia Corporation Unknown device [10de:077b] (rev a1)
00:02.1 USB Controller [0c03]: nVidia Corporation Unknown device [10de:077c] (rev a1)
00:04.0 USB Controller [0c03]: nVidia Corporation Unknown device [10de:077d] (rev a1)
00:04.1 USB Controller [0c03]: nVidia Corporation Unknown device [10de:077e] (rev a1)
00:06.0 IDE interface [0101]: nVidia Corporation Unknown device [10de:0759] (rev a1)
00:07.0 Audio device [0403]: nVidia Corporation Unknown device [10de:0774] (rev a1)
00:08.0 PCI bridge [0604]: nVidia Corporation Unknown device [10de:075a] (rev a1)
00:09.0 IDE interface [0101]: nVidia Corporation Unknown device [10de:0ad0] (rev a2)
00:0a.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: nVidia Corporation Unknown device [10de:0760] (rev a2)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge [0604]: nVidia Corporation Unknown device [10de:0569] (rev a1)
00:14.0 PCI bridge [0604]: nVidia Corporation Unknown device [10de:077a] (rev a1)
00:18.0 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 11h HyperTransport Configuration [1022:1300] (rev 40)
00:18.1 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 11h Address Map [1022:1301]
00:18.2 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 11h DRAM Controller [1022:1302]
00:18.3 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 11h Miscellaneous Control [1022:1303]
00:18.4 Host bridge [0600]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 11h Link Control [1022:1304]
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: nVidia Corporation Unknown device [10de:0845] (rev a2)
07:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter [168c:001c] (rev 01)

I hope this helps.

[D-cat]

Okay, thank you. You have the GeForce 8200M G card. This is a fairly new card that requires a driver equal or later than version 180.22 in the nvidia-graphics-drivers-180 package.

All I see in the repo in front of me is 180.11 (Which surprises me because .22 was accepted for inclusion in Jaunty back in January)

... After much searching ...

I don't believe what I just saw. I went through the nVidia driver library and I can't find your card! The 8200M (0x0845) is not yet supported. This is unheard of IMO. This means at least for the time being you will have to make do with the "nv" driver, you can manually specify it in the xorg.conf file:

[Alt + F2]

gksu gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

(password)

Then edit the "Section Driver" to read:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "nv"
EndSection

Hopefully you'll actually have some screen options and 2D accelleration after that, but no 3D, sorry.

[jlmflys]

I did as recommended above and enabled the the driver in hardware drivers, then I rebooted. I got the same results, a black screen so I had to reboot in recovery mode. After the recovery I rechecked the file you had me modify and the modification was removed. All I would like to do is increase my resolution so everything fits on the screen. I have cheated a little by changing the font sizes but this isn't the best fix for the problem.

Thanks again for your help. I am enjoying learning linux and it is great to get help from people like you in the linux community.

[D-cat]

When you check the box in hardware drivers, it installs the "nvidia" driver, overriding anything else you just did. Obviously, the "nvidia" isn't going to recognize your card as of yet and will result in the black screen.

You can use "nv" (which is a different driver from "nvidia" and uses only the known universal functions of nearly all nvidia cards), but do not put a check in that box in the hardware drivers after.

[jlmflys]

I was wondering if I should not have done that. OK, I made sure the driver was unchecked and then I redid the command line and added the script. I then checked the X11 directory to see what was there. Here is a copy of my X11 directory:

~$ cd /etc/X11
jim@jim-laptop:/etc/X11$ ls
app-defaults Xorg.conf xorg.conf.failsafe
cursors xorg.conf.20090616190635 xorg.conf.failsafe.bak
default-display-manager xorg.conf.20090627222911 xorg.config
fonts xorg.conf.20090627225554 xorg.config~
rgb.txt xorg.conf.20090704173055 Xresources
X xorg.conf.20090704173106 xserver
xinit xorg.conf.20090721170610 Xsession
xkb xorg.conf.20090729111612 Xsession.d
xorg.conf xorg.conf.20090729193250 Xsession.options
xorg.conf~ xorg.conf.backup Xwrapper.config
jim@jim-laptop:/etc/X11$

As you can see there are duplicate xorg.conf files, should it be so?
I still can't improve the resolution. There is only the one option of 800x600.

[D-cat]

Ubuntu for some reason doesn't like widescreen displays, especially that exceed EDID specs. It can be done, and I found a post on how to do it, so I'll direct you there. I hope it works out for you (I don't know how well or if it works with the "nv" driver, but I'm sure you'll let us know... )

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