Output to tv - try to change display setttings - black out both screens

[aw76]

Hi,

I am running ubuntu 9.10 on a laptop (toshiba satellite a100). I just plugged in the cable to the side of my computer that hooks it up to a large flatscreen tv. This is the pin cable, not the s-cable hookup. Nothing was happening on my tv, so i restarted my computer. When it restarted I got the same screen as my laptop on the tv. But the resolution on my laptop screen went down, so everything is quite large. Good i thought, now all I have to do is change the settings in System-->Preferences-->Display. As soon as I click on that however, both screens went black, I couldnt move the mouse or do anything. Had to hard power off with the power button and restart.

Again, dual screens of same desktop, and when I tried to use display settings, this time I got in, and tried to change the resolution and make dual screens of different images. Once again, both screens turned black and locked up. Hard power off again. Repeat, same story.

Also for some reason when I restart and firefox trys to restore my windows, it isnt able to and apologises that it cant (actually it says "oops, this is embarassing.....), but then i select restore, and they restore. Maybe a coincidence that it is happening at the same time, but I cant see why firefox restore would be related to my displays being effed up?

The resolution on the TV itself is awesome, just the laptop is wonky, and locks up when i try to adjust through display settings.

Any ideas or help?

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Incompetent linux user, but just cant bare to use windows, and hate macs.

[darkrose0510]

The Firefox message is because you hard rebooted while Firefox was open... it's just Firefox letting you know it wasn't shutdown properly.

As to your graphics problems, what graphics card are you using? If you don't know, open a terminal and run:

lspci | grep vga

to find out.

[aw76]

The Firefox message is because you hard rebooted while Firefox was open... it's just Firefox letting you know it wasn't shutdown properly.

As to your graphics problems, what graphics card are you using? If you don't know, open a terminal and run:

lspci | grep vga

to find out.

that command didnt return any results....just gave me my prompt again?

did a bit of searching and...

~$ lspci | grep Display
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)

AND also,

~$ sudo lshw -C Display
*-display:0
description: VGA compatible controller
product: Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 2
bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
version: 03
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: msi pm bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
resources: irq:16 memory:f0a00000-f0a7ffff ioport:1800(size= memory:d0000000-dfffffff(prefetchable) memory:f0b00000-f0b3ffff
*-display:1 UNCLAIMED
description: Display controller
product: Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 2.1
bus info: pci@0000:00:02.1
version: 03
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list
configuration: latency=0
resources: memory:f0a80000-f0afffff

is that the info you were requesting?