This morning I noticed that my (new in July) monitor was behaving strangely. At first, it was odd parts of web page graphics that didn't show up unless I scrolled up and down in the window, and then they weren't displayed with any consistency.
Then I noticed that the screensaver failed to appear (computer was locked, but graphics never showed on the monitor). I tried running mplayer to play a movie I have on the system, and the window remained black (sound was fine).
When I move a window, parts of it (pixels scattered across the window) don't refresh during the move OR even when it is done, unless I run the mouse over them or, in the case of the menu bar, click on one of the options. The nautilus window that sometimes comes up after a reboot was not fully painted with the text parts of the entries below the mouse cursor on the screen until I ran the mouse over them, and then only the ones I "touched" refreshed properly.
During the system shutdown and restart, the text is scrambled beyond recognition, although the graphics during the boot, driver init and login screen are fine. Most of the screen after I log in shows up, unless the default terminal and nautilus windows show up, and then they're not all there (as above).
DVI-VGA: same problem either way 2.6.18-92.1.10 - 92.1.13: likewise (makes no difference)
The video card is an nvidia ge7100gs and I have the beta driver from rpmforge (under dkms). The base system is an ECS nFORCE4M-A with an AMD Athlon 64x2 and 4GB of OCZ main memory. The newest parts are the main memory (upgraded from 2GB about two months ago) and the monitor (new in July). The m/b, COU and graphics card are all about 18 months old. I recently upgraded to the new 92.1.13 kernel.
Question: Is this the monitor (most likely), the video card, the OS or the base system, or something else I have not considered? Is there a good video test program I can use to diagnose this properly?
I have a two-year replacement warranty on the monitor, so I will use it if I need to, and I think it's still under the manufacturer's warranty anyway.
Thanks.
mhr
The video card is an nvidia ge7100gs and I have the beta driver from rpmforge (under dkms).
JohnStanley Writes:
Get rid of the BETA Driver. Period! The beta driver is what is called a hot driver (excerts to much stress on the vidieo card). DKMS is Nice but down grade the driver. Im not much of a DKMS fan so I build my own nvidia drivers as modules. Hopefully the card is still good.
JohnStanley
MHR wrote:
The video card is an nvidia ge7100gs and I have the beta driver from rpmforge (under dkms).
Are you sure that you are using that driver and *not* the "nv" driver which comes with XOrg? With that one I've seen similar issues.
Ralph
JohnStanley Writes:
That is a good question for him, maybe better to post his xorg config file. The standard driver will at times want to kind of like lag behind. Guess im gonna do a DKMS only machine to see how it works out with video drivers.
John
On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 12:01 PM, John jses27@gmail.com wrote:
Well, when the nVIDIA screen pops up (before login and between logins), it says "BETA DRIVER" right below the nVIDIA logo.
If I do downgrade (which I may well do), where do I get the right driver? I pulled these from rpmforge after my old driver didn't seem to like the new monitor.
I'm all for not stressing the monitor - it's stressing me!
mhr
""If I do downgrade (which I may well do), where do I get the right driver? I pulled these from rpmforge after my old driver didn't seem to like the new monitor.""
DKMS: http://linux.dell.com/dkms/manpage.html You should use "dkms remove <module_name>" first. Reconfigure the standard graphics. What is advisable to you is that you use the newest non beta dkms driver for your card. You may have to hand fetch it. The reason I say this because I do not your Unix/Linux skill level. It will be a lot easier on you doing this because you will not have to hand build the driver module every kernel upgrade. Or copy over to the new kernel modules dir.
http://wiki.centos.org/HardwareList/Nvidia_Graphics This is a tutorial by me and Akemi Yagi.This method will work confirmed on all centos/rhel versions 4.6 - 5.2. Be warned it is not finished but it will give you a general idea of how to go about doing it. http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
JohnStanley
On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 11:35 AM, MHR mhullrich@gmail.com wrote:
<snip> Mark: Hook up another monitor and see if it has the same behavior. If so, get an RMA for the video card. If not, change the video card and see what happens. Since this was working properly and you do not seem to have changed any software, my impression is that you have a HW problem. The monitor or the video card or possibly even a cable. There are great diagnostics for video that run on MS Windows (Yuk), called "DisplayMate", put out by Displaymate Technologies Corp. Hopefully, you can Download a Trial version and you will know whether or not your monitor and video are working and set up correctly. I don't know if there is something like that that will run on Linux. The manufacturer of the monitor and video card might have Diagnostics on their web sites that you can Download an run. HTH, Lanny
On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 3:23 PM, Lanny Marcus lmmailinglists@gmail.com wrote:
Follow on to my first reply. DisplayMate is not only Diagnostics. It helps you set up your monitor and video card correctly. This is professional quality stuff, but if your box isn't dual boot with Windows, it won't run. Maybe they have a version that will run on Linux now. I bought it, years ago. If you can run it, they are *the* experts.
SOLVED:
Thanks to all who piled in with their good advice. I hooked up my old (50lb) CRT and it showed the same display problems, so I figured it was the video card. Got lucky, found a replacement (the 7200GS) cheap at our local Micro Center and all is now well again.
BTW, the "beta" driver I'm using is the one from rpmforge, and it is now obsolete compared to the latest and greatest from nvidia (173.08-1 beta vs. 173.14.12), so I may put in a request over there to update....
Salut!
mhr
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John -
Lanny Marcus -
MHR -
Ralph Angenendt