[CentOS] Re: Screen blacked out

[David Mackintosh]

On Tue, Mar 06, 2007 at 12:03:30PM -0800, Scott Silva wrote:
> > I don't think it's the xconfigs, I think it's the driver for the monitor. There's nothing wrong with the monitor; the boot messages display on the screen until a certain point, and then the screen blacks out. 
> > 
> > How can I get the system to look at a different driver?
> > 
> > Paul
> AFAIR there shouldn't be any "driver" involved when you are in runlevel 3.
> The only way I know of to control that is with a vga=xxx line in the kernel
> boot line in grub. It should just be using plain vesa mode. Unless your video
> card is very old, it should support it.
> Could there be a bent or broken pin in the monitor cable? Can you swap cables?
> Have you tried booting with a live cd of some kind to see if it works there?

Of course by default CentOS uses that rediculous 'rhgb' which
exercises the X settings.  If X is broken, I'm sure that rhgb would
similarly display nothing.  This would fit the "it displays something
then goes black" description.  You might have to wait a long time
if something is trying to ask you for input (5-10 minutes depending
on what's broken) before getting a runlevel 3 prompt.

Try booting into single user mode:

(at the grub prompt, highlight the kernel you want, then hit 'e' to
edit; then edit the line with 'rhgb quiet' on it, remove 'rhgb', then
add 'single' to this line; then 'b' to boot -- this is not a permanent
edit)

... then once in, look in /var/log for an Xorg.0.log and see what it
is trying to tell you.  Odds are it doesn't understand what the
monitor is trying to tell it (X probes the monitor, and if it gets
something back frequently, if not always, ignores what's in the
config file if it contradicts what the monitor tells it).

<rant>
rhgb: making our lives miserable for no good reason since Fedora
Core.  (But it's pritty!) Getting rid of this is literally the first
thing I change on any RH/CentOS computer I get my hands on.  Edit
/etc/grub.conf and do a %s/rhgb//g on it.
</rant>

-- 
 /\oo/\
/ /()\ \ David Mackintosh | 
         dave at xdroop.com  | http://www.xdroop.com
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