xorg external monitor display problem

Kind of a specialized question here, I can't find anything on the web
which matches my problem.
 
I have this new Dell D600 laptop which I have installed FC2 on.  It
has a SXVGA+ (ie, 1400x1050) display.  X will display at this
resolution (at 24-bit depth) on the LCD display, no problem.
However, when I plug the laptop into a docking station which has an
Acer 77e 17" monitor attached to it, the Acer displays the 1400x1050
desktop, as viewed through a panning 640x480 window.

Experimentation has shown that the presence or absence of the dock
(ie just plugging the Acer straight into the back of the Dell) makes
no difference.
 
I know it is possible to have this monitor display 1400x1050x24 --
Windows does it.  I've also driven this monitor at 1600x1280x24 when
attached to a different linux system.  I also know that it is
possible to have this Linux display properly at this resolution on an
external monitor -- I have a Sony G400 at the office which does it.

I have gone through the FC2 System Settings -> Display applet
and have explicitly defined my monitor as an AcerView 77e.  I have confirmed
in my /etc/X11/xorg.conf that there is an appropriate monitor defined:

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier   "Monitor0"
        VendorName   "Monitor Vendor"
        ModelName    "Acer 77e"
        HorizSync    30.0 - 72.0
        VertRefresh  50.0 - 120.0
EndSection

The presence and/or absence of this section doesn't appear to change anything.

When I boot the laptop at the office, it is connected to the Sony G400 and it does
the appropriate thing.  At home, it still does not behave with the Acer.

In the Xorg.0.log, I've noticed that when connected to the Sony, the log reports:

(II) RADEON(0): Displays Detected: Monitor1--Type 2, Monitor2--Type 1

(II) RADEON(0): Monitor2 EDID data ---------------------------
(II) RADEON(0): Manufacturer: SNY  Model: 290  Serial#: 8011257
(II) RADEON(0): Year: 2000  Week: 25
(II) RADEON(0): EDID Version: 1.2
[...lots of monitor stuff trimmed...]
(II) RADEON(0): End of Monitor2 EDID data --------------------
(II) RADEON(0):
(II) RADEON(0): Primary Display == Type 2
(II) RADEON(0): Clone Display == Type 1

...which tells me that it is detecting the Sony all by itself and
making appropriate assumptions.  Where as when it is connected ot the
Acer, I see:

(II) RADEON(0): Displays Detected: Monitor1--Type 2, Monitor2--Type 1

(II) RADEON(0):
(II) RADEON(0): Primary Display == Type 2
(II) RADEON(0): Clone Display == Type 1

...which tells me that either the Acer isn't detected at all, or it
is detected improperly.  However, I still don't know what to do about
it.  I'm starting to suspect that the config file is merely there for
my amusement and xorg is trying to auto-detect things at startup
rather than read the config file.

What I can't find is an explanation as to why I'm getting this 640x480
on an external monitor which is clearly capable of displaying much more, nor
an explanation of how to fix it.  All pages on the web I've found suggest
that it means that my monitor can't run the video mode I selected (known
to be false) or that my video card can't run the video mode I selected
(also known to be false).  It has to be a configuration problem.

Incidentally, a co-worker has the same problem, only he's started with
FC2 and done an "upgrade" install to FC3.

Any ideas what I should begin looking for?

People interested in the complete contents of my xorg.conf file, and/or
the log files showing what happens when the Acer, Sony, or nothing is
plugged into the computer can find them attached to the snip at

http://xdroop.dhs.org/space/Linux/Dell+D600+External+Monitor

Thanks for any comments or guidance.

-- 
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[Douglas Furlong]

David Mackintosh wrote:

> Kind of a specialized question here, I can't find anything on the
> web
> which matches my problem.
>  
> I have this new Dell D600 laptop which I have installed FC2 on.  It
> has a SXVGA+ (ie, 1400x1050) display.  X will display at this
> resolution (at 24-bit depth) on the LCD display, no problem.
> However, when I plug the laptop into a docking station which has an
> Acer 77e 17" monitor attached to it, the Acer displays the 1400x1050
> desktop, as viewed through a panning 640x480 window.
>   
>  
It may be related to this bug.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=131489

My monitor is not DDC compliant, it will work at 1600*1200 with this 
laptop (is capable of much more but lappy isn't).

However I can not get it to run beyond 1024*768, inital tries had me 
stuck at 800*600.

I have run my laptop with a DDC capable monitor and get sizes I expect.

I have got linux running with this monitor fine, I beleive the problem 
is related to xorg trying to dynamicly configure itself.

Doug


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On Wed, Dec 08, 2004 at 09:01:39PM +0000, Douglas Furlong wrote:
>  >I have this new Dell D600 laptop which I have installed FC2 on. 
> It
>  >has a SXVGA+ (ie, 1400x1050) display.  X will display at this
>  >resolution (at 24-bit depth) on the LCD display, no problem.
>  >However, when I plug the laptop into a docking station which has an
>  >Acer 77e 17" monitor attached to it, the Acer displays the 1400x1050
>  >desktop, as viewed through a panning 640x480 window.
>  
>  It may be related to this bug.
>  
>  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=131489
>  
>  My monitor is not DDC compliant, it will work at 1600*1200 with this 
>  laptop (is capable of much more but lappy isn't).
>  
>  However I can not get it to run beyond 1024*768, inital tries had me 
>  stuck at 800*600.
>  
>  I have run my laptop with a DDC capable monitor and get sizes I expect.
>  
>  I have got linux running with this monitor fine, I beleive the problem 
>  is related to xorg trying to dynamicly configure itself. 
Yesterday I opened bugs with RedHat and Xorg, and I got this answer from 
the Xorg bugzilla:

>  ------- Additional Comments From agd5f(a)yahoo.com  2004-12-08 14:25
> -------
>  the radeon driver defaults to driving each display with a separate crtc (called
>  clone mdoe).  if it can't find the DDC data for the attached monitor it defaults
>  to 640x480@60Hz to avoid potentially damaging you monitor.  You can either
>  disable clone mode (in which case crtc1 will drive both outputs) or add the use
>  the clonehsync and clonevrefresh options (to tell the driver the monitor's
>  limits when it can't get DDC data).  see that radeon man page for more about the
>  options. 
So I guess that this isn't an xorg bug, but rather that the
configuration applet in Fedora either doesn't know about this
situation, or can't detect that this is the situation and can't be
forced manually to deal with it.  

I'll update my bug with RedHat.

-- 
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On Thu, Dec 09, 2004 at 09:21:51AM -0500, David Mackintosh wrote:
 
>  So I guess that this isn't an xorg bug, but rather that the
>  configuration applet in Fedora either doesn't know about this
>  situation, or can't detect that this is the situation and can't be
>  forced manually to deal with it.   
So in the FC3 case, the answer is to add lines:

   Option      "CRT2HSync" "30.0 - 82.0"
   Option      "CRT2VRefresh" "50.0 - 90.0"

..to the "Device" section describing my radeon device.  These values
were divined by manually adding the monitor through the Display control
panel, and then transfering those values into the Option fields.

As the response from xorg says, consult your "radeon" man page for
the equivilent commands in FC2.

In my case it doesn't entirely solve my problem, as the resulting
screen has both the left and right sides "wrapped", and no amount of
screen resizing will fix that (shrinking the screen shrinks
everything, including both wrapped edges).  I'll have to play with a
modeline probably to get this to work right.  Either that or just buy
a modern monitor.  

-- 
 /\oo/\
/ /()\ \ David Mackintosh | Public Key: 
         dave(a)xdroop.com  | http://www.xdroop.com/dave/gpg.html
         $ gpg --recv-keys --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net 4C032504
         Mystery attachment?  http://xdroop.dhs.org/space/GPG

[Douglas Furlong]

On Fri, 2004-12-10 at 12:34 -0500, David Mackintosh wrote:
>  On Thu, Dec 09, 2004 at 09:21:51AM -0500, David Mackintosh wrote:
>   
>  > So I guess that this isn't an xorg bug, but rather that the
>  > configuration applet in Fedora either doesn't know about this
>  > situation, or can't detect that this is the situation and can't be
>  > forced manually to deal with it.  
>  
>  So in the FC3 case, the answer is to add lines:
>  
>     Option      "CRT2HSync" "30.0 - 82.0"
>     Option      "CRT2VRefresh" "50.0 - 90.0"
>   
Unfortunately this does not appear to work for me at all.

Below is a snippet of my xorg.conf file

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier   "Monitor0"
        VendorName   "Monitor Vendor"
        ModelName    "Sony GDM-F500/F500T9"
        HorizSync    30.0 - 121.0
        VertRefresh  48.0 - 160.0
        Option      "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Videocard0"
        Driver      "radeon"
        Option      "CRT2HSync" "30.0 - 121.0"
        Option      "CRT2VRefresh" "48.0-160.0"
        Option      "AGPMode" "4"
        VendorName  "Videocard vendor"
        BoardName   "ATI Radeon Mobility 9600 M10"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "Screen0"
        Device     "Videocard0"
        Monitor    "Monitor0"
        DefaultDepth     24
        SubSection "Display"
                Viewport   0 0
                Depth     24
                Modes    "1600x1200" "1400x1050"
"1280x1024"
        EndSubSection
EndSection

I know that some of the Options are being picked up, as the AGPMode
changes according to the Xorg.0.log file changes.

However I am still stuck with 1024*768.

I don't suppose you could paste the above sections from your xorg.conf
file, as well as the bugzilla numbers in both redhat and xorg's
bugzilla-ery thing.

Thanks in advance


-- 
Douglas Furlong <fedora-lists(a)dark-hill.co.uk&gt;

[Ow Mun Heng]

On Sat, 2004-12-11 at 01:34, David Mackintosh wrote:
>  On Thu, Dec 09, 2004 at 09:21:51AM -0500, David Mackintosh wrote:
>    
>  As the response from xorg says, consult your "radeon" man
> page for
>  the equivilent commands in FC2.
>  
>  In my case it doesn't entirely solve my problem, as the resulting
>  screen has both the left and right sides "wrapped", and no amount of
>  screen resizing will fix that (shrinking the screen shrinks
>  everything, including both wrapped edges).  I'll have to play with a
>  modeline probably to get this to work right.  Either that or just buy
>  a modern monitor.   
I've got a D600 too at that resolution as well and I see the same
problem you are noticing on a CRT/Projector. I've plugged it into a
external LCD and it works well enough.

--
Ow Mun Heng
Gentoo/Linux on DELL D600 1.4Ghz 
98% Microsoft(tm) Free!! 
Neuromancer 09:50:11 up 7:59, 3 users, 
load average: 0.39, 1.23, 1.21