F17 External Monitor on 945GM

[Philippe LeCavalier]

Hi Everyone.

First post...Just switched to this project after years of using another
distro. It's been a few months now and I'm on my third laptop; it's been a
rough year ;)

Whenever possible, I like to connect to an external monitor. This worked
very well in F16 on my Dell w/nvidia. Then the inverter went south and I
was stuck with a Lenovo T60 w/Intel 945GM(I quickly learned I could no
longer live without wide screen :) ). And that's where the fun started...

A yes. The infamous Intel 945 chipset...I waded through the whole sluggish
feel issues of the >2048 res issue. Then an update appeared to have
addressed all my issues(no idea which one because the one that was supposed
to fix it didn't). No matter what I'd do, connecting any external monitor
just worked; all was well.

Then more updates came and my setup broke again. That became
a vicious circle for a while. Noticed F17 was out so I switched to that.
Just like that everything stabilized(nice work on gnome-shell btw)...Then I
inherited a Toshiba Tecra A8 --no 64bit extensions like my Dell but excited
and couldn't resist switching nevertheless. Oddly enough, despite it being
the exact same video chipset as the Lenovo I can't get any external monitor
to work. Period. All the little tricks and tips I learned over the past few
months aren't helping any.

So here are the symptoms: if I connect an external monitor(VGA) it won't
light up at all. My LCD flickers and comes back to it's original state.
Fine. The display settings reflect that one was connected and typically ids
it properly. Again, fine. I then set an appropriate resolution and
placement for both and hit apply. At this point the screen flickers again
and my laptop comes back but the monitor does nothing(orange light). I can
however, bring my cursor passed the LCD to where the monitor "is" but it's
not lit so no joy there. If I let the time run out on the dialog everything
goes back to normal. No harm no foul. If I play with any of the kbd combo
keys to force the external monitor gnome-shell freaks out and I'm forced to
recover using the console. The only thing I can successfully accomplish is
Fn+F5 resulting in the external monitor only-type setup. Recovering from
that without restarting X is not possible. If I toggle back to my LCD the
screen flickers and spins. Same goes for disconnecting the VGA cable. At
this point I can't go back to the monitor either. I have no choice but to
open a console and restart Gnome-Shell. The odd time I can't even do that
and must power off(ouch! haven't had to do that in Linux for years)

Sorry about rambling on so much, just trying to give as many details as
possible. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks in
advance.

-- 

Thanks,
Phil

references:

video chipset:
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS,
943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME,
943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)

packages:
gnome-shell 3.4.1
kernel 3.4.0-1.fc17.i686
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