Dell latitude d505: screen stuck at 640x400x16

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papaschtroumpf
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Dell latitude d505: screen stuck at 640x400x16

#1 Post by papaschtroumpf »

The only resolution that I'm offered on a DEll m505 is 640x400 (or might be 480 I don't remember) when the screen is 1024x768.
I had a similar problem with the Ubuntu liveCD but knoppix or Mepis properly boot at 1024x768.

The d505 uses an Integrated Intel 855GM chipset using main memory

any idea?
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#2 Post by danleff »

The problem with these laptops are the intel graphics and that the video shares RAM memory, in some cases a fair amount. The bios is usually preset for the ram shared and is not able to be changed.

In the video wizard, what happens when you try to select 1024x768 at 16 bits, not 24?
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papaschtroumpf
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#3 Post by papaschtroumpf »

I don;t get anything about the 640x480 in the video wizad
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#4 Post by pakt »

papaschtroumpf, I think we share the same problem. Your Dell latitude d505 and my Dell Inspiron 510m use the same graphics chipset. Please see the message http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.php?p=2381#2381 which is my analysis of the problem.

Puppy runs 'Xvesa -listmodes' in a script to determine which video modes are available. Unfortunately, Xvesa gets it wrong when it interrogates our BIOS and only finds 832 kilobytes of video memory to run graphics in, hence the maximum 640x480x16 resolution.

Compare that to the 8000 kilobytes that it finds on the IBM ThinkPad R51 with the exact same chipset (but apparently a better BIOS) which runs Puppy easily at 1024x768x16 or even 1024x768x24 (see the printout from 'Xvesa -listmodes' in my other message for the detected video modes).

I've seen a reference to an alternate driver called Xi810 which might work for our machines. I've asked in this forum for help in finding this driver, but not had any responses so far. :(

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#5 Post by pakt »

danleff wrote:The problem with these laptops are the intel graphics and that the video shares RAM memory, in some cases a fair amount. The bios is usually preset for the ram shared and is not able to be changed.
Actually this is not entirely correct. As you say, the shared video RAM in laptops with i810 graphics is preset (less than 1MB). But this is true only when the PC first starts up. During booting, hardware detection in most distros running XFree86 then questions the BIOS about the amount of video RAM.

This results in the BIOS reporting a much larger amount video RAM (8MB in the case of an IBM ThinkPad R51 with Intel i810 graphics).

From what I can understand, it is a similar dialog between Puppy's Xvesa and certain BIOSes (like the Dell) about the size of video RAM that is faulty.

As I mentioned earlier, an alternative to Xvesa called Xi810 may be worth testing, but I don't know where to find it. Perhaps it would work better with some BIOSes like the Dell. :wink:

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#6 Post by danleff »

Right! The question is..in XFree86, with a 2.4 kernel path, the video frame buffer can be changed in the XFree86.conf for this video chipset.

I don't know if that can be done in Puppy's X.
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#7 Post by papaschtroumpf »

is there a way to force a mode that is not offered?
pupGet doesn't work right at the low resolution, the window is larget than the screen and I can't read the name of the packages
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#8 Post by papaschtroumpf »

papaschtroumpf wrote:is there a way to force a mode that is not offered?
pupGet doesn't work right at the low resolution, the window is larget than the screen and I can't read the name of the packages
I can run at 1024x768 if I use the Xvesa wizard to use mode 0x0105
Looks like crap with "pseudo-colors" but at least I see the entire window in pupget :D
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#9 Post by pakt »

papaschtroumpf wrote:is there a way to force a mode that is not offered?
The modes offered are the ones that will "fit" in the amount of video RAM Xvesa detects (XFree86 does a much better job at detecting "the correct" video RAM).

I have been testing something called "855patch" on Puppy. I found this on the internet and will increase the video RAM found on PCs with i855.

URL:http://www.chzsoft.com.ar/855patch.html

It needs to be run before X is started so Xvesa will use this new video RAM.

It is called with

# 855patch <amount of RAM to use>

for example, I tried

# 855patch 8192

this increased video RAM on my Dell 510m from 832KB to 8192KB.

I started up X again with xwin, then, running Puppy Video Wizard, many more modes became available (up to 1024x768x24). Looked promising!

However, when I choose one of the higher resolutions and click OK, X starts but I only get coloured horizontal stripes on the screen :(

I tried this a number of times with different modes (I had to delete pup001 from my HD each time as the mode is saved there), but the only mode that worked was good 'ol 640x480x16...

I don't know why it doesn't work. Perhaps something to do with framebuffer?

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Dell latitude d505: screen stuck at 640x400x16

#10 Post by Wazza »

I had the same problem with an Intel 810 board with integrated video chip. Xvesa gets the message that it only has 512 K memory and won't offer anything more than 800x600 at 8 colours. Pretty unusable. After searching high and low here and elsewhere for workarounds, I decided easiest option was to go get a $4 second hand PCI video card, an S3 Virge, and bingo no problemo!
Otherwise you need to put XFree86 window server in Puppy, instead of the stripped down Xvesa server.
Old computers are so cheap, and we can recycle them with Puppy!
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#11 Post by papaschtroumpf »

I tried the framebuffer version on 1.0.3 and it won't start X at all (I chose option 7 on boot)

EDIT:
just for grins I downloaded featherlinux and it has the same problem, if I choose Xfbdev instead of XVesa
If I choose XVesa at 1024x768, it runs it in what looks like 16 color (not 16 bit) mode, so it's no better than puppy in that regard.
My older version of knoppix works fine with it, maybe I'll try the latest version.
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#12 Post by Flash »

pakt wrote:papaschtroumpf, I think we share the same problem. Your Dell latitude d505 and my Dell Inspiron 510m use the same graphics chipset .<> I've seen a reference to an alternate driver called Xi810 which might work for our machines. I've asked in this forum for help in finding this driver, but not had any responses so far. :(
I googled "Xi810 driver" and came up with some interesting results.

This page is fairly entertaining and seems to be chock full of useful information re the 810 chipset. Especially check question 11.9: "Can I use VESA framebuffer on the i810?" (The answer is no.)

For what it's worth, here's the definitive XFree86 page.

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#13 Post by papaschtroumpf »

good find!
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#14 Post by Flash »

Thanks. I hope it makes up for my moving your post to "Suggestions." :wink:

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#15 Post by papaschtroumpf »

Flash wrote:Thanks. I hope it makes up for my moving your post to "Suggestions." :wink:
:lol:
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#16 Post by pakt »

Flash wrote:This page is fairly entertaining and seems to be chock full of useful information re the 810 chipset.
Thanks for the good links, Flash.

I followed one and found this XFCom_i810 server which might work for puppy. A quote from the page:
Before you download any of the following files, check whether your distribution has out of the box support for the i810 here. This setup is mean only for those distros which does not have support. It would be worth your while to use a "modern" distribution which supports the i810 than use the XFCom_i810 server. In other words, use this method only as a last resort!
Perhaps the XFCom_i810 server info should have been posted under "suggestions" :?:

Update
Took a closer look at the requirements for this server. It needs XFree86 3.3.6. :(

Might as well use the current XFree86 with built-in i810 support.

Update

Puppy now working with i810 graphics

Read this thread for details on how to get it working: http://www.murga.org/%7Epuppy/viewtopic.php?p=4771#4771

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