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Unusual behaviour after changing video board

PostPosted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:32 pm
by moshe
This seems to be my week for problems. I removed an ATI 9250 video board and installed an Nvidia GeForce FX. The envy install went well and the graphics are all I could expect. The problem is during bootup. The password screen appears to be huge.The ,normally centered, username/password box is almost out of sight in the lower right corner of the screen.The background is also huge. I see the corner of the screen but after entering my password, everything is in it's proper place. I have the resolution set to 1280x1024 24bit on a 22" NEC P1150.
While I am reasonably certain there is a simple explanation and fix for this, it seems to elude me at present. Compiz and the emerald theme manager behave as they should so this is a minor annoyance at worst but still..... any advice or possible solutions would be greatly appreciated. Thx, Moshe

Re: Unusual behaviour after changing video board

PostPosted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:21 pm
by DaddyX3
I can't tell you for sure that this will work or not, but I have just found an article about this. Other people have had luck by tuning their xorg.conf file. So...
sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Then look in the screen section for 'virtual size' and adjust the resolution to something more manageable like 800X600 or 1024X768. Then save your file and reboot or maybe just restarting X would do the trick (CNTRL+ALT+Backspace)
Does this help?

Re: Unusual behaviour after changing video board

PostPosted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 1:30 am
by moshe
DaddyX3, as usual, you hit the nail on the head. I knew it would be something easy but was unsure where I was messed up. xorg had 1920 1024 for resolution.changed to 1024x768 and the boot screen was back to normal but the screen res for the system is also set to 1024x768.back to xorg to set to 1280x1024 or is there an easier way? I usually run 1280x1024. In any event, you sir, have saved the day again. thx for the assist. Moshe

Re: Unusual behaviour after changing video board

PostPosted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 8:28 am
by cowboy
Glad Daddy got you going..also glad it was not a grub issue..lol ;)

Re: Unusual behaviour after changing video board

PostPosted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 10:20 am
by DaddyX3
moshe wrote:DaddyX3, as usual, you hit the nail on the head. I knew it would be something easy but was unsure where I was messed up. xorg had 1920 1024 for resolution.changed to 1024x768 and the boot screen was back to normal but the screen res for the system is also set to 1024x768.back to xorg to set to 1280x1024 or is there an easier way? I usually run 1280x1024. In any event, you sir, have saved the day again. thx for the assist. Moshe


Your welcome. I'm sorry and can't be of any more assistance with you xorg.conf settings. One thing you said kind of through me off though. You said you changed it from 1920X1024 to 1024X768 This is not what I was expecting. I figured it would be something like what I had in my xorg.conf that was something like:
virtual= 600 480
That would end up being very large on your screen, but 1920X1024 would end up coming out very small looking. Are you sure you edited the right spot? Was it even there to begin with? I just thinking that maybe it wasn't in there and should be added. The computer at home has what I posted above listed in xorg.conf but the one here at work has no such thing and they are both running the same setup. This leads me to believe that maybe you didn't find the right spot to edit? Just a thought.

Re: Unusual behaviour after changing video board

PostPosted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 1:51 pm
by moshe
DaddyX3, I checked again to be sure I was in the right spot and it seems I was. the resolution issue cleared up when I made the changes you suggested in the virtual memory size. It was ,indeed, 1920x1024. The change to 1024x786 worked but I did not like the screen size after reboot so I went back in and modified to 1280x1024 and now everything looks good at boot and afterwards. I'm just puzzled as to why xorg was modified that way in the first place. I know envy works in the xorg file during modification of the video drivers but I never saw that one coming. In any event, everything is back to abnormal (my usual state of affairs). The problem is that if nothings broken, I have nothing to do so I guess it's off to the compiz settings to see if I can get some of the really great looking effects I see from some of your systems. I'm sure I will break something else during this process but I can muddle through most of it and , if not, I can always scream for help again. I just wish there were better tutorials for compiz settings. I see screen shots from others here and have to ask myself, "how did they do that?" At least, I'm not alone asking that type of question. I now have the Gamers upgrade and ultamatix and the Ultimate Edition upgrade. I'm rapidly running out of things to add but , as I am retired, I have lots of time to break things. Thanks to all of you who assist us newbies and to the great team here at Ultimate. Theemann has done an awesome job here any everyone who stops by here to visit goes nuts over Ultimate Edition. I have converted several of my friends from windoz with just one session on Ultimate Edition. Thanks again, Moshe :mrgreen:

Re: Unusual behaviour after changing video board

PostPosted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 7:27 pm
by DaddyX3
Well, I can't tell you why envy did what it did, but sometimes things just come out weird. As a matter of fact, things used to rely on the xorg.conf file a lot more than they currently do. I say this, cause all previous releases of Ubuntu and Ultimate Edition were very dependent on editing your xorg.conf files by hand to get your system up and running correctly. I swear that damn near every other post in here was about tuning your xorg.conf file for some reason or another! But, now with Hardy, its a different animal and doesn't use xorg.conf for everything like it used to. Or if it does, its not requiring you to run the ol' sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg' command every-other day :lol: :lol: