Bugzilla – Bug 429282
Cannot select supported resolution for the external monitor
Last modified: 2008-12-05 17:57:14 UTC
After reading this[1] I tested connecting an external monitor to my laptop. Setup: - Laptop with 1280x800 screen and Intel graphics - External screen runs 1280x1024 natively After connecting the screen I opened the Screen Resolution capplet. "Detect Displays" correctly showed a 19" screen and I was able to get some picture on it. However: - I was not able to set the native resolution of 1280x1024 on the external screen, the highest it would let me set was 1280x960 - I set the external resolution to 1024x768. I checked this on the screens OSD, it was in fact set to 1024x768 but it was not showing the whole screen. Even setting the internel resolution to the same did not fix things. - Is only clone mode supported? What about using both screens independantly? [1] http://www.gnome.org/~federico/news-2008-09.html#23
I googled around a bit and it seems my laptop should support external resolutions up to 2048x1536. I wonder why it only offers up to 1280x960...
I think I have some understanding of how this is supposed to work now. So, disregard the last remark I made in the initial post above (about the xinerama-like mode). What's still valid: 1.) I should be able to choose 1280x1024 for the external screen in the Screen Resolution capplet but the max it offers is 1280x960. 2.) In clone mode, if I set the external screen to a resolution which matches its form factor, I should see the whole screen, right? I tested 1280x800 (widescreen) on the internal screen and set the external one (non-widescreen) to 1024x768. This way I don't see the whole desktop on the external screen.
For (1), could you please attach your /etc/X11/xorg.conf? For (2), what exactly do you see? If the monitor reports that it is being sent a signal for 1024x768, what happens if you use its "auto-adjust" function? My Acer monitor sometimes displays incorrectly when using a new resolution, until I hit its "auto-adjust" function --- after that it shows up correctly.
Re 2: (clone mode) The whole screen is filled (no black borders etc) but it's missing a part on the right (in a maximized firefox, the search field is not visible) and it's also missing a part on the bottom. It really seems to just cut out the upper left 1024x768 pixels of the 1290x800 I use here and display them on the external screen. Maybe this is even the expected behaviour; anyway, what I really want is the external screen running 1280x1024, in which case the image should fit (but, as stated above, I cannot choose this resolution). The OSD says it's 1024x768, I do not see any "auto-adjust" > xrandr Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 1280 x 1280 VGA connected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 1280x800 60.0 + 58.9 1280x960 59.9 1024x768 60.0 800x600 60.3 56.2 640x480 60.0 1024x768_60 60.0 LVDS connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 331mm x 207mm 1280x800 60.0*+ 60.0 58.9 1152x768 54.8 1024x768 60.0 800x600 60.3 56.2 640x480 59.9 TV disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
Created attachment 242739 [details] xorg.conf
Try the new xf86-video-intel 2.4.2 driver: http://intellinuxgraphics.org/download.html It most likely will fix your issue since it contains an improved mode detection and helped me on exactly the same issue. Thus it appears it's rather an X driver issue than a GNOME issue.
Oh... nice. Is this driver in openSUSE 11.1beta yet? I don't want to compile on this system but I will install the beta on another partition soon. Hopefully that will help.
Is the 2.4.2 driver in openSUSE 11.1 beta3? I installed this version now, and I still can't choose the right resolution... If "yes", would it be best to file a bug upstream (freedesktop bugzilla)?
Could you please attach your /etc/X11/xorg.conf from openSUSE 11.1? We are diagnosing some bugs around not being able to detect all the resolutions supported by the external monitor.
See also bug #441404 as a wishlist for the future - make sax2 not set up a static configuration, so that auto-detection of monitor capabilities can work fine.
You mean the xorg.conf I have on my current 11.1rc1 installation? Note that I installed this without the external screen connected so xorg.conf only lists the internal one. If this is still useful for you I will attach it no problem
Also please try to supply the output of xrandr again.
As with all X related bugs, please also add /var/log/Xorg.0.log. Best if you started the Xserver with X -logverbose 7. I have to check why 1280x1024 isn't validated as a good mode.
Sorry for the delay, I had to get a new VGA cable. I'm going to attach new information in a few minutes.
Created attachment 257990 [details] xorg.conf from 11.1rc1
Created attachment 257991 [details] Xorg.0.log
Created attachment 257992 [details] Xorg.0.log after restarting X session
Created attachment 257993 [details] xrandr output
After connecting the VGA, mirror mode was selected. The VGA was displaying 1024x768, stretching the widescreen picture to fill the 4:3 screen. IMHO the VGA should display 1280x1024 with 124 (=1024-800) pixels just being black is this possible? [same for lower resulutions, e.g. in 1024x768 mode it should use only 640px for the actual output image and display the rest as black line(s)].
@Matthias Hopf please have a look if the attached log has the information you need, if not, how can I get this loglevel 7?
You configured the graphics card in clone mode, that's why it only reserved a framebuffer for 1280x800 - though due to rotation support it should actually support up to 1280x1280. Strange. Still, it's behaving as configured, thus closing as invalid. Please create a new configuration with 'sax2 -r'. There configure the second monitor to *not* use clone mode, and configure the correct monitor. If it still fails, please reopen and attach the new xorg.conf and Xorg.0.log.