Blurry display on laptop (Dell c640)

English Hardware
1

Hi All,
I checked out the FAQ and Searched, but no luck finding any advice.

I recently installed OpenSUSE 11.1 (Gnome) on my Dell c640 laptop. I love the distribution, I had been using Kubuntu before. I like SUSE more in almost every respect (especially WPA2 configuration).

One problem that I do have though, is that the fonts on my display are blurry. It’s not a huge blur, but just enough to give me a headache. In addition, there is a tiny (one pixel tall, 50 pixels long) flashing bar at the lower left of my screen, it almost looks like an artifact of a misconfigured display.

I tried setting the display to the manufacturers recommended resolution @ 1024 x 768, (at 60, 70, & 75 Hz), but no luck. When trying different refresh rates and using the TEST button, the artifact bar grows in length (but only during the TEST phase.

The fonts were clear under several versions of Ubuntu & Kubuntu, and Windows XP.

The manual isn’t clear, but I’m pretty sure the graphics card is an ATI Mobility Radeon 7500.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Andrew

2

I should add that the graphics and fonts are only blurry once X starts, they are not blurry if I hit ALT-F2 during boot and the diagnostics scroll by.

Here is some data from /etc/X11/x11org.conf:

Monitor
Displaysize 305 230
HorizSync 31-61
Identifier “Monitor[0]”
Modelname “1024x768@75HZ”
Option “PreferredMode” “1024x768”
Vendorname “- - > LCD”
VertRefresh 50-76
UseModes “Modes[0]”

Screen
Default Depth 24

Subsection “Display”
Depth 15
Modes … (a bunch of resolutions, 1024x768 is the max)
Subsection “Display”
Depth 16
Modes … (a bunch of resolutions, 1024x768 is the max)
Subsection “Display”
Depth 24
Modes … (a bunch of resolutions, 1024x768 is the max)
Subsection “Display”
Depth 8
Modes … (a bunch of resolutions, 1024x768 is the max)

Section “Device”
BoardName “Radeon LW”
Driver “Radeon”
Identifier "Device[0]
Option “XAANoOffscreenpixmaps” “true”
Option “monitor-lvds” “monitor[0]”
SCreen 0
Vendor “ATI”

3

Here is the output from “glxinfo”

drew@linux-zu25:~> glxinfo
name of display: :0.0
display: :0 screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.2
server glx extensions:
GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_import_context, GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap,
GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer,
GLX_OML_swap_method, GLX_SGI_swap_control, GLX_SGIS_multisample,
GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_visual_select_group
client glx vendor string: SGI
client glx version string: 1.4
client glx extensions:
GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_import_context,
GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_MESA_allocate_memory,
GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer, GLX_MESA_swap_control,
GLX_MESA_swap_frame_usage, GLX_OML_swap_method, GLX_OML_sync_control,
GLX_SGI_make_current_read, GLX_SGI_swap_control, GLX_SGI_video_sync,
GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_pbuffer,
GLX_SGIX_visual_select_group, GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap
GLX extensions:
GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_import_context,
GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_MESA_swap_control,
GLX_MESA_swap_frame_usage, GLX_OML_swap_method, GLX_SGI_swap_control,
GLX_SGI_video_sync, GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig,
GLX_SGIX_visual_select_group
OpenGL vendor string: Tungsten Graphics, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Radeon 20061018 AGP 4x x86/MMX/SSE2 TCL
OpenGL version string: 1.3 Mesa 7.2
OpenGL extensions:
GL_ARB_imaging, GL_ARB_multisample, GL_ARB_multitexture,
GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp, GL_ARB_texture_compression,
GL_ARB_texture_cube_map, GL_ARB_texture_env_add,
GL_ARB_texture_env_combine, GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar,
GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3, GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat,
GL_ARB_texture_rectangle, GL_ARB_transpose_matrix,
GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object, GL_ARB_window_pos, GL_EXT_abgr, GL_EXT_bgra,
GL_EXT_blend_color, GL_EXT_blend_logic_op, GL_EXT_blend_minmax,
GL_EXT_blend_subtract, GL_EXT_clip_volume_hint,
GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array, GL_EXT_convolution, GL_EXT_copy_texture,
GL_EXT_draw_range_elements, GL_EXT_fog_coord, GL_EXT_histogram,
GL_EXT_packed_pixels, GL_EXT_polygon_offset, GL_EXT_rescale_normal,
GL_EXT_secondary_color, GL_EXT_separate_specular_color,
GL_EXT_stencil_wrap, GL_EXT_subtexture, GL_EXT_texture, GL_EXT_texture3D,
GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp, GL_EXT_texture_env_add,
GL_EXT_texture_env_combine, GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3,
GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic, GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias,
GL_EXT_texture_mirror_clamp, GL_EXT_texture_object,
GL_EXT_texture_rectangle, GL_EXT_vertex_array, GL_APPLE_packed_pixels,
GL_ATI_texture_env_combine3, GL_ATI_texture_mirror_once,
GL_IBM_rasterpos_clip, GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat,
GL_MESA_ycbcr_texture, GL_MESA_window_pos, GL_NV_blend_square,
GL_NV_light_max_exponent, GL_NV_texture_rectangle,
GL_NV_texgen_reflection, GL_OES_read_format, GL_SGI_color_matrix,
GL_SGI_color_table, GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap, GL_SGIS_texture_border_clamp,
GL_SGIS_texture_edge_clamp, GL_SGIS_texture_lod
glu version: 1.3
glu extensions:
GLU_EXT_nurbs_tessellator, GLU_EXT_object_space_tess

visual x bf lv rg d st colorbuffer ax dp st accumbuffer ms cav
id dep cl sp sz l ci b ro r g b a bf th cl r g b a ns b eat

0x21 16 tc 0 16 0 r y . 5 6 5 0 0 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 None
0x22 16 dc 0 16 0 r y . 5 6 5 0 0 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 None
0x59 32 tc 0 16 0 r . . 5 6 5 0 0 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 None

4

btt for any ideas…

5

Andrew,

did you install the proprietary ATI drivers?

Uwe

6

I didn’t, I am still using the stock drivers. My card is the 7500 and I have read that card is not supported with the ATI drivers. I might be worth a shot though before I try another distro.

I tried about 15 different monitor settings last night, but no change. Things looked fine under Kubuntu, I wonder if I should try the KDE version of OpenSuSE?

Andrew

7

I just started a reinstall. Something dawned on me though: the display during bootup and with the SuSE installer is always perfectly clear. Maybe if KDE doesn’t look any better I’ll track down whatever driver the installer / pre X bootup is using. Everything looks clear and crisp until X loads.

We’ll see how KDE looks.

Drew

8

Nope. Exact same blur with KDE. Now I need to try a generic driver I think. My display runs at 1024 x 768 anyway, so I doubt a generic driver will hurt.

Andrew

9

I edited xorg.conf and changed:

driver=“radeon”

to

driver=“vesa”

Things look much sharper now but the actual display didn’t fill the whole screen. I changed the resolution to 1280x1024, which helped some. I need to verify with Dell though, I think 1024x768 is the correct resolution.

Andrew

10

Hmmmm. Well, I ended up switching back to driver=“radeon”.

I guess what I have learned is that the VESA driver works, but the display is too small by default. Increasing the resolution helps some, but the geometry is pretty far off. So I am back to where I started with the Radeon driver.

I’ve read that ATI doesn’t support the older cards (7500) under Linux. That leaves me with two options, either trying to upgrade the video card somehow, or buying XP (aghhhhh).

For about twice the price of the XP license, I could buy a netbook that probably has a better graphics card for Linux. >:(

Thanks for the help, I guess I’ll start digging on any hacks for the graphics card.

Andrew

11

Andrew,

I checked and you are right, the fglrx driver doesn’t support your chip. “radeon” should do, though. I recommend you check tuxmobile.org and see if somebody offers a working xorg.conf. Copy the relevant parts to your configuration.

Uwe