I just bought a new system with NVIDIA GeForce 9100 integrated graphics. I used http://opensuse-community.org/nvidia.ymp to install the NVIDIA drivers and utilities.
If I use sax2 from the commandline in runlevel 3 (or from KDE) and select LCD 1680x1050 for the display, I am able to test and save the configuration. If I then init 5, KDE starts with the proper display settings. NVIDIA X Server Settings tool shows that I have a Gateway FPD2275W(which is what I have) with display dimensions 1680x1050. I even have the option to change the refresh rate to 75.
I never told the configuration tools what kind of monitor I have, so something detected it.
The problem comes when I reboot. The display reverts to 1280x1024 which is not correctly proportioned for my display. The NVIDIA tool then shows some kind of generic monitor, and does not give me any options to configure the display correctly.
I’m not sure what I did to correct the problem, but it seems to be working now. One thing I tried is running nvidia-settings as root and explicitly saving the “changes”. I don’t understand why the would make a difference since it loaded the correct configuration if I started KDM with an init 5 as root. AFTER that, I rebooted and it loaded the wrong settings.
As opposed to entering run level 3 with init 3, instead try booting direct to run level 3 from the grub menu and implement this change via sax2 (start with a clean setup and no xorg.conf before running sax2). You can boot direct to run level 3 by pressing 3 when the boot-splash/grub menu 1st appears and you should see a 3 (preceded by a space if there is a vga entry) in the options line of the grub menu. Then boot normally.
After completing the configuration in sax2, instead of typing init 5, restart with
shutdown -r now
and this time do NOT press 3 for run level 3. Boot direct now to run level 5.
I’ve seen what you described happen before, when an init 5 did not properly unload all modules, and hence the configuration while it looked good with sax2, was in fact not optimal.
This recommendation may not work for you, but IMHO its worth the effort to try.
