[mythtv-users] Screen Blanking

[R. G. Newbury]

Per Jørgensen wrote:
> R. G. Newbury wrote:
>> David Whyte wrote:
>>> On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 12:11 AM, Jason Gauthier 
>>> <jgauthier at lastar.com> wrote:
>>>> Hey all,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>   I've taken this as long and as far as I can.  Now, I need some 
>>>> ideas :(
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> My frontend only display keeps going off.  This isn't your normal
>>>> screensaver or DPMS off.  This looks like a video sync problem or 
>>>> something.
>>>>
>>>> I'm using a Sony 32" LCD TV attached via VGA.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I can watch TV or recordings for an hour, or two.. and it's fine.  
>>>> Other
>>>> times, I will watch for 5 minutes and it goes off.
>>>>
>>>> Once it's off, there is no coming back on.  I have to reboot.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> What information can I provide to help figure this out?   I'm running
>>>> mythbuntu, completely patched up. My video card appears to be an Intel
>>>> 82865G.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> I upgraded my mythbuntu 7.10 box by apt-get dist-upgrades on the
>>> weekend to 8.04.  Everything went quite nicely, except I too had a
>>> problem whereby the FEs would randomly decide that they want to blank
>>> screen and they wouldn't come back to life.  Nothing from a keyboard,
>>> SSH, or the remote.  (I too have Intel chipsets, these machines being
>>> Aopen MP915-P and MP915-X machines).
>>>
>>> I have done plenty of head scratching and last night just decided to
>>> do a clean install of mythbuntu 8.04 on one of them.  So far, so good.
>>>  I managed to leave it on the menu overnight and this morning when I
>>> turned the TV on, the screen was blank.  Pressed the remote button and
>>> the screen came alive and I was back at the menu.  I have left the FE
>>> switched on today and will probably leave it another full day, but if
>>> all goes well, I will just clean install all my other FEs too!
>>>
>>> This screen blanking seems to be a common problem on this list and on
>>> the mythbuntu forums, but one that has no clear fix.  I hate not
>>> knowing why something is broken (since I am never know if it is
>>> actually fixed) but I have had such a crap weekend because of this
>>> upgrade that if this re-install fixes it, I am happy :P
>>
>> I had a similar problem with a fedora8 install. The machine seemed to 
>> go into a deep suspend state: the fan continued to run as if the box 
>> was up, but the motherboard was effectively dead: no ssh access and no 
>> reaction to the keyboard or mouse.
>>
>> I ended up adding the following to my /etc/rc.d/rc.local file:
>>
>> /usr/bin/xset -d :0 s noblank
>> /usr/bin/xset -d :0 s off
>> /usr/bin/xset -d :0 -dpms
>>
>> I'm not sure whether the first two don't do the same thing. And I not 
>> sure that the last doesn't do what the first two do! But it works. In 
>> addition I have all suspend/blank etc times in the ServerFlags section 
>> of xorg.conf set to "0" and the DPMS option in the Monitor section.
>>
>> Next step will be to actually figure out what the 'acpi=' stuff on the 
>> kernel command line does!
>>
>> Geoff
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
> Well - Not shure if this is the problem.
> But You're saying running on Intel - Which have problems with the 
> graphiccards - I have several Asus EEE B202 with Intel and they doing 
> the same thing when screen is blanc.
> I haven't figure out a solution yet for the problem.- Unless I change 
> from DVI output to VGA output - Then my blancing stops.
> But switching back to DVI or HDMI the blancing come back at once !

The man page for xset is frustrating. It says to use xset -d 'display' 
but does not describe how to determine what the 'display' format is. And 
nor does the man page for 'X'. It appears to require a format of '0:0' 
but could require '0:0.0' or ':0.1' or even '0:01.0. I *think* that the 
different hardware outputs are designated by the last digit.

It *may* be that you  need to run 'xset -d :0.01.X -dpms' where the X is 
  a number from 0 to 3 or 4 or however many physical outputs your box 
has.  I am guessing about this based on little bits of things I have 
read here and there and the fact that you get different results 
depending on the physical output used.

Geoff




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