[mythtv-users] Display only detected sometimes, "low-graphics mode" rest of time

Tue Jun 17 19:24:30 UTC 2008

On Tue, 2008-06-17 at 12:02 -0700, Allen Edwards wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 11:27 AM, James Crow <james at ultratans.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, 2008-06-17 at 10:43 -0700, Allen Edwards wrote:
> >> I just upgraded my myth box from a 2.4GHz P4 to a AMD 5400+.  This is
> >> my first AMD machine and it isn't going that well.  Besides the air2pc
> >> card problem in another post, this machine boots up fine sometimes and
> >> boots up with this message some times:  "Ubuntu is running in
> >> low-graphics mode".  This is with nvidia 5+ driver.  It seems the
> >> problem is that the ASUS 6200 PCI-E card is recognizing the Samsung
> >> 193p+ only some of the times.  I never had a problem with this monitor
> >> in mythbuntu with the P4 system and the EVGA 6200 AGP card.
> >>
> >> Does anyone know if this means I have defective hardware?  I think I
> >> have like 7 days to send stuff back if needed.
> >>
> >> Anyone else have this problem?
> >>
> >> I searched for a solution and of course, there are lots of advice how
> >> to get rid of this error when it is permanent (install the drivers)
> >> but nothing for a sometimes problem.
> >>
> >> Allen
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> mythtv-users mailing list
> >> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> >> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> >>
> >
> > I have a couple of Panasonic 50" plasma sets connected to Ubuntu 7.10 by
> > 50' DVI->HDMI cables and the computer is not able to read any EDID info
> > from them. What I did was hookup a short (6' RadioShack brand) DVI->HDMI
> > cable. With that cable I could sometimes get EDID info from the TVs.
> > With the short cable connected I started X with 'start -- -logverbose 6'
> > and then looked through /var/log/Xorg.0.log to find the raw EDID bytes
> > from the TV. Once I had the EDID info I saved it into a file and told
> > the Nvidia driver to use that. I also had to set a few overrides because
> > many older TV sets give out conflicting EDID info. Once that was done I
> > got a consistent picture on the sets. Here is a bit of
> > my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file with some of the relevant info:
> >
> > Section "Device"
> >        Identifier      "Failsafe Device"
> >        Boardname       "vesa"
> >        Busid           "PCI:0:5:0"
> >        Driver          "nvidia"
> >        Screen  0
> >        Option          "AddARGBVisuals"        "True"
> >        Option          "AddARGBGLXVisuals"     "True"
> >        Option          "NoLogo"        "True"
> >        #Option         "ModeValidation"
> > "DPF-0:AllowNon60HzDFPModes,NoMaxPClkCheck,NoEdidMaxPClkCheck,AllowInterlacedModes,NoMaxSizeCheck,NoHorizSyncCheck,NoVertRefreshCheck,NoWidthAlignmentCheck,NoDFPNativeResolutionCheck,NoVirtualSizeCheck,NoVesaModes,NoEdidModes,NoXServerModes,NoPredefinedModes,NoUserModes"
> >        # The next line works and allows both 1080i and 720p, but 1080i
> > is shaky
> >        #Option         "ModeValidation"
> > "NoHorizSyncCheck,NoVertRefreshCheck"
> >        Option          "ModeValidation" "DFP-0:
> > NoHorizSyncCheck,NoVirtualSizeCheck,NoDFPNativeResolutionCheck"
> >        Option          "connectedMonitor"      "DFP-0"
> >        Option          "CustomEDID"
> > "DFP-0:/etc/X11/PANASONIC-edid.bin"
> > EndSection
> >
> >
> > There is a lot of extra crap in there from my testing. The best thing I
> > found when fighting with a set was to always start X from the command
> > line with logverbose 6. If you have a certain mode that is failing the
> > Xorg.0.log file will tell you why the driver rejected it. My TV at home
> > was quite a problem until I upgraded to Mythbuntu 8.04. Prior to that I
> > fought with it and an onboard 6150. Now that I use an 8400 PCI-e card
> > the driver can autodetect everything just fine. I don't know if the
> > newer card or the driver were the fix, but things are better now for me.
> >
> > HTH
> > James
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > mythtv-users mailing list
> > mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> > http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> >
> 
> Hi James,
> 
> Thanks for the reply.
> 
> I take it that the critical lines are:
>         Option          "ModeValidation" "DFP-0:
>  NoHorizSyncCheck,NoVirtualSizeCheck,NoDFPNativeResolutionCheck"
>         Option          "connectedMonitor"      "DFP-0"
>         Option          "CustomEDID"
>  "DFP-0:/etc/X11/PANASONIC-edid.bin"
> 
> and that you saved something in the PANASONIC-edid.bin file.
> 
> Three questions come up.
> 1) Should I just get another video card that works?  Which one?
> 2) What is in the .bin file?  Can you share that?
> 3) Could the information in the .bin  file be put directly into xorg.conf?
> 
> Thanks again,
> 
> Allen
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> 

1) I don't knwo if you should get a better video card. I upgraded my
video card and moved to a newer version of Mythbuntu (and nvidia driver)
all at once and it detected and worked with my TV much better than the
old setup. I do not know which particular part made things better. My
current setup is just a cheap 8400 fanless card. Here is the spec:

root at mythfront:~/mythprime_test# lspci -v -s 03:00
03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 8400 GS
(rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
	Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. Unknown device 0740
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18
	Memory at df000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
	Memory at c0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
	Memory at dc000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32M]
	I/O ports at ec00 [size=128]
	[virtual] Expansion ROM at defe0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
	Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2
	Capabilities: [68] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit+ Queue=0/0
Enable-
	Capabilities: [78] Express Endpoint IRQ 0

2) I could send you the bin file, but I doubt it would do much good. It
is the EDID info for my specific television. I got it from the
Xorg.0.log file. You need to run with logverbose 6. Easiest way (on
Mythbuntu) is to stop gdm from a ssh shell works fine. Then start X with
this command 'startx -- -logverbose 6' Wait a few seconds and then
Ctrl-C to kill X. Look in the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file and search for
EDID. I cut and pasted this section into a new file and that is the .bin
file referenced above.

3) I am not sure about that. I learned what I needed from the nvidia
driver web site. I think the Xorg readme appendix 3 lists all the
options I just had to play with things for a while to get a picture.
Here are the current x org options:
http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/173.14.09/README/appendix-b.html

Thanks,
James