Dell Vostro 1510: Video Problems

[gacl]

Hello,

     According to the manual the card for this computer is an NVidia GeForce 8400M GS 64-bit. The native resolutions are 1280 x 800, 1440 x 900, 1680 x 1050, and 1920 x 1200.
     I tried to install the proprietary drivers but I always get this error: "There was an error in your X configuration. Autoconfig must have stumbled somewhere. Please choose one of the following actions."
     The open source NVidia driver (nv) works the best because it at least supports the lowest of the native resolutions but if I visit certain pages like slackware.com the content is garbled. It also seems slow overall.
     The vesa driver doesn't support the native resolutions. I'm not sure if I got the fbdev driver to work, but if I did it didn't support the native resolutions either.

What to do?

[roarde]

As for the scrambing problem with open-source drivers, it comes up so often I've bookmarked it.
http://forum.vectorlinux.com/index.php?topic=11396.0

There's also a thread, perhaps a howto, on installing the proprietary driver, but I don't have it handy.

A little while later . . .
I hate it when I get curious, but should be sleeping. An nvidia install video: http://www.opensourcebistro.com/Tutorial/VL60/01.Installation/nvidia/nvidia.htm. Opensourcebistro is a very, very good address to have.

Instead of "init 3" for command line, substitute "init 2". For X, substitute "init 4" for "init 5". 2 and 4 are "desktop", 3 and 5 "server".

[gacl]

Wow. I just installed the NVidia drivers and it was _very_ easy. Thank you sixforty.

Now, how do I get it to display a higher resolution?

xrandr:

Code:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 175, current 1280 x 800, maximum 1280 x 800
default connected 1280x800+0+0 0mm x 0mm
   1280x800       50.0*
   1024x768       51.0     55.0 
   800x600        52.0     57.0     58.0     59.0     60.0 
   640x480        53.0     66.0     67.0     68.0     69.0 
   1152x768       54.0 
   832x624        56.0 
   800x512        61.0 
   720x400        62.0 
   700x525        63.0 
   640x512        64.0     65.0 
   640x400        70.0 
   640x350        71.0 
   576x432        72.0 
   576x384        73.0 
   512x384        74.0     75.0     76.0     77.0     78.0 
   416x312        79.0 
   400x300        80.0     81.0     82.0     83.0     84.0 
   360x200        85.0 
   320x240        86.0     87.0     88.0     89.0 
   320x200        90.0 
   320x175        91.0 

xorg.conf ("Screen" section):

Code:

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Card0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
    Option         "RenderAccel" "true"
    Option         "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"
    Option         "USEdidDPI" "false"
    Option         "DPI" "96 x 96"
### Available Driver options are:-
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       1
        Modes      "1440x900" "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       4
        Modes      "1440x900" "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       8
        Modes      "1440x900" "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       15
        Modes      "1440x900" "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       16
        Modes      "1440x900" "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       24
        Modes      "1440x900" "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
    Option         "Composite" "on"
EndSection

Thanks again.


Gus