[plug] screen/monitor resolution

[Leon Brooks]

On Sunday 10 March 2002 23:35, wayne wrote:
> The above system is Mandrake-8.1; RAM=49MB; Monitor=generic VGA; video=TVGA
> (SVGA as ISA) installed as 640x480 resolution.  Everything seems to work OK
> except every time I try to launch the Hard-drake gui to change the
> resolution my system eventually locks-up with a blank black screen.  I
> assume there is not enough RAM and so the system crashes.  Can I resolve
> this in text mode in any way?  I know I can re-install and choose the
> correct resolution setting then, but I want to know if this can be done
> other ways.

ISA? On a Pentium? Urgh.

Look for a text file in /etc/X11 called (for XFree86 3.3.6) XF86Config or 
(for XFree86 4.1) XF86Config-4. Set the defualtcolordepth to 16, and delete 
all of the mode strings except the 800x600 ones (make a copy of the file 
first, just in case). Then restart X (Ctrl-Alt-BackSpace) and see what 
happens.

A standardish 2MB ISA VGA card should do 800x600x16 reasonably well, 
depending on the driver. If you can possibly use a PCI video card, do! If you 
can find a 4MB PCI card, you can probably do 800x600x24 (or x32) or higher 
res at lower depths (eg 1152x864x16). Sometimes, the VLB+ISA cards will also 
work a little better than straight ISA.

YMWWQVA.*

Cheers; Leon


* Your Mileage Will Without Question Vary Amazingly