ATI and Nvidia troubleshooting thread

[yardbird]

Re: ATI and Nvidia troubleshooting thread

Wwhen I installed the proprietary fglrx driver it installed ok but my display would no longer go edge-to-edge in my 27" LCD. I'm connected via HDMI. The open source drive (to which I have reverted) handles this screen just fine but desktop effects are apparently disabled. Not sure what I might be missing.

Ttried monitor adjust size and it's greyed out. Presumably due to the HDMI conection? I don't know.

[sithlord48]

Re: ATI and Nvidia troubleshooting thread

can you please tell us:

What card this is with?

What did you try when fgrlx was installed to fix this?

And are you ok w/ the open driver if the effects work?

[ardvark71]

Re: ATI and Nvidia troubleshooting thread

Hi yardbird...

Welcome to the forums

To help with that process, would you open a terminal and type in...

lspci

and post the results?

Thanks

[yardbird]

Re: ATI and Nvidia troubleshooting thread

Pasting lspci results below. This is in a Dell Zino HD desktop. It's an ATI 4330 HD card in an MXM slot (more like a laptop card than a desktop card connection) with 512MB memory, Connection to display is via HDMI (VGA is available but I use HDMI). Desktop effects are disabled with the open driver and they remain disabled with fglrx installed. The desktop effects tab has all options greyed out and a message telling me desktop effects are disabled due to the following issues, but it lists no issues.

I tried changing resolutions in the catalyst control center both in normal and administrative modes. Tried changing resolutions in the KDE display properties. Tried changing how the wallpaper was displayed (scaled, scaled proportional, etc). Several reboots as I tried different settings in case it needed reboot to take effect. Not sure if I missed an opportunity somewhere to try something else.

Removing the fglrx driver and going back to the open driver, the screen goes edge to edge again. Desired resolution is 1920x1080 which works with the open driver.

System works fine under Gnome and has desktop effects. No desktop effects in KDE.

charlie@Kbird:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 Host Bridge
00:02.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (ext gfx port 0)
00:07.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 3)
00:11.0 SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 SATA Controller [AHCI mode]
00:12.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:12.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB7x0 USB OHCI1 Controller
00:12.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 3a)
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 LPC host controller
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc M92 LP [Mobility Radeon HD 4300 Series]
01:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc RV710/730
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM57780 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe (rev 01)
charlie@Kbird:~$

[yardbird]

Re: ATI and Nvidia troubleshooting thread

OK, this is interesting. I just renamed my ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc file to kwinrc1 and rebooted and let the system create a new kwinrc. Desktop Effects was immediately available and working after a reboot. I'm wondering if installing the fglrx driver did something to kwinrc.

So now I have another question. If Desktop Effects are working with the open driver, is there any real reason for me to try installing the fglrx driver again? Do I really need it?

[el_koraco]

Re: ATI and Nvidia troubleshooting thread

I couldn't watch fullscreen flash movies with the OSS driver, and my laptop was getting hot as hell in Kubuntu. It's working surprisingly well in Ubuntu. Also, there are some applications, like Stellarium, that require fglrx, and games are always a thing to consider. other than that, the OSS radeon is the best I've seen so far.

[sithlord48]

Re: ATI and Nvidia troubleshooting thread

OK, this is interesting. I just renamed my ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc file to kwinrc1 and rebooted and let the system create a new kwinrc. Desktop Effects was immediately available and working after a reboot. I'm wondering if installing the fglrx driver did something to kwinrc.

So now I have another question. If Desktop Effects are working with the open driver, is there any real reason for me to try installing the fglrx driver again? Do I really need it?

just as i had suspected(and was going to instruct you to try in my first post) you had put ur driver on the blacklist, this is why removing the ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc file fixed it.

there is no real reason to need the fglrx driver. the open driver always works w/ teh newer kernels. and gets better all the time. yes its way slower then the fglrx driver, but on my 4830HD i can still play Oblivion thru win maxed out w/ a decent frame rate. Most linux games will work just fine and if you play w/ vsync on there is on change really since that caps the fps @ the refresh rate (usually 60hz) i dont' really watch flash in my browser i play it from the /tmp w/ vlc so i can't say much about if there is an issue w/ fullscreen flash or not. i would use the open driver unless you find it failing in some area for you.

[reiki]

Re: ATI and Nvidia troubleshooting thread

Thank you! I'll keep it like it is with the open driver. I just have a few more applications to look at and then I think I'll be ready to make the switch permanently as my main OS ... appreciate the help.

[yardbird]

Re: ATI and Nvidia troubleshooting thread

Thank you! I'll keep it like it is with the open driver. I just have a few more applications to look at and then I think I'll be ready to make the switch permanently as my main OS ... appreciate the help.

Ooops. This was me. Apparently I had a kubuntuforums login that I didn't remember but my computer did.

So reiki = yardbird

[kapil]

Re: ATI and Nvidia troubleshooting thread

So now I have another question. If Desktop Effects are working with the open driver, is there any real reason for me to try installing the fglrx driver again? Do I really need it?

If you are not into gaming.. i don't think there is any reason to install the fglrx driver. Though i must say, There is a picture tearing, if you connect the laptop via hdmi to a tv. if you install the fglrx, you are supposed to get the option of making picture tearing "off". But its interesting to see that, this option of setting picture tearing off is present in 32bit and not in 64bit. and even more interesting is that, picture tearing off will reduce the frame rate (i assume this, because i find the video playback not smooth)

so basically, i think amd radeon is better with OSS driver.

[yardbird]

Re: ATI and Nvidia troubleshooting thread

just jumping back in because I reinstalled fglrx and got it to display screen size to the edges of the monitor again. I had to use "kdesudo amdcccle" and get into the area where I could set overscan. As I moved the slider, the image adjusted out to the screen edge. I really don't see a difference in the display itself. Visually I think the NON-proprietary driver was just as good.

I did have another issue that would take me to a black screen if I loged out. Could not see the login dialogue, just a cursor. Had to uncomment "TerminateServer=True" in kdmrc to fix that. I'm going to recomment it and see if it was a driver issue.

[el_koraco]

Re: ATI and Nvidia troubleshooting thread

I've been having good results with the new Catalyst 11.5 on Ubuntu. Some memory leakage, but it's better than nothing. Can't say jockey has ever worked for me with this card.