Screen resolution problems at boot

[urdrwho5]

I'm running 12.04 LTS on a dual boot system.
Graphics driver - NVIDIA Corporation NV17M [GeForce4 440 Go 64M]
HP Pavillion zv5000 - 2 gig ram

VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation NV17M [GeForce4 440 Go 64M] (rev a3)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 006d
Kernel driver in use: nouveau
Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidiafb, rivafb

I have no idea why it does it, I've read a lot of ideas but nothing seems to make any difference.

Sometimes when I boot the log-in and desktop screen will only cover 3/4 of the screen. On the right side it will be black.

When it does the bad boot, xrandr will not show the full resolution available on the laptop screen. When it boots correctly it will show this ---

xrandr

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 4096 x 4096
VGA-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
LVDS-1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 331mm x 207mm
1280x800 60.0*+
1024x768 59.9
800x600 59.9
640x480 59.4
720x400 59.6
640x400 60.0
640x350 59.8
TV-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

I have an .xprofile that I have written several different ways and the current one is this -

xrandr --output LVDS-1 --mode 1024x768+0+0 --rate 60

But the current xrandr is the one showing 1280x800.

I'll have to log out / log in / log out / log in and then sometimes I have to turn off the computer and then reboot. My log off / log in screen has a choice to restart the xserver and sometimes that will work. Not sure where I found that log in/out screen because I can't find it now in system settings.

I never, ever, never , ever have the problem when booting into XP. There is a neighbor that has the same computer running win7 without any problems. It should be able to run a linux distro.

I've read some reports that say I should install a nvidia driver but then others say to stick with the nouveau driver. About a year ago with 13.10
I did have an Nvidia driver but could never get a good resolution. Can't remember for sure

[SteveRiley]

You probably have Optimus in that laptop -- NVIDIA's dual-graphics technology that switches between the Intel graphics built into the CPU and the NVIDIA graphics. It can be cantankerous sometimes, depending on how well the hardware manufacturer implemented it.

Have you tried installing the NVIDIA driver using the Additional Drivers utility?

[urdrwho5]

Last year I had the NVIDIA driver installed but the resolution was not good. It looked like I was always boot into recovery mode fonts, etc. so I went with Nouveau.

I made some changes to Lightdm.conf I added the xrandr line.

[SeatDefaults]
xrandr --output LVDS-1 --mode 1024x768+0+0 --rate 60
user-session=kde-plasma
greeter-session=lightdm-gtk-greeter


I also added an .xprofile in home and that contains xrandr --output LVDS-1 --mode 1024x768+0+0 --rate 60.

I've rebooted 4 times and 100% of the time it booted into the correct looking resolution. It seems to take a bit longer to boot but not by much. I was just notified that there is an update to the X11 library fonts. Should I installed it and take a chance that it messes up the system again? Probably not but I always like to stay up to date. I think I'll just turn off update notice and be happy with a good running system.

I don't have much need to reboot but I always want to have everything working correctly and right now I'm sitting here tempted to reboot. I'd like to see if it is still rebooting 100% correctly.

Temptation was too much and I had to restart to see what happens and it booted into the correct resolution. That is 100% out of five times. I would think it is fixed.

Now to install the security update (X11 font rasterisation library) then I'll see if it boots into the correct resolution.

You probably have Optimus in that laptop -- NVIDIA's dual-graphics technology that switches between the Intel graphics built into the CPU and the NVIDIA graphics. It can be cantankerous sometimes, depending on how well the hardware manufacturer implemented it.

Have you tried installing the NVIDIA driver using the Additional Drivers utility?