How to change refresh rate in cinnamon?

[dcibel]

Hi all,
I am trying to set the refresh rate in cinnamon. I found the display section of the settings, however the only options available here are resolution and rotation. I think its a bit silly not to find refresh rate here.

I have to manually open the AMD control panel to set my monitor to 144Hz, however it doesn't stick. When I log off and on again, the refresh rate is back at 60Hz. Does anyone know how to make it stick in Cinnamon? I have been using XFCE for years and had not any issue here with the refresh rate. I thought I'd give cinnamon a shot, and I rather like it so far however with some quirks, this is a big one for me.

[Pjotr]

You might try launching the AMD control panel from the terminal, with "gksudo" (root permissions). Then set the desired refresh rate and it should survive a reboot.

[dcibel]

Thanks for your reply.

I have run "sudo amdcccle", in fact the amd control panel needs to be run under root in order to change the refresh and resolution, otherwise they are greyed out. Weird, I know.

However, this does not survive a log out and log in. The log in screen does operate at 144Hz, however once I log in it is set back to 60Hz, I have to change it manually every time. There is some underlying setting within cinnamon causing this, I am certain.

[texbrew]

Thanks for your reply.

I have run "sudo amdcccle", in fact the amd control panel needs to be run under root in order to change the refresh and resolution, otherwise they are greyed out. Weird, I know.

However, this does not survive a log out and log in. The log in screen does operate at 144Hz, however once I log in it is set back to 60Hz, I have to change it manually every time. There is some underlying setting within cinnamon causing this, I am certain.

While I am not at all familiar with the issue of changing refresh rate, it reminds me of an irritating problem I had with a laptop being unable to remember screen brightness settings after a reboot. After scouring the web (well, 5 minutes of searching) I found a tip for adding a line to the file /etc/rc.local which by default, does nothing.

Before you change rc.local I recommend copying the original file. I just give the new copy an extension like "rc.local.bak" for "backup". This way, if I break something, it's easy to recover the original file.

So here's a look at my edited rc.local for that screen brightness setting:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh -e
#
# rc.local
#
# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.
# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other
# value on error.
#
# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution
# bits.
#
# By default this script does nothing.

# screen brightness line added - (my personal comment - tex)
# it's to make the laptop remember settings at power up.

echo 7 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness

exit 0

That single line, echo 7 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness fixed the screen brightness thing for me. And it was only needed on a particular machine. Another laptop running the same OS had no problem remembering brightness settings.

A little tinkering with rc.local and refresh rate settings - on your part - may be the way to make your Mint machine behave the way you want it to.

It may be helpful to include the link to the page where I found the tip for screen brightness. Though at first glance, it doesn't appear to have anything to with screen brightness, it's there. "StartPage" was my friend.

scroll down the page to find how to change default screen brightness on a laptop.

https://linuxmeerkat.wordpress.com/2012 ... -5-ssdhdd/

Hope that helps.

tex

[WharfRat]

dcibel,

Since you're using the propriety driver you should have an /etc/X11/xorg.conf or a file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ that describes the screen layout.

Check the Screen section of that file for a mode or modes line that looks like "1680x1050_60.00".

The 60.00 at the end is the refresh rate.

Take note that if you change this and xorg doesn't like it, it could cause a boot problem.

Good luck

[dcibel]

My xorg.conf file is pasted below. As you can see it has some reference to 144Hz there.

At the log in screen, it is indeed 144Hz, something tells it to change to 60Hz when I log in to my account.

Code: Select all

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier     "amdcccle Layout"
	Screen      0  "amdcccle-Screen[1]-0" 0 0
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "0-DFP14"
	Option	    "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
	Option	    "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
	Option	    "DPMS" "true"
	Option	    "PreferredMode" "1920x1080"
	Option	    "TargetRefresh" "144"
	Option	    "Position" "0 0"
	Option	    "Rotate" "normal"
	Option	    "Disable" "false"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "amdcccle-Device[1]-0"
	Driver      "fglrx"
	Option	    "Monitor-DFP14" "0-DFP14"
	BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "amdcccle-Screen[1]-0"
	Device     "amdcccle-Device[1]-0"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

[oba123]

I was just yesterday having the same issue and found a post from the ubuntu forums that mentioned this is a long standing bug and you need to use a workaround. These are the steps I took on Linux Mint to fix it.

1. Set refresh rate in AMD control panel.
2. Apply the settings and close AMD control panel.
3. Open the Linux Mint Display settings.
4. Hit Apply.

[dcibel]

I was just yesterday having the same issue and found a post from the ubuntu forums that mentioned this is a long standing bug and you need to use a workaround. These are the steps I took on Linux Mint to fix it.

1. Set refresh rate in AMD control panel.
2. Apply the settings and close AMD control panel.
3. Open the Linux Mint Display settings.
4. Hit Apply.

That did it! Thanks a lot.

So to conclude, the real problem here is that Cinnamon display settings is missing the refresh rate selection!