Monitor Problems

[jimisbell]

Running Mint 11 amd a 17" Dell flat screen monitor.

Mint cant recognise the monitor even though it used to recognise it.

None of the settings make it work properly.

The BIG symptom is that clicking the "+" sign to maximise a screen will often result in a BLANK screen.
Resizing the screen downward by pulling in the sides will produce an image. The more windows you have open the smaller the downsizing has to go to get an image. Almost like its running out of memory.
Second symptom is a 1/4 grey line across the top of the screen no mater what mode I am in.

What is going on here?

[AlbertP]

Probably a graphics driver problem. Please open terminal from the menu, type the following command and press Enter:

Code: Select all

inxi -Gx

Please post the output here.

[jimisbell]

More symptoms. I did figure out how to get rid of the grey line. It was a blank panel and I deleted it. BUT when I tried to move the display up into that space, the display went blank even if I downsized the display area!

[jimisbell]

Graphics: Card nVidia C61 [GeForce 6150SE nForce 430] X.Org 1.10.1 Res: 1280x1024@50.0hz
GLX Renderer GeForce 6150SE nForce 430/PCI/SSE2/3DNOW! GLX Version 2.1.2 NVIDIA 270.41.06 Direct Rendering Yes

[AlbertP]

Seems like a graphics driver problem instead of a monitor problem. Probably you can get a newer nVidia driver version from the Ubuntu-X-Swat PPA which has nvidia 295.49 - you now have 270.41.06 according to the inxi output.

To get that newer driver you can run:

Code: Select all

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates

Then please click the updater (shield-like icon in the tray) which will offer you to update nvidia-current to 295.49.

That your monitor is not recognized in Monitors is because you use the graphics driver from nvidia. With that driver you need to use the NVidia X Server Settings program instead to configure monitors (however, nvidia is going to support the Monitors program as well in future drivers).

[spegru]

I have been experience screen problems on several different machines with different graphics hardware from nVidia and ATI
Main problem seems to be screen freeze or lack of proper startup

I've had screen locking up so that the mouse/menus dont do anything and also blank screen apart from wallpaper (no icons or menus) when first logged in (Acer laptop with Intel graphics and also Ideq desktop with nVidia graphics)

One detail I noticed was in the ATI graphics acer laptop, the screenlock varient could be provoked by disconnecting mains power

Seems to specially affect Cinnamon but I think it's also Gnome3 although Gnome Classic No Effects seems to be fine

Driver problems? But I've tried both standard and proprietary and they all seem to have problems

[AlbertP]

@spegrum: Please open a new topic for this instead of hijacking jimisbell's topic.

[jimisbell]

Then please click the updater (shield-like icon in the tray) which will offer you to update nvidia-current to 295.49.

I just ran that code on Terminal and didnt have to click on any Icon. It just updated and seems to be working fine after a reboot. Thanks for the information. I will save that post for the next time it happens on another monitor.....


OOOPs, not quite solved. Much better, but not solved. It still has the problem that enlarging a window will sometimes blank it and I have to reduce it to get the image back.

BUT....its much better. It still says "Cannot Display This Video Mode" on boot up.

[jimisbell]

SOLVED!!!
There was a loose connector on one of the drives....at least, what cured the problems was to pullboth drives out and reinsert them and re install Mint 11 and the monitor worked....but not without loosing4 months of data since my last backup!!!

[Webbo32]

Hi there,

I use a lenovo thinkcentre dualcore with a Samsung monitor and have the same grey line across the screen,about 1.5 inch form the bottom of the screen.
Strange,but I only encounter this problem in Linux Mint,not in other distro's.(I just had to switch back from Cub linux,since the project stopped unfortunately)
Currently I use the 17.3 Xfce edition.
There must be a deeper problem in this matter,but I didn't have the answer yet to get rid of it.

Any suggestions?

Greetings,

Webbo32

[AlbertP]

Hi Webbo32, please open a new topic for your problem, and could you please post a screenshot of your problem in the new topic?