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  • From: sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>
  • To: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [BL] can framebuffer damage a motherboard?
  • Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 06:09:11 +0000 (UTC)

On Wed, 23 Nov 2005, sindi keesan wrote:

I have two Tseng ET4000 pci video cards which I was testing with David's
framebuffer kernel on two computers that are dual-head (they have MGA card
with TTL monitor and VGA card with VGA monitor). They both worked
consistently in their two computers. Xvesa often crashed on exit. X
worked on one not the other.

We put the 'better' Tseng card into this computer where the other Tseng
card was.

The Tseng that would do X on the other computer won't do X on this computer. It is somehow related to the motherboard (a Soyo).
(I think I am using the same XF86Config on both boards). I will switch computers (to something with USB) or cards (to S3). Matrox won't display 1280 on most 15" monitors.

I just ran across mention of a VESA 2.0 patch for S3 Trio64 and Virge cards for DOS. Don't know why David's linux patch did not work. Maybe it would work with a newer kernel? S3 cards seem to always work perfectly and unlike Matrox and other AGP cards they display 1600 res on a 17" monitor. But framebuffer makes for more readable smaller text.

I have one AGP S3, a Trio3D that won't do X except in 320x200 - perhaps in a different computer it would do better? But everyone had problems with it in linux. One Russian site suggested three cures: exchange the card, use it in framebuffer mode, or try some different modelines. It works fine with Xvesa for me.


I booted into DOS and got lots of flashing characters all over the screen
and saw nothing on the VGA screen. Booted to linux and it got as far as a
line about ide1. Rebooted to DOS, more upper ascii - a small square full
in upper right corner, lots of flashing. Typed mode co80 - "function
co80 not supported on this computer". (So it is probably not the monitor
or video card causing the problem).

What part of the computer normally supports co80 (VGA)? BIOS? Some other
chip onboard? I have had computers where MGA did not work, but I never
lost VGA.

Can using framebuffer do this sort of damage to a computer? I don't see
how the old card could have damaged the new one.

I replaced the card, VGA worked again. I put back the old card, it works in VGA now. Perhaps the card was not pushed in all the way?

xfbdev is not useful except where neither Xvesa nor X will work, but you can't switch between X and cli without losing X.

All my video chips/cards but Tseng (and one WD laptop) do Xvesa.




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