[PLUG] External monitor remains black

[Jason Barnett]

FYI, it is possible to force X to read the edid from a file instead of the
monitor.  Had to do this for a couple of years with my Viewsonic monitor,
finally I modified my monitor's firmware to match what the driver was
wanting (different checksum) and have not had any problems sense.

If you want details, let me know and I'll dig through my notes as I have
forgotten the syntax for doing this..
Jason

On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 3:00 PM, John Jason Jordan <johnxj at comcast.net>wrote:

> On Sun, 28 Nov 2010 13:55:32 -0800
> Bill Barry <bill at billbarry.org> dijo:
>
> >On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 12:57 PM, John Jason Jordan
> ><johnxj at comcast.net>wrote:
> >
> >> I want as much screen real estate as possible for my presentation.
> >> The projector will project 1400x1050 and can accept from my computer
> >> up to 1600x1200. Therefore, I want my laptop to do 1400x1050 or
> >> higher, in a 4:3 ratio. The nVidia driver offers me only 1680x1050,
> >> 1280x1050, or 1280x960, and lower resolutions. Thus, with the nVidia
> >> driver I can project 1680x1050, which will be distorted to the
> >> audience, or I can project 1280x960, which will not be distorted to
> >> the audience, but gives me less screen real estate than the
> >> projector is capable of.
> >>
> >> The nouveau driver gives me options of 1680x1050 or 1400x1050, and
> >> lesser resolutions. By setting my laptop to 1400x1050 I can project
> >> an undistorted 1400x1050 to the audience. My laptop will be slightly
> >> distorted, but I am looking at it right now and it is tolerable.
> >> After the presentation I can set my laptop back to 1680x1050.
>
> >So there is a problem getting the nVidia driver into the resolution
> >you want and a problem getting the nouveau driver to display on two
> >monitors. Why not reverse the problem. Go back to the nVidia driver at
> >1280x960 and get dual monitors working. Then try to find out why the
> >nVidia driver is not offering you the resolution you want. It seems
> >the resolution problem would be easier to solve.
>
> That is what I tried to do from the beginning. By reading Xorg.0.log I
> finally determined that the nVidia driver was misinterpreting the EDID
> data from the laptop screen. In other words, fixing the resolution
> problem in the nVidia driver required a bugfix from nVidia. Meantime, I
> knew that the nouveau driver would give me the resolution I wanted
> because the Lucid live CD uses the nouveau driver and it offered me
> 1400x1050. I also knew that it was possible to get the nouveau driver
> to connect to the projector because others have done so. And from
> reading the troubleshooting page on nouveau's site I'm pretty sure I
> can fix what is wrong. I've just had other things to do so far today.
> But before the day is out I'll probably have the external monitor
> working. (Crossing fingers.)
> _______________________________________________
> PLUG mailing list
> PLUG at lists.pdxlinux.org
> http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
>