BIG video and audio problems ......

[ElEdwards]

My laptop is a Compaq Presario 2170us and Hardy is the first distro I've had problems with, especially when it comes to my display. There are lines all over the screen anytime I open a window and getting Compiz to work is an unsuccessful chore.

I posted my xorg.conf and the output of lspci here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=774266&highlight=xorg

Can anyone help? I've been a cheer-leader for Ubuntu for almost a year..... but I don't like this "auto config" think at all!! My laptop has an older ATI card (ATI Mobility Radeon).

I'm having an audio problem, too (ton's of skips and crackles in my recordings) and since I do commercial voice-overs, this is a really bad thing!

....but I want to get my video problems fixed first.

I was really hoping for great things from Hardy....but right now, DreamLinux 3.2 works the best for me.

(...and if your response is along the lines of "Stay with DreamLinux", please save your breath/typing.)

Thanks!
El

[Miguel]

Hi El,

First of all, compiz won't work. Some ati laptop cards were crashing when using the free drivers and it varied even between cards with the same PCI ID, so compiz is blacklisted for all ati cards using the free driver.

Secondly, I need more info on your hardware. What's your screen size? What's its resolution? From what I've googled, it's a 15" 1024x768 screen.

Let's try to modify xorg.conf by hand. We'll also set AGP to 1x, just in case:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "radeon"
Option "AGPMode" "1"
EndSection


Also, if your monitor is indeed 15" 1024x768 you may try changing your monitor and screen sections to

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
DisplaySize 305 228
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection


Remember to make a backup!!! Also, it is possible that this doesn't work. OK, don't panic. Hardy is using xserver-xorg-video-ati version 6.8.0, the latest stable. However, ATi released quite a few specs after that release, and there are a few bugfixes backported by Bryce Harrington (one of Ubuntu X mantainers) to an experimental deb. I'll put a link to both the current hardy driver and this one, and you should download both. In case the experimental doesn't work, you will easily revert to the default one using dpkg.

http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/x/xserver-xorg-video-ati/xserver-xorg-video-ati_6.8.0-1_i386.deb
http://people.ubuntu.com/~bryce/Testing/ati/xserver-xorg-video-ati_6.8.0-1ubuntu1_i386.deb

Beware! 32bit intel only!!!Does this work? In any case, I fear that I won't be able to help you with your audio issue.

EDIT Did you keep a previous home partition? If so, you might want to create a new user and see if that user has the same issues (especially the audio ones).

[ElEdwards]

Thanks, Miguel :)

First, no, there is no previous /home partition. I did a clean installation over the previous installation, using both /home and /.

Compiz has worked just fine up until 8.04.... so I guess I'll just have to settle in my head that Hardy isn't for me on my laptop. :(
...and I'm really bummed about that.

El

[ElEdwards]

Miguel,

FYI, I tried the settings in xorg.conf that you posted above.... and 8.04 wouldn't even start :(

After Grub and the startup progress bar, things went to black and after 5 minutes with no HDD activity, I gave up.

El

[Miguel]

This is really weird. The worst I would expect was that you got kicked out to tty1 or so. But hanging? No way!. Have you been able to restart your laptop again?

[ElEdwards]

Yes, I restarted in Recovery Mode, which took me to a command prompt and I was able to restore xorg.conf from the backup I had made.

El

[Miguel]

What exactly did you try? I'm interested in knowing what exactly happens when you specifically select AGP 1x. By the way, it would be nice if you posted your exact hardware ;-)

[ElEdwards]

Miguel,

I appreciate your help.... but I've decided to stick with DreamLinux 3.0.... it has given me no issues, in much the same way as Ubuntu 7.04 and/or 7.10 worked fine for me, but DL3.0 is smoother and faster.

Thanks :)
El

[Miguel]

Good luck El!