In recent years I have noticed that video cards die distressingly soon. Often with<br>strange symptoms that make it appear to be something more basic. I do have to admit<br>that the most recen time (about two weeks ago) it was in fact the monitor. That was an<br>
HP 22" LCD monitor only 5 years old. My previous monitor was a Sony CRT that went back<br>to the early 90's.<br><br>I can only suugest that you try swapping out starting with whatever you can do cheaply.<br>Especially if you can borrow a component for testing.<br>
<br>I do have an extra video card but I'm not in Davis so you'd have to wait till<br>the regular Lugod meeting.<br><br>Richard<br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 5:13 PM, Thomas Johnston <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:trjohnston@ucdavis.edu">trjohnston@ucdavis.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">I am running Kubuntu 10.04 (64 bit) on my Dell Vostro 1500 and using<br>
an Acer AL2216W as a second monitor. Everything was working great<br>
until last Monday morning. I powered up the computer, activated the<br>
external monitor and the max resolution was 1280x1024 (the native<br>
resolution is 1680x1050 - same as my laptop display). I didn't do<br>
anything to modify any video settings so I don't know exactly what<br>
prompted the change; however, there were about 10 "bug fixes" the day<br>
before. Looking at the history of fixes I don't see anything that<br>
looks likely to cause a problem, but I am certainly not a Linux<br>
expert.<br>
<br>
Anyway, I have spent the last 4 days doing everything I can to make it<br>
work again: updated drivers, uninstalled/reinstalled drivers, deleting<br>
the xorg.conf file and having one auto generated, manually editing the<br>
xorg.conf .... nothing has worked. In fact, the situation is now<br>
worse. I can't even get the monitor to display anything anymore - just<br>
a black screen. I think the monitor itself is fine, if I turn it on I<br>
see the "ACER" logo appear, then I briefly see a dialog box that says<br>
"no signal", and then it goes blank. I don't have a great<br>
understanding of the xorg.conf file, but I was very careful when<br>
editing it. I read all of the NVIDIA documentation online and I found<br>
examples of xorg.conf files online from people with this same monitor<br>
who claimed to have it working, so I don't think I used a refresh/sync<br>
rate beyond what the monitor is capable of (I didn't smell any<br>
smoke!). My Google searches have indicated that many people have had<br>
problems reading EDID data from this monitor. I have even plugged it<br>
into a Windows machine with an ATI graphics card and same<br>
thing...blank screen.<br>
<br>
I checked the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file and I see this warning:<br>
(WW) Sep 16 15:07:43 NVIDIA(GPU-0): Unable to read EDID for display device CRT-0<br>
<br>
there are no errors (EE) generated.<br>
<br>
Other system details in case it is relevant:<br>
The monitor is connected to my graphics card via the VGA port (my<br>
laptop doesn't have any other display ports; however the monitor does<br>
have a DVI-D connection)<br>
NVIDIA Driver Version: 256.53<br>
Server Version: 1.7.6<br>
NV-CONTROL Version: 1.23<br>
Graphics Card: GeForce 8600M GT<br>
<br>
<br>
My question is: do you think the monitor is toast or would work again<br>
if I could get a working EDID.bin and/or xorg.conf file (perhaps from<br>
kind soul on the interwebs)?<br>
<br>
<br>
thanks in advance,<br>
<br>
Thomas<br>
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</blockquote></div><br>