cwaltrs

I've been working for weeks to get my tv-out to work correctly. The Linux TV image is very unstable in both desktop and full screen (DVD). The image 'rolls' about a third of the way down the screen so there's a 3 inch black horizontal line on the screen and the bottom of the image is on the top of the screen. It will occasionally roll back to normal and then it goes awry again. It seems worse in full screen. Once in a while, the whole screen will 'flail' around so I can't even locate the mouse. Opening a terminal window usually stabilizes the image. I'm running Mandriva 2006 with the latest nVidia driver. I've attached my xorg.conf and my Xorg.0.log (verbose). Here's a brief history of what I've tried... I originally used a minimum of options when configuring xorg.conf: Option "TVStandard" "NTSC-M" Option "ConnectedMonitor" "TV" Option "TVOutFormat" "COMPOSITE" I figured the NTSC designation should be sufficient to properly specify the TV output (sync, refresh, etc.) because it's built into the ntsc standard. Unfortunately, the default specs xorg generated were really for a monitor (30 KHZ horz sync), not a TV. The TV image was unstable and jumpy and rolled down the screen. Plus the maximum detected virtual screen 640x480 which was almost unusable for many Linux apps. So I did some research and manually set all the proper NTSC settings in the xorg.conf. The logfile now looks perfect based on the NTSC spec. The TV image still looks about the same... it 'rolls' about a third of the way down the screen. It will occasionally roll back to normal and then it goes awry again. It's worse in full screen DVD. I guess I have two questions: 1. Based on my image problems, what parameters should I try to adjust? Is there a sane way to tweak the parameters without risking damage to the TV? 2. How can the sample xorg.conf files TV-out I've found specify a horz sync of 30-60KHz when this is clearly out of line with NTSC which are around FH = 15.734 KHz, FV = 59.940 Hz. Someone suggested I purchase a 100 ?Hz TV, and I don't understand how the TV specs can disagree with the NTSC broadcast spec. Can someone please set me straight? Thanks, Charlie Thanks, Charlie Xorg_1__1_.0.ntsc.txt xorg_1__1_.conf.ntsc.txt

I sent and earlier post regarding compiling mplayer with an older version of gcc (Compile mplayer?, --disable-runtime-cpudetection). I got some good info.. thanks... but I'm not very secure in my skills here and I need a bit more info. I looks like there are 2 approaches to take when an older gcc version is required: 1. Download the older gcc version -- without removing the current 4.0.1 version. I've found a gcc 2.95 rpm at http://rpm.pbone.net, but I'm unsure what to do to ensure that I don't mess everything up bigtime. What do I need to do to have 2 gcc versions peacefully co-exist? Is this also going to require back versions of Perl? 2. Use compat-gcc. I can't find a Mandriva rpm for this and I'm unsure of how to use it if I did find one. How would this work in conjunction to the mplayer Configure script that's complaining about 4.0.1? Thanks, Charlie

I think I stated my request poorly... sorry. Two questions: 1. Should I heed the advice of MPlayer and recompile with the --disable-runtime-cpudetection option? My Mplayer GUI performance is a bit choppy. The gui version masks the warning, but is there an underlying truth? 2. Assuming the answer to #1 is affirmative for recompiling, how do I find gcc-3.x RPMs that are compatible with Mandriva 2006? Do I have to remove the gcc-4.x, install gcc-3, compile MPlayer and the remove gcc-3 and reinstall gcc-4? Thanks, Charlie

I downloaded mplayer (from PLF I think), and when I started it up on the command line, I got the message: MPlayer 1.0pre7-4.0.1 © 2000-2005 MPlayer Team CPU: Intel Celeron 2/Pentium III Coppermine,Geyserville (Family: 6, Stepping: 6) Detected cache-line size is 32 bytes CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 0 Compiled with runtime CPU detection - WARNING - this is not optimal! To get best performance, recompile MPlayer with --disable-runtime-cpudetection. Mplayer played, but was rather jumpy, so I decided to download and make mplayer with the cpu detection off as suggested. When I run configure --disable-runtime-cpudetection --enable-gui, I get a host of errors: Detected operating system: Linux Detected host architecture: i386 Checking for cc version ... 4.0.1, bad Checking for gcc version ... 4.0.1, bad Checking for gcc-3.4 version ... not found Checking for gcc-3.3 version ... not found Checking for gcc-3.2 version ... not found Checking for gcc-3.1 version ... not found Checking for gcc3 version ... not found Checking for gcc-3.0 version ... not found Checking for cc version ... 4.0.1, bad *** Please downgrade/upgrade C compiler to version gcc-2.95.x or gcc-3.x! *** Problem is, I'm on gcc version 4.0.1 (4.0.1-5mdk for Mandriva Linux release 2006.0) I see some configure options that may help, but I'm not sure how to use them: --cc=COMPILER use this C compiler to build MPlayer [gcc] --host-cc=COMPILER use this C compiler to build apps needed for the build process [gcc] I'm pretty new at this, can someone give me a hand? Thanks Charlie [moved from Software by spinynorman]

I ended up just removing the user (including all directories) and recreating. Nothing else worked. Thanks for the ideas. Charlie

I finally got my nvidia card to connect to use the tv as my primary monitor as part of my Mythtv project. Unfortunately, the image is absolutely illegible. The color is pretty accurate and the image is pretty stable, but the darn thing is too fuzzy to read a single word. I tried it on both my TVs with the same results. I am able to log in to my Myth box via VNC and run nvidia-settings utility to tweak the settings but none of them help much. I have read the nvidia README and there are tons of settings which I simply don't understand (interliasing,etc). I was hoping the settings would be correctly autodetected. Looks like not. Where do I start with this one? I don't see any threads dealing with this problem unless I'm searching with the wrong keywords. I'm running Mandriva 2006 with a GeForce4 MX 4000 running nvidia 1.0-7676 (just installed). My xorg.conf is pretty simple: Section "Device" Identifier "device1" VendorName "NVIDIA Corp." BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce4 (generic)" Driver "nvidia" BusID "PCI:1:7:0" Option "DPMS" # COMMENT THESE OUT IF USING REGULAR MONITOR Option "TVStandard" "NTSC-M" #Option "TVOutFormat" "SVIDEO" Option "TVOutFormat" "COMPOSITE" Option "ConnectedMonitor" "TV" EndSection Thanks! Charlie

All, Thanks for the replies, but it's still not working. My users (silent and sound-enabled) were only in their own self-named groups. I added my silent user to every group that looked multi-media friendly. A bit more info may help. The sound generally functions. For example, a tune plays when I play solitaire. However, I don't get any system sounds and I'm not able to play a CD. I used to get systems sounds on startup, system bells, etc. That all changed (I think) when I swapped out the motherboard and inadvertently left the integrated sound disabled on the board when I first booted up with the new board. I've since enabled the sound board and the other users work fine. Here's the id output for my silent user: uid=504(mythtv) gid=504(mythtv) groups=7(lp),19(floppy),22(cdrom),80(cdwriter),81(audio),82(video),504(mythtv) I appreciate the help, Charlie

Solved. The answer is to download from serialmonkey.com, not ralinktech. The serialmonkey install worked flawlessly.

I am able to play CDs and system sounds as one user, but neither works when I log in as a second user. Nothing appears to be muted for the silent user. When I play a CD as the silent user, I get the error: ksCD: CD-ROM read or access error (or no audio disk in drive) Please make sure you have access permissions to /dev/hdc. The same CD plays for my good user. By the way, the perms are the same for both (though the owner's different of course: brw-rw---- 1 mythtv cdrom 22, 0 Nov 14 08:40 hdc

I am trying to install the latest linux drivers for my ra2500 wireless card. (According to the sourceforge ndiswrapper HCL, ralink 2500 does not work correctly under ndiswrapper.) I downloaded and unpacked the code, but I can't seem to 'make' it. The README file says: ===================== Build Instructions: ==================== For 2.4 series kernel: a. $tar -xvzf RT2500-Linux-STA-x.x.x.x.tar.gz go to "./RT2500-Linux-STA-x.x.x.x/Module" directory. b. Use 'chmod 755' command to change access right of following script files : 'load', 'unload', 'Configure' c. run 'cp ./2.4.x/Makefile .' and 'cp ./2.4.x/load .' d. $make confimake: *** No rule to make target `config'. Stop.g # config build linux os version e. $make all # compile driver source code I have 2.6.12-12mdk, so I just changed 2.4 to 2.6. When I try 'make config', I get the error: make: *** No rule to make target `config'. Stop. I found another file in the Utilites subdirectory called How_To_Compile.txt, which says: How to compile ---------------------- This Configuration Utility Application was developed by Qt/X11 Free Edition. You can install the Qt/X11 Free Edition development when install the Linux OS by selecting the Qt/X11 development package or you can find it on Trolltech's website. http://www.trolltech.com/ ftp://ftp.trolltech.com/qt/source/qt-x11-free-3.2.1.tar.gz After install the package then follow the steps. 1.) qmake -o Makefile raconfig2500.pro 2.) make I have qmake installed, but I cannot get this to work either. Any help is much appreciated. Charlie

Ixthusdan, You answered my other post in Hardware re: "At a crossroads". I'm having ongoing system instability and I'm trying to systematically determine the problem. In answer to your question, I have 'waited it out' in the past, but this time it just never successfully stopped or restarted network services and eventually I couldn't even shut down. You mentioned in the other post that you thought my problems might be linked to a faulty southbridge or motherboard problem. Any thoughts on the best way to determine if hardware's the cause? Thanks very much, Charlie

I have having trouble with my wireless network connection and I'd like to see if you have some advice. I installed a MSI ra2500 PC54G2 Wireless card in my Mandriva 2006 PC. It was recognized by the system and the MCC wireless configuration worked just fine. I connected to my WEP-encrypted home network first time. (The service is ra0.) I figured I didn't need to do the ndiswrapper routine, which I've never done. Now I'm having some issues with wireless. First, the network icon in the toolbar doesn't correctly indicate the signal strength. It never changes. The iwconfig command doesn't ever change either. Most importantly, the connection has never stayed up for more than 8 hours. Sometimes, the service network restart command simply hangs and sometimes the entire system just hangs and needs to be rebooted. Questions: 1. Could wireless driver or board problems cause system freezes and crashes? 2. Wouid ndiswrapper solve the problems of dropped connections and inresponsive systems? Thanks, Charlie [moved from Software by spinynorman]

Update... I tried to restart my network services from the root prompt and the system hung trying to stop rao. I killed the process. I tried just doing service network start and the system hung again trying to load parameters. Finally I just typed reboot and the system was not able to reboot, it just hung there. I eventually just did the old Alt-SysReq-b, which worked. This sounds suspiciosly like the symptoms I've been seeing. Perhaps progress is being made and the wireless card is the culprit. I think I'll go back to my regular ethernet connection and re-run my test plan. If all goes well, guess I'll have to learn the ndiswrapper wireless installation instead of using the native raO drivers. I'll also post in the software section and see if people have had similar trouble with ra0. Thoughts? Charlie

I think I was on the wrong track here. The output of my lspci -v showed my video card with AGP in the description. The card and the slot are both PCI. I thought I might have selected an AGP driver by accident, which would have caused some wiggy behavior. However, I reinstalled the drivers, making sure it was a PCI driver, and the description still says AGP. I think its just an error in the text. My symptoms: the system simply will not go 24 hours without freezing up or crashing. Sometimes the system responds to Ctrl-Alt-F1. If not, I go through the Alt-SysReq series. The system only responds to the Alt-SysReq-b and reboots unhappily. Occasionally, the system will not even respond to the reboot command and I have to kill the power. As you can see from my original post, I have done a lot to the PC, so it's hard to tell what might have happened. Here's my plan (following advice given in this post -- thanks): 1. Boot in failsafe mode and run for 24 hours with the top command running. I was already doing this when I started the post - PASSED 2. Run init 3 to initiate networking and run the system overnight, again running the top command to keep things active. I also played around with lynx, and it worked fine - PASSED. The system passed the test, but my ra0 did lose its wireless connection. At some point I need to figure this one out as well. 3. I'll run memtest overnight just to elimate that as a cause. 4. If all goes well, it would seem to indicate video as the culprit. I may try running with my old video card to see if the system works properly and stays running for 24 hours. 5. If that works, I'll reinstall my new video card and start with the default nvidia driver and work my way up to nvidia 4. FYI, the only reason I need a new video card is the s-video out. If there was a way to have VGA out convert to RCA composite or s-video , I'd skip the new card altogether. That's the plan, which I'll adjust based on my progress and the kind insights from this crew. Thanks, Charlie

All, Thanks. I've actually been running the tops command all day in safe mode, so it looks like I'm on the right track. BTW.. I noticed something about my hardware config that seems off. My (attached) report shows: 01:07.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV18 [GeForce4 MX 4000 AGP 8x] (rev c1) (prog-if 00 [VGA]) Subsystem: XFX Pine Group Inc.: Unknown device 201f Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 9 Memory at fd000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) Memory at f0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) Expansion ROM at 80000000 [disabled] Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2 The board I installed is a XFX PVT98LQT Geforce MX4000 64MB 128-bit DDR PCI Video Card. I don't even have an AGP slot. Could this be it? I'll definitely run the video setup and verify everything. Thanks