Both monitors are set too low resolution when second monitor is attached from system start

[Hans Bakker]

Binary package hint: xorg

I have a laptop (Sony Vaio VGN-SR51MF/S) which I use together with an external monitor (Benq G2410HD). I'm running Kubuntu Lucid (development version, latest updates installed).
The video card is an Ati Monility Radeon 4530 HD; i'm using the xserver-xorg-video-ati drivers.

When looking at Screen settings, there is printed (Auto) after the correct native resolutions for both the laptop screen as the external monitor.

What the system does when booting while the HDMI cable is already connected and the external monitor is switched on, is that it enables the external monitor in clone mode (which is good), but it sets both displays to 1024x768. This resolution is lower than both the native resolution of my laptop (1280x800) and the native resolution of my external monitor (which is 1920x1080).

What I would expect that if the system can detect which resolution is the native resolution, it would enable clone mode and set the resolutions to the respective *native resolutions* instead of setting them both to 1024x768.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Jan 18 21:31:36 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha i386 (20091224)
MachineType: Sony Corporation VGN-SR51MF_S
Package: xorg 1:7.5+1ubuntu1
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-10-generic-pae root=UUID=64121d2a-192e-4c24-964d-d22b70db85f3 ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=nl_NL:nl
 LANG=nl_NL.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-10.14-generic-pae
RelatedPackageVersions:
 xserver-xorg 1:7.5+1ubuntu1
 libgl1-mesa-glx 7.7-0ubuntu6
 libdrm2 2.4.17-0ubuntu1
 xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.9.1-1ubuntu1
 xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.12.99+git20091125.0061c4db-0ubuntu2
SourcePackage: xorg
Tags: lucid
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-10-generic-pae i686
XorgConf: Error: [Errno 2] Bestand of map bestaat niet: '/etc/X11/xorg.conf'
dmi.bios.date: 08/05/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: R4090Y1
dmi.board.asset.tag: N/A
dmi.board.name: VAIO
dmi.board.vendor: Sony Corporation
dmi.board.version: N/A
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: N/A
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Sony Corporation
dmi.chassis.version: N/A
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvrR4090Y1:bd08/05/2009:svnSonyCorporation:pnVGN-SR51MF_S:pvrC6025431:rvnSonyCorporation:rnVAIO:rvrN/A:cvnSonyCorporation:ct10:cvrN/A:
dmi.product.name: VGN-SR51MF_S
dmi.product.version: C6025431
dmi.sys.vendor: Sony Corporation
fglrx: Not loaded
system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 architecture: i686kernel: 2.6.32-10-generic-pae

[Hans Bakker (hansmbakker)]

I have a laptop (Sony Vaio VGN-SR51MF/S) which I use together with an external monitor (Benq G2410HD). I'm running Kubuntu Lucid (development version, latest updates installed).
The video card is an Ati Monility Radeon 4530 HD; i'm using the xserver-xorg-video-ati drivers.

When looking at Screen settings, there is printed (Auto) after the correct native resolutions for both the laptop screen as the external monitor, so it can detect which settings are "preferred".

What the system does when booting while the HDMI cable is already connected and the external monitor is switched on, is that it enables the external monitor in clone mode (which is good), but it sets both displays to 1024x768. This resolution is lower than both the native resolution of my laptop (1280x800) and the native resolution of my external monitor (which is 1920x1080).

What I would expect that if the system can detect (which it can do) which resolution is the native resolution, it would enable clone mode and set the resolutions to the respective *native resolutions* instead of setting them both to 1024x768.

This bug was already filed as https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-ati/+bug/509329 on ubuntu launchpad.

[randallw (rwayth)]

I have an identical problem with a laptop with a radeon xpress 200M graphics card running lucid using the radeon driver. The system boots to 1024x768 on both screens. Trying to change the screen settings with the gnome-display-properties applet allows you to put the laptop screen to native resolution, but trying to change the settings of either the laptop or external screen to anything other than 1024x768 makes the external screen go blank. (and it flashes up "no signal")

xrandr also reports that the external screen native resolution is 1360x768 (60Hz), but trying to set this resolution manually with xrandr results in the same blank screen and "no signal" message.

I also booted into Windoze and the laptop and external monitor work fine both at native resolution.

I'm happy to provide debugging info if requested.

[randallw (rwayth)]

Hi,
After updating my lucid laptop tonight (37 days since last update), this problem has magically fixed itself for me. I note that some of the packages in the update were xorg packages and there was a kernel bump also. Whatever it was, now works perfectly thanks.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Hans Bakker, this bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? If so, could you please test for this with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ .

If it remains an issue, could you please run the following command in the development release from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal), as it will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report:

apport-collect -p xserver-xorg-video-ati REPLACE-WITH-BUG-NUMBER

Please note, given that the information from the prior release is already available, doing this on a release prior to the development one would not be helpful.

Thank you for your understanding.

Helpful bug reporting tips:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs

[Ajax-a (ajax-a)]

(In reply to comment #0)

> What I would expect that if the system can detect (which it can do) which
> resolution is the native resolution, it would enable clone mode and set the
> resolutions to the respective *native resolutions* instead of setting them
> both to 1024x768.

That's nonsensical. "Clone" means identical.

We did actually try doing something like this at one point, where we'd set all the outputs to their native resolutions, overlapping, with their top-left corners aligned. Turns out that's a worse solution because desktop UI elements like panels get either placed in the middle of the screen (if you align them to the smaller screen) or only visible on one screen and not the other (if you align them to the larger). And people hated that, and rightly so, so now we pick the largest mode supported on both.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

As per https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=27651#c1 .