Dell Inspiron 8200 Nvidia proprietary driver causes display errors (vertical lines on the right, and mirror effect on the bottom)[Workaround Available]

[Loïc Martin]

Using nvidia proprietary driver on a Dell Inspiron 8200 with a Samsung 1600x1200 screen, the desktop is only shown on about the top left 4/5 of the screen, with multicolor vertical lines on the right and a mirror of the top part of the desktop at the bottom of the screen. The desktop is shown in full, only it's shrinked to 4/5 of its size.

Using the free nv driver, everything is ok except I'd be happy if it was snappier :)

[Workaround]
See comment #4 to set a customized edid

[Loïc Martin (loic-martin3)]

The problem is a well known bug affecting some Dell Latitude and Inspiron Models equipped with a particular model of UXGA UltraSharp TFT manufactured by Samsung (see post #6 of http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=57300)

[Loïc Martin (loic-martin3)]

To fix this if you have that problem :
- install nvidia proprietary drivers;
- enable them by running
sudo nvidia-glx-config enable

- edit /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-kernel-nkc (or create a file in /etc/modprobe.d/ and add the line :
options nvidia NVreg_Mobile=0 NVreg_ModifyDeviceFiles=0

- edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf and add this line in the section "Device" (which should have "nvidia" already set in Driver instead of "nv")
 Option "IgnoreEDID" "true"

While you're at it you can add :
 Option "UseEdidDpi" "false"
 Option "Dpi" "135 x 135"

In the same place. However, if you're using Gnome, you'll have to specify that again in System>Preferences>Font>Details.

[Loïc Martin (loic-martin3)]

Same problem using Dapper 05/23 Live CD Daily Build, same solution.

[Loïc Martin (loic-martin3)]

In Feisty, with NVidia 9631 driver, the solution is different.

Here is an extract of http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=79650&page=2 (I've attached the file, don't forget to put it in /etc/X11/ ). Note the 2 relevant lines are
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "DFP-0"
Option "CustomEDID" "DFP-0:/etc/X11/nvnew.raw"

"I was having the same problems with my Dell c840 as reported by a lot of people in this forum (display corruption due to an incorrect EDID). After banging my head against the wall for two nights straight, I did some reading and created a new EDID file.

I took the existing EDID from nvidia-settings and loaded it up in the phoenix EDID editor. Phoenix is a simple freeware Windows app, but it worked just fine in wine. It's not the most intuitive app around, but it got the job done. I used the nv-driver Modeline as the basis for my changes, exported as raw, and now x.org works perfectly.

My Fedora Core 6 xorg.conf contains only two extra directives:
Code:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "true"
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "DFP-0"
Option "CustomEDID" "DFP-0:/etc/X11/nvnew.raw"
EndSection

X.org 7.1 is sweeeeet. Anyway, I hope the attached EDID file can be of use."

[it.henrik (it-trash)]

Problem still present in Hardy beta on DELL c840

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Tracking the progress on Hardy. There won't be any updates to older releases.

[Michael Gilbert (michael-s-gilbert)]

The solutions posted here are overkill. The only change needed is:

Option "UseDisplayDevice" "DFP"

in the "Device" section of xorg.conf. The problem is that the 96xx drivers output to the VGA port, and this setting forces it to output to the LCD instead. Ubuntu devs, can you talk to nvidia about fixing the problem? Or can you modify the scripts so that the default output for geforce 420/440 go cards is the LCD?

[Michael Gilbert (michael-s-gilbert)]

BTW, this is debian bug #431811 (http://bugs.debian.org/431811).

I submitted it almost a year ago, and nothing has been done. I'm hoping that the ubuntu community and developers are more proactive.

[Loïc Martin (loic-martin3)]

Michael, I can assure you

Option "UseDisplayDevice" "DFP"

is not enough on these buggy laptops. The solution you propose is indeed a valid one for a lot of nVidia devices (I use it on another machine with an nVidia chipset + graphic card, and indeed it's the only fix needed), but in the case of these laptops produced with a buggy Samsung LCD, it's not enough. Please read the thread carefully and the description at http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=57300 , then make sure you have the same laptop with the same LCD (Dell has used different LCD maker for this model, not just different resolutions).

If you read this bug report again, you'll notice that the nVidia drivers outputs to the right screen, but part of the screen is garbled. Even not knowing about the buggy LCD, you can see it's not the same problem (the Option "UseDisplayDevice" "DFP" is used when there's no output at all to the desired screen)

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hi loic-martin3,

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue for you? Can you try with the latest development release of Ubuntu? (ISOs are available from cdimage.ubuntu.com)

If it remains an issue, could you also attach a new /var/log/Xorg.0.log?
Thanks in advance.

The output of lspci -vvnn would also be worth having.

[Loïc Martin (loic-martin3)]

Hi,
I've been doing Intrepid testing on a desktop, since the laptop is too slow to be convenient. The issue is still there in Hardy, I'll test an Intrepid Live CD soon to confirm and attach everything, but it should still be there. I'll upgrade the hw install to Intrepid on launch date.

[pdqbach2005 (webweberweb)]

Many, many thanks, after one year of trying and failing, this post helped me to get full 3d with Intrepid, dell and geforce440 go.

[Loïc Martin (loic-martin3)]

 pdqbach2005, I actually haven't upgraded the laptop because at launch date Ubuntu didn't offer nvidia proprietary drivers for the geforce440 go series.

Were you able to install nvidia drivers from the default Hardware Drivers in System>Administration? If so I'll install Intrepid on the Laptop and give the results for the tests Bryce is suggesting.

Thanks.

[pdqbach2005 (webweberweb)]

Yes, I didn't manage to activate 3D-Acceleratian with HardyHeron either, so I decided to install intrepid. Using this forum I edited the xorg.conf and everything is working fine. I installed the Nvidia drivers via Packetmanager, actually there is 96.43.09 running.

[pdqbach2005 (webweberweb)]

Just for the records, I upgraded to Jaunty jackalope, and everything is still working, nvnew.raw is very useful, I love it! I wasn't able to use the new 96.43.11, but 96.43.10 is working properly.

[Stafford Ritchie (sleepyastronaut)]

Another thumbs up for <email address hidden> 's custom EDID for the Dell Inspiron 8200!

Using a lucid lynx 10.04 LTS, encountered black screen on boot after activating the nvidia accelerated graphics driver (version 96) from the "hardware drivers" panel.

Resolved by downloading kelvin's custom EDID and adding the following to an empty xorg.conf:
Section "Device"
    Identifier "Videocard0"
    Driver "nvidia"
    Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "true"
    Option "UseDisplayDevice" "DFP-0"
    Option "CustomEDID" "DFP-0:/etc/X11/nvnew.raw"
EndSection

Reboot, then install nvidia-96 from synaptic package manager, not from "hardware drivers" panel.
Reboot, accelerated graphics driver works at 1600x1200. Added option lines back into new xorg.conf to be sure.

RE: kelvin's original post http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=01b4dfe277db5fe8829dea65591c6b49&t=79650&page=3
and these theads at ubuntu forums
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=666478
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766227

<email address hidden> 's custom EDID attached.

Best wishes!

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Thanks for posting a way to fix the issue manually.

Unfortunately, currently we do not have an infrastructure for dynamically replacing the EDID, so since this is a replacement edid file rather than an actual patch, I'm unmarking it as a solution to the bug.

However, I think this is a good example of the type of issue discussed for addressing as part of the "hardware-desktop-n-xorg-configuration-the-final-ten-percent" specification, so I've linked it from there. Basically, we need a user-friendly mechanism for editing/overriding EDID's where the monitor is supplying a bad EDID. In some cases we can quirk around it in the kernel driver, but obviously with nvidia being closed source that's not possible.

But this bug report demonstrates that given a proper replacement EDID file, it can be overridden for -nvidia in xorg.conf. So perhaps this functionality could be incorporated into nvidia-config, xdiagnose, or some other utility as appropriate.

The question then becomes, how to generate the replacement EDID. In the original forum post referenced here, the contributor used a Windows utility called Phoenix(?) to generate it. I don't think we have an equivalent tool on linux, although we do have tools to decode EDID in the form of read-edid and edid-decode (which I've just uploaded to universe today). Presumably it would be feasible to create an edid encoding tool by essentially inverting the decoder logic.

[Mike Ferreira (mafoelffen)]

Just saw this bug while researching another problem... Reference the question in #17, I recommend to others both the get-edid of package read-edid to get the EDID of a display using the coomand line...

" get-edid > edid1.bin "

...or if they can get gnome to display, using nvidia-settings to generate it (in NVidia XServer Settings > Device > Display > Acquire EDID )

Current problem / limitation) with get-edid is that it will only read the "first" display and not of any multilples beyond that. The author of the read-edid ipackage s working on expanding that. "nvidia-settings" will get the EDID of displays past the first, but needs to be running in gnome to be able to run.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Loïc Martin, thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu. Intrepid reached EOL on April 30, 2010.
See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

Is this an issue in a supported release? If so, could you please execute the following command, as it will automatically gather debugging information, in a terminal:
apport-collect 33075

Please ensure you have xdiagnose installed, and that you click the Yes button for attaching additional debugging information.