dual monitor setup with xinerama & i810 stopped working in Edgy

[CTW]

After upgrading to Edgy my dual monitor setup stopped working even though I used the same xorg.conf file. I have an HP Pavlion DV1000 series laptop with in integrated Intel Centrino graphics chip and am trying to get an external Dell 2407 WFP LCD display to work (it worked under Dapper). I am getting strange artifacts on the external display (e.g., background is not redrawn when a window is moved there, a window always needs to remain partly on the internal LCD screen). I have never gotten the native 1920x1200 resolution of the external monitor to work, but under Dapper at least 1280x1024 worked (the picture was a bit streched, because of the different aspect ratio, but better than nothing). Ideally I would like to get the native 1920x1200 or another widescreen resolution working (any resolution higher than 1280x1024 results in a message from the monitor that it is being driven outside of its safe range and to "reduce" the resolution to 1920x1200 @ 60Hz), but I'd also be happy with restoring the functionality of the 1280x1024 that I used in Dapper. I have tried a lot of thing to get it to work (including the commented out lines in the xorg.conf), but to no avail. I'd really appreciate if this got fixed or any pointers to how I might be able to fix it myself.

I am attaching the warnings and errors of the Xorg.0.log file and the output of 915resolution. I am happy to provide the full log file, xorg.conf or any other information that might help to diagnose or fix the bug.

$cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep "(WW)"
        (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/TTF/" does not exist.
(WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/OTF" does not exist.
(WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/CID/" does not exist.
(WW) I810: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:0:2:1) found
(WW) I810(0): Bad V_BIOS checksum
(WW) I810(0): Invalid Monitor type specified for Pipe B
(WW) I810(0): Bad V_BIOS checksum
(WW) I810(1): Detected stolen memory (7872 kB) doesn't match what the BIOS reports (12288 kB)
(WW) I810(1): config file hsync range 28-33kHz not within DDC hsync range 30-83kHz
(WW) I810(1): config file vrefresh range 43-72Hz not within DDC vrefresh range 56-76Hz
*(WW) (1600x1200,CRT) mode clock 175.5MHz exceeds DDC maximum 170MHz
(WW) (1600x1200,CRT) mode clock 189MHz exceeds DDC maximum 170MHz
(WW) (1600x1200,CRT) mode clock 202.5MHz exceeds DDC maximum 170MHz
(WW) (1600x1200,CRT) mode clock 229.5MHz exceeds DDC maximum 170MHz
(WW) I810(0): Bad V_BIOS checksum
(WW) I810(0): xf86AllocateGARTMemory: allocation of 16 pages failed
(WW) I810(0): xf86AllocateGARTMemory: allocation of 16 pages failed
(WW) I810(0): Direct rendering is not supported when Xinerama is enabled
(WW) I810(0): xf86AllocateGARTMemory: allocation of 1505 pages failed
(WW) I810(0): Extended BIOS function 0x5f05 failed.
(WW) I810(0): Correcting plane B stride (640 -> 1280)
(WW) I810(1): Extended BIOS function 0x5f28 failed.
$ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep "(EE)"
        (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(EE) I810(0): [dri] DRIScreenInit failed. Disabling DRI.
(EE) AIGLX: Screen 0 is not DRI capable
(EE) AIGLX: Screen 1 is not DRI capable

$sudo 915resolution -l
Intel 800/900 Series VBIOS Hack : version 0.5.2

Chipset: 915GM
BIOS: TYPE 1
Mode Table Offset: $C0000 + $269
Mode Table Entries: 36

Mode 30 : 640x480, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 32 : 800x600, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 34 : 1024x768, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 38 : 1280x1024, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 3a : 1600x1200, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 3c : 1280x768, 8 bits/pixel
Mode 41 : 640x480, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 43 : 800x600, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 45 : 1024x768, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 49 : 1280x1024, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 4b : 1600x1200, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 4d : 1280x768, 16 bits/pixel
Mode 50 : 640x480, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 52 : 800x600, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 54 : 1024x768, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 58 : 1280x1024, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 5a : 1600x1200, 32 bits/pixel
Mode 5c : 1280x768, 32 bits/pixel

[arild (info-abergh)]

I can confirm exactly the same behaviour after upgrading from Dapper to Edgy. I'm on a Sony Vaio with i810 graphics chip and integrated. It worked fine in Dapper.

The 2 main problems are no redrawing of the desktop or taskbar on the external screen, and windows can no longer be moved freely from the laptop screen to the desktop screen. I also experience crashes/freezes that did not occur before.

I have solved this temporarily by setting Xinerama "Off" in the corg.conf file, this leaves me with a workable 2 screen solution, but windows cannot be moved between the screens.

I'm attaching my working xorg.conf

[CTW (ctw)]

I also needed to turn off Xinerama to make use of both screens. Beside the obviously lacking xinerama functionality, I also noticed that the Xserver crashes easily (e.g., when a graphically demanding program such as a video player or Google earth) is started. I never had any issues with the Xserver crashing in Dapper.

[discord (colin.williams)]

dual monitor setup with xinerama or mergedfb & i945 stopped working in Edgy

When I get dual monitors working with xinerama or mergedfb ubuntu crashes. X-screensaver will crash

[CTW (ctw)]

This problem persists in Feisty Herd 5. It is very annoying, especially since it used to work in Dapper. Any chance that this might get fixed before the final release of Feisty. I would really like to be able to be able to enable xinerama and to move windows between screens.

[arild (info-abergh)]

Still a problem in 7.04 beta, however, someone seems to have diagnosed it to be in the window manager, see bug 89845

[CTW (ctw)]

Using a different window manager does improve things a bit. I used openbox and was able to move the windows around everywhere. However, the background and the task bar still was screwed up. Also, I can notice some artifacts in the KDE start-up splash screen when xinerama is enabled. So it seems that the window manager is not the only problem. Because everything (except draging windows between screens) works when xinerama is disabled, but it is a pain to have two separate X servers running. Unfortunately the problem persists in the beta version of Feisty.

[Jake Nelson (jake-nelson)]

I can confirm this same problem.

Kwin is unable to drag a window onto my secondary screen. If I kill kwin and start xfwm4 I am able to drag windows back and forth without an issue.

With xfwm4 running though, the background on the secondary screen never draws and eventually the entire screen becomes black.

Neither of my panels which claim to extend onto the second desktop do either.

If i set a panel to be drawn on only the second desktop it disappears completely from both screens.

I'm using the Quake-style console Yakuake. Previously it was set to show from the top down in the middle of my second screen. Now i see a tiny 1 pixel sliver of it on the left side of the second screen.

Another problem exists when anything that is in the notification area (Kopete or Kmail) is moved to the second desktop (using xfwm4). If you minimize the program to the notification area and click the icon it reappears always attached to the far left of the screen and always greatly reduced in width.

Maximizing any window on the second desktop also shows the same behavior where (depending on the program) the maximized widow is full height of the screen but only 100-200 pixels wide.

This sums up all the manifestations of this bug I experience currently.

[Jake Nelson (jake-nelson)]

Ignore my above comment. My problem was an issue with nvidia-glx support dropping for my card with new drivers. And turns out KDE's System control for multidesktop screwed up my config

Solution if you have the above problems I listed is to delete the files in .kde which are causing the misconfiguration. my xorg.conf file was fine.

.kde is very full of files and i didn't have anything in there i needed too much so i deleted the entire folder and next time i logged in the problem was gone. I did have to reconfigure all my stuff though

[CTW (ctw)]

Deleting the .kde folder solved the problem for me, too. I was very surprised that this worked, but the problem indeed seems to stem from some faulty configuration file in .kde. I've saved the old .kde folder and am happy to investigate further if somebody is interested in publishing a more elegant fix (obviously many settings get lost when .kde is deleted).

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Can someone elaborate on what the correct fix should be for this one, or if the work-arounds listed above are sufficient?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for xorg (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]