Ubuntu

Intel 945GM Graphics Card -- Loads of Problems!

Asked by Tyler Menezes

I'm having loads of problems getting my Intel 945GM graphics card to work with the 8.04 (LTS) release of Ubuntu. To start with, when I first install Ubuntu or boot from the Live CD, only the laptop's screen is on. I can go into "Screen Resolution" and try to change that, but that's not all that helpful, either. It only shows one monitor, "Unknown Monitor" which, when clicked upon, suddenly shows two monitors.

At this point no matter what changes I make, I always end up with "Clone Screen" being turned on. Even "Restore Previous Settings" leaves it on. And Clone Screen, though it actually does clone the screen, messes it up even more. When I first boot, the laptop screen is set to what looks like (from my experience in Windows) 1024x768. At this point the laptop screen is still set to this resolution, but the top and bottom bars only fill about 80% of the vertical space on the screen. Additionally, the bottom bar is about 50-100px above the bottom of the screen. The desktop background still fills the entire screen. The main monitor is worse. The resolution it's set at (according to the Screen Resolution app, 800x600, but this is not accurate) distorts everything. Aside from the horizontal res being too high for the vertical (thus a 100x100 icon looks more like 75x100) the top left corner of the screen is about 200 px too high and 200px too far left. There is also a black bar on the right side where nothing is visible.

I should also mention that I have the ability to connect a TV via S-Video which is usually connected, but for the most part this hasn't changed anything here whether it's connected or not. I haven't been able to get anything to display on there at all, though it's not too important to me.

So, obviously, I Googled "Intel 945GM in Ubuntu". In a previous release of Ubuntu (not beta, but not LTS either) I had installed about a month ago, this card worked fine. I needed one tweak in my xorg.conf file, I believe it was something along the lines of "Virtual 1280 1024". However none of these tweaks worked. I've installed the Intel graphics drivers as specified on a post on the Ubuntu forums, and in the "Screens and Graphics" app (why has that been hidden in Applications->Other?) I can select the Intel graphics drivers for my card. This is fine, but it doesn't do anything for the Screen Resolution app, and any other changes I make in Screens and Graphics end out putting Ubuntu in Low Graphics mode (which disables the laptop screen and makes my main screen act normal, but with a max resolution of 640x480, as well as changing the keyboard layout from Dvorak to US Standard, which makes it harder to type).

The best I've been able to get so far, with a completely rewritten xorg.conf which I found in a post on the Ubuntu Forums, is true 800x600 on my main screen and nothing on my laptop. Better, but my screen supports up to 1280x1024 and 800x600, by comparison, is really low. I'll post the xorg.conf file at the end.

One solution (not really a solution, actually) I've been using for the moment is to use URandR, a program I found on the internet. It's allowed me to get up to 1024x768. Better than 800x600, but everything is still too big for my liking and I've gotten it higher in Ubuntu before. Also, this is cleared every time X restarts (logoff, reboot, etc), so it's clearly not a very good solution.

Does anyone have anything that might fix this? I mean, it's sort-of worked before in earlier releases of Ubuntu (sorry, I don't have that disk anymore so I don't know the release number). I believe Intel even releases code for their drivers, so I find it hard to believe that after 3+ hours of research on the internet I still can't get it to work. I'm not new to computers, either, though I'm newer to Linux (still about a year or so of on-and-off experience). I can't even imagine what an average home user would think of Linux/Ubuntu after going through this, so I think this is something that should really be looked at and fixed in future releases of Ubuntu.

Thanks,
Tyler

-------- xorg.conf --------
Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
 Driver "kbd"
 Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
 Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
 Option "XkbLayout" "us"
 Option "XkbVariant" "dvorak"
 Option "XkbOptions" "lv3:ralt_switch"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier "Configured Mouse"
 Driver "mouse"
 Option "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
 Driver "synaptics"
 Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
 Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
 Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
 Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
 Identifier "Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ Integrated Graphics Controller"
 Boardname "intel"
 Busid "PCI:0:2:0"
 Driver "intel"
 Screen 0
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
 Identifier "SyncMaster"
 Vendorname "Plug 'n' Play"
 Modelname "Plug 'n' Play"
  modeline "640x480@60" 25.2 640 656 752 800 480 490 492 525 -vsync -hsync
 Gamma 1.0
EndSection

Section "Screen"
 Identifier "Default Screen"
 Device "Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ Integrated Graphics Controller"
 Monitor "SyncMaster"
 Defaultdepth 24
 SubSection "Display"
  Depth 24
  Virtual 640 480
  Modes "640x480@60"
 EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
 Identifier "Default Layout"
  screen 0 "screen1" 0 0
 Inputdevice "Synaptics Touchpad"
EndSection
Section "Module"
 Load "glx"
 Load "GLcore"
 Load "v4l"
EndSection
Section "device" #
 Identifier "device1"
 Boardname "intel"
 Busid "PCI:0:2:0"
 Driver "intel"
 Screen 1
EndSection
Section "screen" #
 Identifier "screen1"
 Device "device1"
 Defaultdepth 24
 Monitor "monitor1"
 SubSection "Display"
  Depth 24
  Modes "1280x1024@60" "1280x960@75" "1280x960@60" "1400x1050@60" "1280x1024@75" "1400x1050@75" "1152x864@75" "1600x1200@65" "1024x768@60" "1600x1200@60" "1024x768@70" "1792x1344@60" "1024x768@75" "832x624@75" "800x600@60" "800x600@75" "800x600@72" "800x600@56" "640x480@75" "640x480@72" "640x480@60"
 EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "monitor" #
 Identifier "monitor1"
 Vendorname "Acer"
 Modelname "Acer AL1716V"
 Horizsync 30.0-83.0
 Vertrefresh 55.0-75.0
  modeline "640x480@60" 25.2 640 656 752 800 480 490 492 525 -vsync -hsync
  modeline "640x480@72" 31.5 640 664 704 832 480 489 491 520 -vsync -hsync
  modeline "640x480@75" 31.5 640 656 720 840 480 481 484 500 -vsync -hsync
  modeline "800x600@56" 36.0 800 824 896 1024 600 601 603 625 +hsync +vsync
  modeline "800x600@72" 50.0 800 856 976 1040 600 637 643 666 +hsync +vsync
  modeline "800x600@75" 49.5 800 816 896 1056 600 601 604 625 +hsync +vsync
  modeline "800x600@60" 40.0 800 840 968 1056 600 601 605 628 +hsync +vsync
  modeline "832x624@75" 57.284 832 864 928 1152 624 625 628 667 -vsync -hsync
  modeline "1024x768@75" 78.8 1024 1040 1136 1312 768 769 772 800 +hsync +vsync
  modeline "1024x768@70" 75.0 1024 1048 1184 1328 768 771 777 806 -vsync -hsync
  modeline "1024x768@60" 65.0 1024 1048 1184 1344 768 771 777 806 -vsync -hsync
  modeline "1152x864@75" 108.0 1152 1216 1344 1600 864 865 868 900 +hsync +vsync
  modeline "1280x1024@75" 135.0 1280 1296 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066 +hsync +vsync
  modeline "1280x960@60" 102.1 1280 1360 1496 1712 960 961 964 994 -hsync +vsync
  modeline "1280x1024@60" 108.0 1280 1328 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066 +hsync +vsync
  modeline "1280x960@75" 129.86 1280 1368 1504 1728 960 961 964 1002 -hsync +vsync
  modeline "1400x1050@60" 122.61 1400 1488 1640 1880 1050 1051 1054 1087 -hsync +vsync
  modeline "1400x1050@75" 155.85 1400 1496 1648 1896 1050 1051 1054 1096 -hsync +vsync
  modeline "1600x1200@65" 175.5 1600 1664 1856 2160 1200 1201 1204 1250 +hsync +vsync
  modeline "1600x1200@60" 162.0 1600 1664 1856 2160 1200 1201 1204 1250 +hsync +vsync
  modeline "1792x1344@60" 204.8 1792 1920 2120 2448 1344 1345 1348 1394 -hsync +vsync
 Gamma 1.0
EndSection
Section "ServerFlags"
EndSection

-----------------

-------- Output of sudo lshw -C display --------
   *-display:0 UNCLAIMED
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 03
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list
       configuration: latency=0
  *-display:1 UNCLAIMED
       description: Display controller
       product: Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2.1
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.1
       version: 03
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list
       configuration: latency=0

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Expired
For:
Ubuntu Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Last query:
Last reply:
Revision history for this message
marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said : 		#1

Try to use displayconfig-gtk: Simple gtk tool to change xserver settings like graphics card driver or monitor.

-- Please open a Terminal from the menu Applications->Accessories->Terminal and type or better copy and paste:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get-dist upgrade
sudo apt-get install displayconfig-gtk

-- give your user password when requested, you don't see nothing when you type it, then press enter.

Then to configure your monitor resolution:

sudo displayconfig-gtk

then try to select and configure your monitor from the list or try to define your monitor by putting the inf file take from xp driver cd or floppy or from the net

Reboot your pc.

Then go to menu System->Preferences->Screen resolution to try to get high screen resolution setup

hope this helps

Revision history for this message
Tyler Menezes (tylermenezes) said : 		#2

`sudo displayconfig-gtk` is the same application as "Screens and Graphics", which I mentioned trying in my original post (I found out it's hidden in the Applications->Other section of the menu in the LTS release). I'll try the update, upgrade, -dist upgrade and see if that makes any difference, hang on.

Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) said : 		#3

This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state without activity for the last 15 days.