HP2133 video problem: part of screen unseen

Errr, is there a bios setting about this? I seem to remember someone having a similar issue a few months ago!

Does the machine have a cd drive that would allow you to try a couple of other distro in a hunt for a working xorg.conf worth copying? Wolvix Hunter might be a good start?
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=wolvix

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

There is nothing in the machine BIOS (which has very few options).
I'll try with other distributions.
Many thanks.
Franco

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

Hello,

I have solved the problem with the following method. First I re-installed SLED linux (the auto-repair
disk wants all disk space and deletes any previous software!). Then I copied the xorg.conf file. Finally
I re-installed ubuntu 8.04 and used the xorg.conf file taken from SLED.

My netbook has a screen resolution 1024x600, and this xorg.conf file sets it right without the problem
of not seeing the entire screen. If someone else has the same problem and does not want to go
through all this... below is the xorg.conf given with SLED linux (pre-installed when buying it).

PLEASE: The new version of the wiki @ https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaptopTestingTeam/HP2133 mentions
a problem with Ubuntu 9.04 (for the same laptop) and indicates the following solution: "using openchrome and default xorg.conf". However I tried 9.04 as well before re-installing 8.04 and still
had video problems. It is not clear to me what it means by "using openchrome and default xorg.conf", can someone make it more clear? (maybe you mean using the default Ubuntu 9.04 configuration? in that case I only could get low resolution mode).

Many thanks,
Franco

---
xorg.conf to be used with Ubuntu 8.04 and HP2133 with 1024x600 screen resolution:

# /.../
# SaX generated X11 config file
# Created on: 2009-05-27T10:31:50+0200.
#
# Version: 7.1
# Contact: Marcus Schaefer <email address hidden>, 2005
# Contact: SaX-User list <https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/sax-users>
#
# Automatically generated by [ISaX] (7.1)
# PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE!
#

Section "Files"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/local"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/URW"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/PEX"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/latin2/misc:unscaled"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/latin2/75dpi:unscaled"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/latin2/100dpi:unscaled"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/latin2/Type1"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/latin7/75dpi:unscaled"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/baekmuk:unscaled"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/japanese:unscaled"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/kwintv"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/truetype"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/uni:unscaled"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/CID"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/ucs/misc:unscaled"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/ucs/75dpi:unscaled"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/ucs/100dpi:unscaled"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/hellas/misc:unscaled"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/hellas/75dpi:unscaled"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/hellas/100dpi:unscaled"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/hellas/Type1"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/sgi:unscaled"
  FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/xtest"
  FontPath "/opt/kde3/share/fonts"
  InputDevices "/dev/gpmdata"
  InputDevices "/dev/input/mice"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
  Option "AllowMouseOpenFail" "on"
EndSection

Section "Module"
  Load "type1"
  Load "dbe"
  Load "freetype"
  Load "glx"
  Load "v4l"
  Load "dri"
  Load "extmod"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
  Driver "kbd"
  Identifier "Keyboard[0]"
  Option "Protocol" "Standard"
  Option "XkbLayout" "it"
  Option "XkbModel" "pc102"
  Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
  Driver "mouse"
  Identifier "Mouse[1]"
  Option "Buttons" "5"
  Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
  Option "Name" "Logitech Optical USB Mouse"
  Option "Protocol" "explorerps/2"
  Option "Vendor" "Sysp"
  Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
  Driver "synaptics"
  Identifier "Mouse[3]"
  Option "Buttons" "5"
  Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
  Option "Emulate3Buttons" "on"
  Option "InputFashion" "Mouse"
  Option "Name" "Synaptics;Touchpad"
  Option "Protocol" "explorerps/2"
  Option "SHMConfig" "on"
  Option "Vendor" "Sysp"
  Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
  DisplaySize 195 113
  Identifier "Monitor[0]"
  ModelName "AUO LCD MONITOR"
  Option "DPMS"
  VendorName "AUO"
  UseModes "Modes[0]"
EndSection

Section "Modes"
  Identifier "Modes[0]"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
  DefaultDepth 24
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth 15
    Modes "1024x600"
  EndSubSection
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth 16
    Modes "1024x600"
  EndSubSection
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth 24
    Modes "1024x600"
  EndSubSection
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth 8
    Modes "1024x600"
  EndSubSection
  Device "Device[0]"
  Identifier "Screen[0]"
  Monitor "Monitor[0]"
EndSection

Section "Device"
  BoardName "Chrome9 HC IGP"
  BusID "1:0:0"
  Driver "via"
  Identifier "Device[0]"
  Option "NoDDCValue" "on"
  Option "PanelID" "17"
  Option "VideoOnDevice" "LCD"
  Option "DisplayHardwareLayout" "LCD"
  Option "ActiveDevice" "LCD,CRT"
  Option "ForceLCD" "on"
  VendorName "VIA Technologies, Inc."
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
  Identifier "Layout[all]"
  InputDevice "Keyboard[0]" "CoreKeyboard"
  InputDevice "Mouse[1]" "CorePointer"
  InputDevice "Mouse[3]" "SendCoreEvents"
  Option "Clone" "off"
  Option "Xinerama" "off"
  Screen "Screen[0]"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
    Group "video"
    Mode 0660
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
EndSection

Wow, thanks for getting back to us with that :)
Sadly the xorg.conf is often extremely specific to your unique hardware and often wont even work on another machine of the same make and model number :( As you can see from your xorg.conf it has sections for input devices such as keyboard, mouse (yours seems unusually advanced) 'pointing device' and in your xorg it is very specific about the monitor, usually this is just called "generic" but in yours it's "Auo Lcd Monitor" and has some very unusual settings. Even your "Screen" section looks a little unusual but this might be helpful for people to copy and modify for their own needs. The part that is most likely to be specific to your machine is the very unusual "Files" section which i've never seen before, usually that sort of thing is done through the "fstab" configuration file.

Although there's a lot of stuff in your xorg.conf that we couldn't realistically have known about it does look interesting and could give people pointers to things worth trying out in theirs. Really tho your method was the fastest! Usually i would try out a few LiveCds of various different distros, one from each family to start with, to find one that worked well enough to copy the auto-generated xorg.conf that gets written during the LiveCds hardware testing while it's booting up. Not much guarantee of success and although it's often the first other distro you try that works it sometimes isn't - so ultimately your technique was fastest because it was most likely to be successful! A lot of work though!

Nicely done! Congrats and regards from
Tom :)

Ps usually Ubuntu does get the xorg.conf right but not always

OpenChrome seems to be about specific drivers for "Via" chipsets
http://www.openchrome.org/trac/wiki/About

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OpenChrome

Hi, I'm not certain about my last reply but please could you mark this question as "Solved", but don't use the button under my answer to do so, there's a more appropriate button under where you type in comments normally. Note that it sends a standard response ignoring whatever you typed in that time. Marking this question as "Solved" will help people with the same problem in the future by adding the thread to the "Solved Answers Database", without marking it solved the thread will get deleted, and hence your work wasted :(

Thanks in advance :)
Regards from
Tom :)

Thanks, problem solved anyways

Thanks, nicely done :)
Congrats and regards from
Tom :)