Dell 700m 1280x800

[Dejan Lesjak]

On Wednesday 30 of March 2005 20:32, Andrew Marks wrote:
> Just got a blank screen with that one.  I installed i855vidctl, but
> the video modes in the output are not correct.  I browsed throught the
> source, and thougt if I could find  out how the video modes are stored
> in the vbios, I could alter i855vidctl to work with my vbios, which it
> doesn't seem to do right now.  I found some intel docs on the
> 855GM/GME, (I have the GME) but I didn't find anything about the
> layout of the vbios memory.  The reason I bring this up is because my
> vbios does not have the 1280x800 mode in it, and I am not expert, but
> I assume that that has to be in there before Xorg can take advantage
> of that mode.  Correct me if I am wrong, but would the frist step be
> to add the 1280x800 mode to my video bios somehow?  and if so, where
> can I get the documentation for interfacing with my video bios.  If
> not, and Xorg can use resolutions that are not in the video bios, what
> do I have to do go get those to work?

Unfortunately, yes: X can only do modes that video bios support. There are a 
couple of pages that talk about this problem with Intel graphics chips. I 
don't have Intel graphics so I haven't tried them. First thing you might try 
is to see if Dell has issued a bios upgrade - it appears that at least for 
some laptops BIOS upgrade included modes for video BIOS. And here are some 
links in no particular order:
http://www.chzsoft.com.ar/855patch.html
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/apoirier/
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/linux/fc1_intel_video_fix.htm


Dejan