question about my new Dell 3010

[Gary Kline]

On Sun, Dec 09, 2012 at 08:38:06AM +0000, Matthew Seaman wrote:
> On 09/12/2012 00:23, Gary Kline wrote:
> 
> > 	one of the remaining problems --hopefuully the Last-- with my 
> > 	Dell 3010 quad i5 is that the resolution stops at 5:4.  it's
> > 	something like 1280x1014 whereas my widescreen Dell needs
> > 	1920x1280 or close to that.  do I need to go out and find a
> > 	videocard?  or is there a way of taking my 6GB of RAM and giving 
> > 	it to the video?
> 
> Do you have a DVI connector on your current graphics card, or just the
> old style VGA connector?  Pretty much all modern widescreen monitors
> will have a DVI connector as well as the legacy VGA.

	actually, I have both.  the KVM dates from 2010 and came with
	four cables and eight plugs.  

> If you don't know what those are, see this page:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DVI_Connector_Types.svg
> 
> Most DVI monitor cables have a DVI-D dual link plug on them, but
> anything matching those patterns is proof positive of DVI.
> 
> VGA connectors looks like this:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vga-cable.jpg
> 
> Anyhow, the point is if you're using a DVI connector, X will be able to
> query the monitor and find out its preferred resolution etc.
> automatically.  Whereas with a VGA connector, it will default to using
> one of the standard VGA series of resolutions.  All monitors will
> support some sort of VGA resolution for backwards compatibility --
> typically 1024x768 at 60Hz -- and many will support higher, but all of the
> VGA series resolutions are 4:3 aspect ratio which doesn't look very nice
> on a widescreen monitor.
> 
> There's two ways to fix the problem.
> 
>   1) Get a video card with a DVI connector, or at least a DVI-to-DVI
>      monitor cable if your card already has that.  Apart from the
>      hassle of getting a new video card that will work happily with X,
>      this should be pretty painfree.
> 
>   2) Edit your Xorg.conf to add a custom mode that matches what your
>      monitor expects.  Back in the days of CRTs this was a potentially
>      risky thing to do, as configuring the video mode wrongly could
>      phsically damage your monitor.  Modern flatscreens however will
>      just put up a message saying the input is incompatible.
> 
> Working out what the right parameters are to put in the mode definition
> is the tricky bit.  You may be able to use xrandr to pull them out (but
> if xrandr could do it, then X would do it automatically too...) There
> should be documentation that comes with the monitor, or you may find a
> kind soul online with the same make and model of monitor who will send
> you some xrandr output.


	here's the Whole story.  last summer I dedided to switch to 
	all linux`in order to make upgrades simple[r].  since my brother
	engineer [a retired ME] was too ill to help i hired a technician.

	my "old-tao" (a homebrew AMD quad-CPU) had a broken USB. 
	this was how I realized that the USB was broken.  with a new KVM
	the home-brew still failed.  I could ssh to<-> from, but not
	watch it boot.
	
	So
	I finally
	decided it was time to buys another Dell, new.  somebody gave me
	a used Dell dual.  my server is  a new dual from '09.  used and 
	refurb'd and home-brew is not the optimal way.  so my tech said 
	he would look for the best Dell quad he could find, and after 6
	weeeks he brought over the 3010.  [fact: this chap is self-taught.
	but he got me a new kvm and blindly pluged things together.]]

	whether the 3010 has ye-olden VGA jack =plus= the DVI, I dont 
	know.  my guess is that the technician knows the diff.  nutshell,
	looks like whatever ghaphic chipset the computer had maxes out
	a 5:4 screen-size ratio.  I =will= try adding the mode line info.

	thanks,

	gary



> 	Cheers,
> 
> 	Matthew
> 
> -- 
> Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.
> PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey
> 
> 



-- 
 Gary Kline  kline at thought.org  http://www.thought.org  Public Service Unix
              Twenty-six years of service to the Unix community.