Hello, Back in February, I sent the email copied below to the list. I didn't get a response back (cf. the Dead Thread discussion), and I was not able to find the source of the problem. Since then, I have updated to SuSE 8.0 Pro, and the problem has gotten worse. Whereas before whatever is wrong only prevented my monitor from going into standby mode, the situation now is that once I leave an X session, the screen is completely blank except for the monitor's error message "Ivalid scan freq." To logout, I have to blindly type 'logout'. When I log in, I have to blindly type my login and password and then 'startx'. Once X launches, the monitor performs normally. I am convinced that this has something to do with X and, possibly, KDE. (I am using KDE 3.x now. With my earlier 7.3 setup I was using KDE 2.x.) When I first boot, the console comes up normally (although since the update the font changed on its own somehow and is not what I had set it to) with an 80x25 console. It is only after I have had an X session of a half hour or longer, that the console disappears after exiting X. My video card is a Diamond Viper V550 and the monitor is a 19" Cornerstone Color 45/101sf with a horizontal sync of 31-101kHz and a vertical sync of 50-160 Hz. When I switch into X, the monitor shows 91kHz/85Hz with the dimensions 1280x1024 and a resolution of 90x96 dpi. In the applicable part of /etc/lilo.conf, it looks like this: boot = /dev/hdc5 vga = normal read-only menu-scheme = Wg:kw:Wg:Wg lba32 prompt timeout = 80 # message = /boot/message image = /boot/vmlinuz label = linux root = /dev/hdc7 initrd = /boot/initrd append = "enableapic hdb=ide-scsi" Here are the settings in /etc/sysconfig/console: CONSOLE_FONT="lat1-16.psfu" CONSOLE_SCREENMAP="none" CONSOLE_UNICODEMAP="" CONSOLE_MAGIC="(B" FB_MODULES="" FBSET_PARAMS="" CONSOLE_ENCODING="ISO-8859-1" SVGATEXTMODE="80x25" What suggestions can you offer? Cheers, Sean On Monday 18 February 2002 13:30, Theo.Sean Schulze wrote:

Hello,

I have just recently done a fresh install of SuSE Professional 7.3. I had a running system that crashed hard (harddrive failure), and I had to replace it. With my old system, the screen would blank after a period of inactivity. The monitor would show a short error message "Invalid sync." and then shutdown into standby mode. This was ok, and I figure this is how it is supposed to work.

With the new system, I get the same behavior as with the old, providing I haven't had any X sessions. If I have had an X session, the console blanks, and the monitor issues its "Invalid sync." message. Then it shows the message "Invalid scan freq." while showing wavy horizontal lines interspersed with an occasional wide greenish band going up the screen. The monitor does not go into standby mode. When I move the mouse (gpm is running) or type a character, the console returns to normal, and the monitor briefly displays the frequencies 38kHz/60kHz.

Could this behavior have something to do with the "vga=" line in /etc/lilo.conf? The old system had "vga = normal". This freshly installed system has "vga = 788" in it, I assume by default. Could it have something to do with APIC? The entry for the default kernel, which I have been booted into when this happens, shows the line: 'append = "enableapic vga=0x0314 hdb=ide-scsi"'.

The monitor is a 19" Cornerstone Color 45/101sf with horizontal scan rates from 31 to 101kHz and vertical scan rates from 50 to 160kHz. The sync on this monitor is Separate, H, V or composite H/v TTL level, or Sync on Green at 0.3 V p. (I am guessing this last explains the green bands.)

Regards, Sean

-- Theo. Sean Schulze tschulze@nuthole.de "[T]he key to maintaining leadership in the economy and the technology that are about to emerge is likely to be the social position of knowledge professionals and social acceptance of their values." -- Peter Drucker