Video screen shrinks if you logout after sleep or hibernate in Linux

On my Averatec 2370 running the binary Nvidia drivers “Nvidia”, if I set it to go to sleep or hibernate, then wake the computer, and then logout, the screen goes from the 1280×800 to 1024×768. This problem affects both Ubuntu 7.10 and Fedora 8.

Xorg gets the screen size from reading the Extended display identification data (EDID) information from the monitor. It appears that the EDID is read correctly when you start up, but after hibernation or sleep the info gets scrambled.

To correct the problem, I copied the correct EDID info into file when the EDID info is not scrambled. I then have xorg read the file instead of reading it from the monitor.

Instructions for Ubuntu

1. Login as a user who can sudo.
2. Open a command line window.
3. Run the following command to launch the Nvidia Settings application:
   
gksudo nvidia-settings

4. Click on the “DFP-0 – (Seiko) option. This brings up the options for the LCD monitor
5. Click on the “Acquire EDID” button. This gets the EDID config info from the LCD monitor and ask where to save it. I saved it as “/etc/X11/SeikoEdid.bin”.
6. Sudo edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. Add the following line to the section for “Monitor”.
   
Option "CustomEDID" "DFP-0:/etc/X11/SeikoEdid.bin"


What seems to be happening is when you start X, it reads the EDID from the monitor. After a suspend or hiberate, you can no longer read the EDID for some reason. As a result, the driver defaults to a lower resolution, causing the screen to shrink. What I am doing is to record the correct EDID information into a file when it is correct and have X read from the file instead of the device. This should work around the problem.

For Fedora 8, the instruction is similar, except that you login as root and run the Nvidia-Settings menu from the menu.

Fedora 7 Desktop effect causes Multimeda playback problems

Recently, I enabled the desktop effect on my Fedora 7. Shortly afterwards, none of the videos can be played back. Whenever I play a video file, it would load the file and then suddenly quit the application. This happened with any sort of video player.

If you run the video from the command line, you’ll see the following message:

X Error of failed request: BadAlloc (insufficient resources for operation)
Major opcode of failed request: 140 (Xvideo)
Minor opcode of failed request: 19 ()
Serial number of failed request: 84
Current serial number in output stream: 85

The message is from running VLC. However, running gxine and totem also result in essentially the same bad alloc message.

There is some sort of incompatibility between the Desktop effect and multimedia playback. This problem does not occur if you run as the root account. Whenever you run as a non-root, multimedia playback would failed as long as Desktop effect is on. You either have to turn off Desktop effect or run as root.