[ltp] T20/Debian/savagefb: Only top part of display is visible

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:37:14 -0600

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--------------040600070908060900060207
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Greetings,

   I had a situation of what appeard to be the "Blink Of Death" (BOD) on 
my T20, and decided to update the BIOS. While working on this, the 
symptoms of the BOD problem disappeared (perhaps only temporarily), even 
before I had applied the new BIOS. But a problem I've had before has 
reappeared, and I haven't been able to fix it: At a point in the boot 
process about the time the savagefb (Savage Frame Buffer) is enabled, 
the screen divides itself horizontally into two areas: the lower one 
showing several bands of varying shades of black, with thin lines 
delimiting them, and the upper area showing the text as it scrolls up 
the screen. But it's just the top part of the screen: the area with the 
cursor is down in the other section. It's as though someone put a piece 
of cardboard over the lower part of the lcd. Starting X doesn't help: I 
get the same effect.
I suspect that this phenomenon is caused by the Savage Frame Buffer, but 
attempts to put "nofb" on the kernel boot line in menu.lst don't seem to 
have any effect, nor does putting the "UseFB" parameter to "false" in 
xorg.conf. That would probably only have an effect after X was started, 
in any case. Here is that entry in xorg.conf:
Section "Device"
        Identifier      "S3 Inc. 86C270-294 Savage/IX-MV"
        Driver          "savage"
        BusID           "PCI:1:0:0"
        Option          "UseFBDev"              "true"
EndSection

Here is some savagefb-related output from dmesg:

savagefb: mapped io at d0b80000
savagefb: probed videoram:  8192k
savagefb: Detected current MCLK value of 83045 kHz
savagefb: 1024x768 TFT LCD panel detected and active
savagefb: Limiting video mode to 1024x768
savagefb: mapped framebuffer at d0c80000, pbase == f0000000
savagefb v0.4.0_2.6: 8064kB VRAM, using 800x600, 37.878kHz, 60Hz
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 100x37
fb: S3 Savage/IX-MV frame buffer device

Well, can anyone help me out here? Thanks in advance.

Frank Huddleston

--------------040600070908060900060207
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body bgcolor=3D"#ffffff" text=3D"#000000">
Greetings,<=
br>
 
=C2=A0=C2=A0 I had a situation of what appeard to be the "Blink Of Death"=
 (BOD)
on my T20, and decided to update the BIOS. While working on this, the
symptoms of the BOD problem disappeared (perhaps only temporarily),
even before I had applied the new BIOS. But a problem I've had before
has reappeared, and I haven't been able to fix it: At a point in the
boot process about the time the savagefb (Savage Frame Buffer) is
enabled, the screen divides itself horizontally into two areas: the
lower one showing several bands of varying shades of black, with thin
lines delimiting them, and the upper area showing the text as it
scrolls up the screen. But it's just the top part of the screen: the
area with the cursor is down in the other section. It's as though
someone put a piece of cardboard over the lower part of the lcd.
Starting X doesn't help: I get the same effect. 
I suspect that this phenomenon is caused by the Savage Frame Buffer,
but attempts to put "nofb" on the kernel boot line in menu.lst don't
seem to have any effect, nor does putting the "UseFB" parameter to
"false" in xorg.conf. That would probably only have an effect after X
was started, in any case. Here is that entry in xorg.conf: 
Section "Device" 
=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 Identifier=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=
=A0=C2=A0 "S3 Inc. 86C270-294 Savage/IX-MV" 
=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 Driver=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=
=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 "savage" 
=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 BusID=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=
=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 "PCI:1:0:0" 
=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 Option=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=
=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 "UseFBDev"=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=
=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 "true" 
EndSection 
 
Here is some savagefb-related output from dmesg: 
 
savagefb: mapped io at d0b80000 
savagefb: probed videoram:=C2=A0 8192k 
savagefb: Detected current MCLK value of 83045 kHz 
savagefb: 1024x768 TFT LCD panel detected and active 
savagefb: Limiting video mode to 1024x768 
savagefb: mapped framebuffer at d0c80000, pbase =3D=3D f0000000 
savagefb v0.4.0_2.6: 8064kB VRAM, using 800x600, 37.878kHz, 60Hz 
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 100x37 
fb: S3 Savage/IX-MV frame buffer device 
 
Well, can anyone help me out here? Thanks in advance. 
 
Frank Huddleston 
 

</body>
</html>

--------------040600070908060900060207--