Monitor problem w/ Mandrake Linux 9.1

Hello everyone

I am new to *nix and need some guidence please. I have installed Mandrake 9.1 on a partitioned HDD. The installation went well, I was asked to remove the last install cd and reboot. Lilo came up and recognised the other OS's and I chose to start Mandrake. The boot up sequence went fine everything came back [ok]. However, right before it should go to the login screen my monitor (Sony TFT LCD SDM-M61) goes black. When I cycle the power my monitor briefly shows an error, something like invalid scan range 4.9 or something like that. I can reproduce the error if needed. I have had Mandrake 8.2 succesfuly operating on this setup before. I tried to get another distro (Redhat 9) on here and had the same problem. The buttons on the monitor (menu, contrast, brightness) will not function as well while showing the black screen. Is this a driver issue w/ my monitor? My video card is a Nvidia 3 DDR 128 which it sees, and I don't think it could be that since I can see the boot up sequence. I am new to *nix so I couldn't find the right parameters in google although I tried. Any help is apreciated and I can provide details if needed. Thanks for your time.

Looks like you didn't test your monitor setup during installation to ensure it would work correctly after reboot, I may be wrong. I would say there is nothing wrong with the monitor, just the refresh rates set during the installation have made it a little "grumpy" if you are jumping straight into a GUI login screen (init 5).

As I tip, I always boot into the console, (init 3) and login and start my X session with a simple - startx - on the commandline, just gives me a bit more flexibility and if things go wrong, rather than a blank screen I see all the errors scroll by and can get into the system and fix.

Have a look here http://www.mandrakeuser.org/docs/index.html there are many tips on getting your system up and running and dont overlook the unofficial Mandrake Forum at http://www.mandrakeusers.org - many great tip and tricks there to resolve almost any problem.

You could drop in the installation CD and go into 'rescue' mode and try and fix, or if on a network try and ssh/telnet into the box and fix or do a fresh re-install and pay particular attention to the X setup option and "test" before accepting the settings.

Good luck, sorry I cant be more helpful.

Thank you for your response

At first, I did not test it during the installation because it showed the right settings (or so I thought). After that however I did go back and tried to manualy set the refresh rates according to the sony monitor manual, no luck. I then used the suggestions of others to test it. I first tried to set the resolution to its lowest and was going to work my way up. The lowest setting still produced the same issue. (BTW is there a faster way to get to the config menu then going through another install at my point? I get the option to mount everything again but I am not confident on that path if thats the way) Another suggestion I was given was to have it load a different but compatible video driver, I am going to attempt this next. Thank you for that tip of booting into the console... but how would I set this up? Thank you for your feedback

There is an option during install something like "Do you want to start XFree at boot" or something of that nature ... I always select "no" or you can just install with what you are most comfortable doing and if you can get a GUI to start up - then the easiest way to turn it off would be in Mandrake Control Center ... Boot Options.

Mandrake Control Center (hardware section from memory) will also let you test different settings and drivers for your monitor - if incompatible they should drop you back to the setting you had before trying.

With the troubles you describe I would be inclined to start afresh and do the re-install from the beginning and work slowly through it - from memory I think the installer allows you to keep the partitions you have already set up so you should be ok - but I dont think it will necessarily speed the process up a great deal.

Nvidia have also released there own drivers for their cards to run on linux, check out there site for details, the install process is very simple these days. Its been a while since I have run a nvidia card in my linux box but they do work quite well.

The file you need to pay attention to for you monitor is /etc/X11/XF86config-4, you may need to make manual modifications to this file if you upgrade to nvidia's drivers.

Again good luck.