[9fans] 16:9 display and freeze

[9fans] 16:9 display and freeze

[tlaronde]

Hello,

Since my previous monitor died, I bought a new LCD one with 16:9 ratio,
running under X11 at 1600x900.

Nothing but the monitor has changed. The graphic card has not
changed, it is still a ATI Technologies Radeon 9200SE. My configuration
for Plan9 has not changed either for the video stuff (whether
800x600 or 1024x768, I will have to check; but the monitor "auto
adapts" so some discrepancy between what the monitor and the card
agree to use and the size of the software buffer is not impossible).

When testing a new get_mk_install.rc and compilation for kerTeX,
a couple of seconds after switching to scroll mode (for kerTeX
compilation) under Plan9 (native), the machine froze hard. I had
to cold reboot, since simply rebooting, the BIOS had problems:
something has been trashed.

Had anyone already encountered such behavior? Hints about the
"whodunit"? And a cure?

TIA
--
        Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
                      http://www.kergis.com/
Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89  250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C

Re: [9fans] 16:9 display and freeze

[erik quanstrom]

> Nothing but the monitor has changed. The graphic card has not
> changed, it is still a ATI Technologies Radeon 9200SE. My configuration
> for Plan9 has not changed either for the video stuff (whether
> 800x600 or 1024x768, I will have to check; but the monitor "auto
> adapts" so some discrepancy between what the monitor and the card
> agree to use and the size of the software buffer is not impossible).
>
> When testing a new get_mk_install.rc and compilation for kerTeX,
> a couple of seconds after switching to scroll mode (for kerTeX
> compilation) under Plan9 (native), the machine froze hard. I had
> to cold reboot, since simply rebooting, the BIOS had problems:
> something has been trashed.
>
> Had anyone already encountered such behavior? Hints about the
> "whodunit"? And a cure?

no.  i used a 16:9 monitor for a short while.  no ill effects.  other than
an ugly picture.

- erik

Re: [9fans] 16:9 display and freeze

[Matthew Veety]

On 10/16/2012 8:07 PM, erik quanstrom wrote:
>> Nothing but the monitor has changed. The graphic card has not
>> changed, it is still a ATI Technologies Radeon 9200SE. My configuration
>> for Plan9 has not changed either for the video stuff (whether
>> 800x600 or 1024x768, I will have to check; but the monitor "auto
>> adapts" so some discrepancy between what the monitor and the card
>> agree to use and the size of the software buffer is not impossible).
>>
>> When testing a new get_mk_install.rc and compilation for kerTeX,
>> a couple of seconds after switching to scroll mode (for kerTeX
>> compilation) under Plan9 (native), the machine froze hard. I had
>> to cold reboot, since simply rebooting, the BIOS had problems:
>> something has been trashed.
>>
>> Had anyone already encountered such behavior? Hints about the
>> "whodunit"? And a cure?
>
> no.  i used a 16:9 monitor for a short while.  no ill effects.  other than
> an ugly picture.
>
> - erik
>

This sounds more like a hardware problem in your machine (not display)
than a bug in Plan 9. Plan 9 crashing hard shouldn't do anything to the
bios (unless it did something *really* nasty in /dev/realmode, but I
can't think of anything that would trash the bios).

--
Veety

Re: [9fans] 16:9 display and freeze

[tlaronde]

In answer to the description of my problems with display and a hard
freeze:

On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 12:58:03AM -0400, Matthew Veety wrote:
> On 10/16/2012 8:07 PM, erik quanstrom wrote:
> >
> >no.  i used a 16:9 monitor for a short while.  no ill effects.  other than
> >an ugly picture.
> >
> >- erik
> >
>
> This sounds more like a hardware problem in your machine (not display)
> than a bug in Plan 9. Plan 9 crashing hard shouldn't do anything to the
> bios (unless it did something *really* nasty in /dev/realmode, but I
> can't think of anything that would trash the bios).

Thanks to both for your reply. I will have to investigate (and see what
is producing this).

Best,
--
        Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
                      http://www.kergis.com/
Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89  250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C

Re: [9fans] 16:9 display and freeze

[erik quanstrom]

> > This sounds more like a hardware problem in your machine (not display)
> > than a bug in Plan 9. Plan 9 crashing hard shouldn't do anything to the
> > bios (unless it did something *really* nasty in /dev/realmode, but I
> > can't think of anything that would trash the bios).
>
> Thanks to both for your reply. I will have to investigate (and see what
> is producing this).

i would recommend using aux/realemu.  it provides a measure of safety
when doing mode setting.  it could be that the vesa bios does go off
into the woods when it detects a 16:9 monitor.  the vesa bios has access
to this information through the edid sideband communication, which
is available on almost every video interconnect, including vga.

- erik

Re: [9fans] 16:9 display and freeze

[tlaronde]

On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 06:53:17AM -0400, erik quanstrom wrote:
>
> i would recommend using aux/realemu.  it provides a measure of safety
> when doing mode setting.  it could be that the vesa bios does go off
> into the woods when it detects a 16:9 monitor.  the vesa bios has access
> to this information through the edid sideband communication, which
> is available on almost every video interconnect, including vga.

Thank you. I will try to investigate.
--
        Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
                      http://www.kergis.com/
Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89  250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C

Re: [9fans] 16:9 display and freeze

[tlaronde]

For the record, I haven't been able to reproduce it now. (I have opened
the box to verify connections and so on; and to be exhaustive, the
only modification was to simply move a IDE loose end cable further
from the motherboard---I always wonder, with the increase of speed, what
the electromagnetic noise impact is, and how shielded are MB components
from such perturbations...).

--
        Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
                      http://www.kergis.com/
Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89  250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C