Working Video - Intel 82810 CGC, Lucid Lynx, emachines T1105, BenQ FP553

I had a lot of trouble with this video configuration:

I'm reviving an old emachines computer, model T1105. It has onboard Intel 82810 graphics, and I have it plugged into a BENQ 15" flat panel, model FP553.

I installed Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx, and as it boots up, I see something vaguely resembling a boot graphic (the words Ubuntu 10.04 centered on the screen with dots under it), then the screen flickers between black screen and a text console login prompt for a few seconds, until it finally leaves me at a login prompt.

After much struggling, and attempting to add a better PCI graphics, card, just to find out that the system became unstable with random reboots (probably because of the low wattage PSU in an emachine,) I reverted back to using the onboard card and attempted to solve the problem.

I installed all the latest updates using sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get install to grab the kernel that was held back in the regular update. Still no good, then I generated an xorg.conf manually by doing this:

sudo Xorg -configure

It dumps the conf into your user's home directory as xorg.conf.new, so we copy it back like this

sudo cp ~/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Then, I edited the xorg.conf:

sudo pico /etc/X11/xorg.conf

WARNING: Do not perform the below operation if you are using a CRT monitor. I am adjusting the refresh rates to radically different values, and it could harm a CRT monitor. This is only proven to work with the BENQ FP553.

I found the section labeled Monitor, which looks like this:

Section "Monitor"

#DisplaySize 310 230 # mm

Identifier "Monitor0"

VendorName "BNQ"

ModelName "Benq FP553"

HorizSync 50.0 - 54.0

VertRefresh 48.0 - 49.0

Option "DPMS"

EndSection

So that is the default for this monitor right now. I am pretty sure its wrong, because the vert refresh rate only allows a 1 hz variance between 48 and 49! Well, I decided to just open it up, by changing the HorizSync to 20.0 - 94.0 and the VertSync to 38.0 - 79.0, so my final section looks like this:

Section "Monitor"

#DisplaySize 310 230 # mm

Identifier "Monitor0"

VendorName "BNQ"

ModelName "Benq FP553"

HorizSync 20.0 - 94.0

VertRefresh 38.0 - 79.0

Option "DPMS"

EndSection

Saved my changes, ran sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start, and voila! It works.

There is a cleaner way. I should narrow it down to the correct specs. But i'm happy for now.