Matrox G450 (Workaround)

[Tuc at T-B-O-H.NET]

Hi,

	Forwarded on behalf of Gary Kline (Sig at bottom).

	My posting to the xorg list *after* I was subscribed.  This is 
	timestamped, 15oct07, 17:11:29::

        Folks,

        Until I moved up to xorg-7.2 on my Dell Dim8200, my old video
        card worked fine.  Then I had to switch to "vesa" to be able to use
        the computer.  I thought the video card was going bad, so bought
        the new G450.  Same problem.  I checked your FAQ and postings and
        found nothing about my symptoms.  Thus this email.

        The problem with defining Driver "mga" is that when I exec X11,
        only the very top and very bottom of my CRT have any light.
        In between is a very dark band.  I have other computers running
        on this tube via KVM switch so the tube is fine.

        I would appreciate any suggestions you guys may  have regarding
        what to do now.  Is there any other driver that  will give me at
        least 1280x1024 with the G450?

        thanks in advance,

        gary kline


	UPDATE::

	Finally, after SIX days and a suggestion from R. Smith in
	Holland, I was able to use xgamma at it's lowest range to
	brighten my display from dingy-grey to white.  (The range for
	xgamma is 0.100 to 10.0.   After rebooting my Dell Dimension-8200
	for the 37th time, I set mmy xorg.conf back to "mga", exec'd
	Gnome, and the screen came up with it's dull, dark, feeble grey.
	I tried Roland Smith's idea of xgamma -gamma <f>, and after a few
	tries, found that xgamma -gamma 0.100 worked!  Now the G450 works
	properly  at alll resolutions.

	This is, I'm guessing, a bug somewhere in xf86-video-mga-1.9.100 
	driver code.  My CRT is flawless, and my other three KVM ports
	display correctly.  I haven't written a driver since around 1991,
	so I hope this data point helps the xorg wizards.

	-gdk





-- 
  Gary Kline  kline at thought.org   www.thought.org  Public Service Unix
      http://jottings.thought.org   http://transfinite.thought.org