help with nvidia and a toshiba satellite

[BassDemon]

hey all. I have a toshiba satellite laptop with a nvidia geforce fx inside it. it was running the 2.6.1 kernel and all was well. But i decided to move up to 2.6.8 and I cannot get X to display above 640x480. I config my kernel, relinked /usr/src/linux, emerge nvidia-kernel nvidia-glx. X -configure. But whenever X starts it's only in 640x480. And doesn't nvidia autodetect the screen res? So I tried manually setting the res to something like 1024x768 just to see if it would go higher. then i get this error:

[pdub]

I just installed Gentoo, and I'm currently using xorg, as per recommendation by a more avid and experienced linux user (according to him, xorg, simply put, will benefit a linux user more). I am using a P25-S609 Toshiba laptop on xorg, and using the prompting, wizard-like xorgconfig program, got X and KDE to run just fine. I used xorgconfig at the command prompt and pretty much made up settings for my LCD and such that happened to work, and chose the nvidia GeForce driver they have included.

So, basically, the first thing I would try is to switch over to xorg and see if that fixes your prob. Then use the wizard if you have to, or if you'd rather configure xorg.conf manually, make sure that your monitor driver is set to "nv" instead of "vga" or "vesa" and you will be using Gentoo's provided GeForce driver.

According to nvidia, they have a better driver on their site designed specifically for linux, but I haven't gotten it to work yet. That driver, once installed, can be called from xorg.conf by setting the driver to "nvidia" instead of "nv", however it requires nvidia's kernel-linking module that I can't seem to figure out how to install. Gentoo's provided "nv" driver does seem to work extremely well, just doesn't have all the features.

Hope that could be a help. Say, what model Toshiba do you have? It may be a good idea for us to keep in touch on here, since most of the Toshiba Satellites have similar issues/solutions, and we might be able to help eachother out a lot. Any other questions, or if you'd like me to post my xorg.conf or anything else, just let me know!
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I am P-Dub

[BassDemon]

well the thing is that the 'nv' driver does not have 3d acceleration. so i'd rather use the nvidia official driver. and so far it's been great. i was thinking about going to xorg cause i use it on my other machines and know that it's the way linux is going .but for this other machine (the toshiba) i just want to get X working and it already has xfree on it. so unless it's specifically an xfree problem i'd rather stay where it is.

it's a 5205-S119 if that helps. thanks.

bassdemon

[yuza]

I really suggest you to switch to xorg... it's the future of Linux on desktop....
By the way which version of the driver are you using? What about posting your XF86Config...

[BassDemon]

well i'm working on the xorg switch. have to update a whole bunch of stuff. i use xorg on every other linux machine i own so this is just the one from the past that hasnt been updated in a while.
driver versions:
nvidia-kernel-4496-r4
nvidia-glx-4496-r2

Old drivers. This is on the working 2.6.1 kernel. The only drivers that will work are these. Any other combination newer/older will not work with X. I have no idea why. This laptop just seems REALLY finicky about nvidia drivers. Here's my working XF86Config. It's just the default X -configure with a DefaultDepth line added and some of the lower bit depths removed. thanks.

[yuza]

Have you tried to specify the resolution you want in XF86Config? Something like...

[BassDemon]

yes i have tried to specify the resolution i want. i also tried 1024x768 exactly what's in your post. and i get the error that is at the very top of my post.

[BassDemon]

well i think it's fixed. i changed to a 2.6.8 kernel AND i changed to xorg AND i emerged the newest nvidia drivers. it's working now. thanks for all the help everyone.

bassdemon