Hello, Michael.
On Mon, Aug 26, 2024 at 12:54:20 +0100, Michael wrote:
> On Monday, 26 August 2024 11:40:43 BST Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> > Hello, Michael.
> > On Sun, Aug 25, 2024 at 22:04:05 +0100, Michael wrote:
> > I've had a reply from MSI's support. It's along the lines of "buy new
> > cables, don't use an adapter, and don't use a KVM box". In other words,
> > not at all useful. I'm trying to work out whether it's worth trying to
> > supply MSI with the extra information about the excess numbers of pixels
> > being multiples of 16 in both the horizontal and vertical directions. I
> > suspect I'll just get the runaround from them, no matter what.
> Yes, I suspected this would be their default response. If there is a known
> problem and a fix or workaround, OEMs will advise of it usually in their
> FAQs.
> On a newly released product they may ask for additional information.
> Otherwise they are unlikely to engage in troubleshooting with retail users
> and
> tend to point at anything else but their product. ;-)
I'm beginning to think getting an MSI board was a mistake.
> > Or, I could go back to the shop that built the machine. Maybe I should
> > try it connected directly to an HDMI monitor.
That's what I'm going to be doing tomorrow, after I 'phoned them up this
afternoon.
> If you have a monitor with the same connector as your graphics card (DP or
> HDMI) then you can test the health of the new PC with it. However, if you
> must use the KVM and DVI-HDMI adaptor, then the options are limited.
Well, I'm loathe to throw away my still well working monitor after all
these years. We have enough electronic waste as it is. Yes, I need to
use the KVM and either an HDMI->DVI or a DisplayPort->DVI adapter (which
I haven't tried, yet).
> > I think this is what I will try next. I don't know which of the settings
> > has been changed, so I'll need to make a note of practically every
> > setting. Most of them are still defaults.
> Depending on the MoBo you can usually create a backup file with all the
> firmware settings and reload it later on, after you reset the MoBo and
> finished with your tests.
I tried resetting the CMOS, but it didn't do any good.
> > > > Ahhhhh. If it does it in the BIOS, it's either a monitor or video card,
> > > > or mobo if video is built in, problem.
> > > On modern APUs video graphics chips are integrated within the CPU die
> > > itself as separate graphics cores.
> > It seems such a graphic core is supplying 2112x1116@60Hz, rather than the
> > correct 1920x1080@60Hz. Hopefully the fault is in the firmware, not in
> > the graphics unit. ;-(
> If this is the problem then you should be able to set your desktop to a
> 1920x1080 resolution. I am not familiar with xfce but there will be some
> display setting to adjust the resolution with.
No, the graphics HW is sending out physically 2112x1116, but logically
1920x1080. The gap between the 1920 pixels and the 2112 pixels on each
line is taken up by the nasty gap.
> > [ .... ]
> > > Let's hope this is an MSI/CSM specific issue rather than a hardware fault.
> > Given MSI support's attitude, it's looking like my machine is going back
> > to the shop that made it, unless resetting the CMOS RAM does the job.
> > That's the thing to try out next.
> Another thing to try to confirm is if the EDID of the monitor is correct:
> Emerge sys-apps/edid-decode, then capture the EDID of the monitor with get-
> edid in a file and feed it to 'edid-decode -p'. It will parse the file and
> output a human readable output. Then you can see what the preferred
> resolution is as far as the monitor EDID content is concerned, or if it is
> indeed missing as you reported previously.
It would appear to be (something like)
DTD 1: 1920x1080 60Hz.
(Sorry, I can't be bothered to copy it over on a USB stick at the moment,
but it looks plausible).
> You can also read Xorg.0.log to find out what your xorg driver reports.
Lots of 1920x1080s, yes. No 2112x1116. The entire software, including
the BIOS thinks its running on 1920x1080, just the hardware is pumping
out 2112x1116. Maybe there's something nasty in my HDMI->DVI adapter,
but I wouldn't have thought so.
> The recurring flickering of the display after you've loaded your desktop
> shows
> the linux OS is trying to re-adjust the display. Usually this happens when
> the connection/power to the monitor is disrupted, which again points to a
> connector issue, or it can also happen if you specified in your GUI the wrong
> resolution/frequency.
Yes. I think the connectors are OK, but maybe we'll see how the machine
performs differently at the shop tomorrow.
> Due to my ham-fisted attempts to connect a DVI adaptor behind a monitor
> without being able to see what I was doing, I recall bending one of the
> terminals at the DVI connector. This was giving spurious results. I had to
> straighten the terminal carefully with long nose pliers, before I was able to
> use the monitor properly. Check if your connectors have suffered something
> similar.
No, I think both sides of the KVM are OK. They both work OK with my
current computer.
> Other than the above, I'm out of ideas. :-(
Well thanks a great deal for all the helpful suggestions so far. My top
theory at the moment is that some of my kernel experiments irreversibly
set something on the MB which is causing the gap. We'll see what happens
tomorrow when the machine gets connected up directly to an HDMI or DP
socket.
--
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
