Same problem in Mandrake and RH

[brannon]

Red Hat 9 and Mandrake 9.1 both shut down my monitor right before the GUI starts.

When I tried to dig into etc/x11/xf86config from GRUB its says the file doesn't exist. So I booted with KNOPPIX and found it. I think the horizontal numders are wrong maybe even some other ranges , However I couldn't edit it, so I installed Madrake 9.1
Now I'm just confused again. There doesn't seem to be an obvious way to boot to a command line in Mandrake.
My card is ATI Radeon 7000 32MB.

I'm determined to get Windows out of my life but this Linux thing is really trying me. Its been several days now I haven't even seen boot properly. I hate to think this the way its going be.

[dev/brain]

They shut down your monitor? The screen goes blank you mean? Or the monitor physically switches off?

To switch to command line booting, open up your /etc/inittab file in vim, and change the default run-level to 3. If it is set to 5 (or 4 in slack :)) then it will automatically start XFree86. Also, your the file you are trying to edit is:

/etc/X11/XF86Config-4

remember *nix is case sensitive, and you might have needed to use an absolute path. Have you got your hard drives mounted when you try to edit that file? I dont use grub personally, so maybe someone else here will be kind enough to fill you in.

It probably isn't your refresh rate thats causing you the dramas. It is more likely to be drivers. Post the contents of your /var/log/XFree86.0.log here, or use the command:

cat /var/log/XFree86.0.log | grep EE

to find all the error messages.

[xxispawn01xx]

same thing happend with my laptop lcd, reinstall format the damn thing and at the end of the setup u HAVE TO HAVE ALL THE INFORMATION CORRECT, I would try a different version of Xfree during mandrake 's installation thats how I fixed my problem

[brannon]

the moniter is going to sleep. not losing power or just presenting a blank screen. I can't use alt-f1-to get to a command line interface

[xxispawn01xx]

make sure yur monitor goes on before the computer does and a 15 seconds break in between do u use a sony trinitron monitor?

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

It would appear that you're not getting the right resolution or something.

I used to have this same problem. Try using a lower resolution, and see if that does anything for you.

If the monitor's going blank, that's usually the problem.

[buttercrunch]

nah, its the problem with ATI radeon driver
when u installed mandrake 9.1/redhat 9, they both uses Xfree86 4.3.0 thus incompatible with Radeon driver from the official ATI. (they only support 4.2.x at the moment)

well...

thats all.. the solution may be obvious, downgrade to 4.2.x.

or inform ATI to quickly update their driver to match 4.3.0 :)

[jsbrusty2]

I have not had a problem with my RH9 install and my ATI Radeon AIW 32MB. It autodetected (as a 7000 though) and picked radeon.o driver during install. It should work fine. It didn't autodetect my monitor (Sony CPD-420) correctly and had to manually select it during install.

If you can get into /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 check the driver it's using and maybe change which default resolution it's using. It may be trying to use a resolution setting not supported by either the video card or monitor.

Also, you may be able to use the install to fix this by booting to the install disk and go though it as if you were going to install but just up to the keyboard,mouse,video card, and monitor detection and settings and look at the parameters. If I remember correctly it lets you test video settings. I don't know if it'll save these settings to your XF86Config-4 if you exit the install (probably not). But at least you'd have a chance to poke around with different settings and write the down to edit XF86Config-4 manually.

Hope some of this helps.