Open laptop, top of image is in middle of screen

[bs_texas]

Yesterday I installed slackware 9.1 on my Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop, or notebook, if you prefer. I was amazed - it recognized my wireless, optical, usb mouse! I got the sound working and setup a network printer with cups and started looking at setting up my WPC54G (I'll start a new thread on that.)

I closed the screen and went to bed. This morning I opened the screen and the image had shifted. The top half of the image was at the bottom half of the screen and the bottom was at the top. Fortunately, I was still able to right click and log off. Then startx again and all is normal.

What do I need to look into to eliminate that?
Does that have something to do with APM or APCI (or is that ACPI)?

Thanks...

[Icarus]

I'd start by looking at how the kernel was compiled. Is it using APM or ACPI? It can only be one or the other since they confilct.

For laptops, ACPI is probably what you need to look at.

[bs_texas]

Ok, l haven't yet learned much about kernel compiling stuff. However, I was looking around in KDE and discovered the Control Center wrench in the task bar, and in there I found System Administration/Linux Kernel. (Is that basically the same as 'make menuconfig'?) Looking around in there I see that APM is "Compiled as a module" and ACPI support has a red x, "Option is disabled".

I can click on ACPI Support and get a green check mark.
Also listed under ACPI Support is:
AC Battery
Battery
Button
Fan
Processor
ASUS Laptop Extras
Toshiba Laptop Extras
Debug Statements
Relaxed AML Checking

Those are all disabled, red x.
Should I click on some of those as well?

After I say apply, it asks if I am sure I want to overwrite /usr/src/linux/.config .
I say yes and then it says "You may run 'make bzImage', 'make bzDisk' or 'make install' now".

I say OK and that dialogue goes away and I'm back at the desktop. So, I assume then that I need to open a terminal and cd to /usr/src/linux and run 'make bzImage' or maybe 'make install' and then reboot, maybe.

Is that likely to work to get me ACPI? And to disable APM after I go back in and click on that?

Thanks

[bs_texas]

Well, crapola! I don't what else changed, but now I can no longer get an IP from DHCP.

note to self: Don't mess with kernel stuff.

Also, I now have a green check mark by ACPI and a red x by APM, but the screen still shifts down.

Time to reinstall and re-evaluate.
:rolleyes: :(

[Icarus]

No need to re-install, recover! :)

I think it's more helpful to fix these errors now then repeat them later

Is DHCP not working because you network card didn't load? How did you make a new kernel? Did you do a "make oldconfig"? You probably left the modules out for the card

[bs_texas]

I'm not sure my skill set is up to the challenge of a recover. But, I would prefer to do that.

I had an IP to begin with, but it was lost after rebooting, after running 'make bzImage', after making those changes in the KDE/System Administration/Linux Kernel thing.

I should probably use this opportunity to try and figure out how do do kernel stuff from the command line and, of course, avoid the gui thing. Of course, that leads me back to the dreaded WTF stack, while I simply wanted my screen to do right. :)

I've screwed around with kernel stuff before, but everybody and his dog has some different way of doing it and then you get to 'make menuconfig' and there are about 40,000 cryptic options to work with in there.

Dang, I sound sorta dazed and confused, eh? And I was so confident yesterday. ;)

[hard candy]

From the commandline, "modprobe -l | more".
You will ahve a list of modules available. Look for the one that is the driver for your netork card. Example, mine is "8139too for a realtek network card. "insmod 8139too" and it should load without problems. Then "ifconfig eth0 up". Then "ifconfig" to see if an interface is present. Then I would reboot to see if it stays up and gets an address.
Here is a link for configuring graphics on the 8200:

Dell 8200 setting up X (http://danplanet.com/dell_8200.html)

Also,
Linux on laptops (http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/dell.html) is an excellent site and should be bookmarked.

[Petrolhead]

bs_2003 I've had the same problem with mu inspirion 8200. I'm not sure how to fix this but a good workaround is to drop to a virtual console and back to X when stuff messes up, this will restore sanity.

If closing your laptop's lid causes the screen to mess up just press CTRL+ALT+F1 and then CTRL+ALT+F7

[bs_texas]

The problem persists. I reinstalled, and during 'setup' I noticed there was a bareacpi.i next to bare.i, so I chose that instead. It did not fix the problem, so I went back to bare.i.

Last night I was in text mode. Didn't startx. I closed the lid on the laptop and this morning when I opened it, the command line was down about 2/3 of the way on the screen. ctrl-L cleared the screen, but the command line stayed in the same place. I alt-f2 to another terminal, but that command line remained shifted on that screen as well.

I tried running 'reset', but that also did not fix the problem. The only thing that did fix it was to reboot.

This is just a problem that I'll have to figure out eventually. In the mean time, in the interest of moving on, I just won't close the screen unless I shutdown. I definitely have other issues that are probably more readily solvable.
Unless, of course, somebody has a definite solution to this particular dilemma. :)

Thanks...