x hangs with old ati cards

[rosst]

I have several eisa systems I want to use as linux servers. The WD video on the mother board is completely unsupported so I installed ATI mach 8 and mach 32 cards.

During the install of red hat 7.2 I selected support packages for both cards and installed with minimal problems in text mode. When I ran Xconfigurator with the mach 8 cards I selected ATI graphics ultra with a resolution of 1024x768. During the video test x looks perfect but when I try to run startx KDE gets about half way thru initializing and hangs the system while initializing peripherals. It goes to a blank screen. To get out of this I have to push the reset button.

So far I have tried this with three different kinds of mach 8 cards and then switched to a mach 32 card and configured for it. They all behaved in the same manner. Incidently, they work fine with micros#%t windows.

The reason I am using red hat 7.2 instead of 7.3 or 8.0 is that neither of them will install. I suspect they don't like my adaptec 7770 scsi interface. 7.2 would work just fine if I could just get x to function.

Any suggestions?

[pauper]

Shot in the dark, what did you set your monitor refresh rates at? Are those figures in range for the actual monitor you are using?

When it goes to a 'blank screen', can you use ctrl-alt-bksp to get back to a console prompt?

If you can do that, what error messages are displayed in console?

[rosst]

I set the monitor to NEC 5FG, which is what I am using. cntl/alt/backspc does nothing. cntl/alt/del does nothing.

I finally gave up and re-installed specifying gnome. This works although when I went away for 5 hours and came back the system was hung again. If I don't run x, it works for as long as I leave it running. I have tested this for two days. Since these systems will be used for servers and a firewall I should be able to do what I need without graphics. It's just easier to configure everything with all of the kde utilities.

Thanks for the suggestions.
rt

[pauper]

How about if you disable power saving (since these are going to be servers) and the screen saver?

I have several puters here and when my mandrake box goes from screensaver to powersave (shuts down the monitor) every so often the monitor does some funky stuff - ghost images appearing, etc.

Just a thought for you; since you are using the boxes for servers, how about setting up a script to use as the screensaver and set the screensaver to say, 30 minutes. If the screensaver comes in it runs the script which logs you out and shuts down xwindows leaving the servers running under console without the extra overhead?

I know, its scrappy and there should be a better way *grin* but under the circumstances it might just be the best solution for you.

HTH!

[rosst]

These systems are way too old to have power saving. I was told the first xpress systems shipped with 386 processors. Mine have either pentium 90 or dual pentium 66 processors. As you can see, they are antiques. In their day, they were high end servers so they should be fine for my low demand server requirements. I will admit running x on them is an exercise in patience.

Your suggestion about screen saving sounds interesting. It sounds like another useful project for my "copious spare time".

Thanks again
rt