I should have made it clear that the graphics issue is really not an issue. I also should have made it clear that using modelines is a suggestion I received from one of the readers. Anyway, here is a comment I got recently from Tim Wilson. Tim said, "Great website, just know that the time you put into it (however much it is) is worth it!! Very to the point and helpful for myself and i'm sure many others. Keep it up!!"
Thanks Tim. I am glad that people are finding this website useful in solving their issues with FC5 and HP Laptops. Please feel free to send me your comments (positive or negative). I have also been meaning to set up a comment area on each page. I just have not had the time to get around to it. If there are a lot more comments, I will definitely think about it. In the meantime, I will try to answer questions from readers as I can. Anyway, back to graphics. Tim also had a question about the modeline that was in Nate's solution.
Tim's question is, "I have an HP dv8210ca (i'm in canada) with a (apparently... ) 1440x900 res. display. HOWEVER, when i use the Modeline from your display page it appears (judging from how the screen edges are not actually at the edges -- with many artifacts over certain regions of the screen) that perhaps the timings might be different for my display. I am wondering how you found those timing values... if it was a tool/shell command you can use, or maybe a reference doc. somewhere online. HP Support was very (un)knowledgeable about their own products when i chatted online with them -- it was clear the agent hadn't a clue where i might be able to find out this information either."
Well Tim, the solution was also on the same page with the modeline. Actually, you do not need to use modeline at all!! Matter of fact, the XFree86 Video timing HOWTO (see resources) has the following disclaimer from Eric Raymond on it's page, "This HOWTO is effectively obsolete. Current (4.0.1 and up) versions of XFree86 compute optimal modelines from the resolution you specify in the Modes section of your X configuration file.".
So to reiterate my solution to this, I would remove any mention of modelines from the xorg.conf file completely. See the relevant sections of the device and the screen section of my graphics page again. If you simply state the resolution of your screen, X will automatically calculate the modeline for you. However, if you do want to still calculate the modeline, I would recommend looking at the modeline HOWTO by Rick Niles (see resources) content page. There he clearly delineates how to go about calculating the modeline.
So, bottom line, do the following. Add this to your xorg.conf file.
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1440x900" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection
This should be more than sufficient to get your screen back to normal. In fact, not to put too fine a point on this, if you look at the log file (/var/log/Xorg.0.log) generate by X when it executes xorg.conf, you will see the following:
..... (II) RADEON(0): Panel Size from BIOS: 1680x1050 (II) RADEON(0): BIOS provided dividers will be used. (II) RADEON(0): Total number of valid DDC mode(s) found: 0 (II) RADEON(0): Valid mode using on-chip RMX: 1680x1050 (II) RADEON(0): Valid mode using on-chip RMX: 1280x800 (II) RADEON(0): Total number of valid FP mode(s) found: 2 (--) RADEON(0): Virtual size is 1680x1050 (pitch 1680) (**) RADEON(0): *Mode "1680x1050": 122.0 MHz (scaled from 0.0 MHz), 64.1 kHz, 60.1 Hz (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "1680x1050" 122.00 1680 1712 1776 1904 1050 1051 1054 1066 ......
Finally, if you have to do it, you can check out the modeline generator page (see resources).