BARRY MARTIN wrote:
> Hi Ky!
Boo!
> KM> It's the description of the fault that tells me it's most likely
> KM> bad video RAM.
> KM> That's quite distinctive -- you get a solid mass of random ASCII
> KM> characters. We used to see that a lot in the Olden Tymes.
> KM> When the card is loose, or the GPU is failing, you get random
> KM> lines.
>
> Ahhh! I don't recall the random characters part. The make-and-break of
> the data stream would cause the card to try to make sense of it and output
> what it thought it was told.
I think it happens when the amount of usable RAM is so constrained
(probably to just the first address bank) that it can't process more
than the first few pixels, and the result is Random ASCII Characters in 25-line
textmode (usually the bottom 32 bytes of the ASCII table at
that, so it's hearts and spades and such), having displayed all it
managed to scrape up.
> KM> When the cable is loose, you'll lose some color (and have frex a
> KM> pink screen).
>
> Right.
Why it's usually pink, I dunno, tho I have seen blue and green, just not
as often. Probably depends on the layout of the cable head, and which
side is pulling loose, and how it sits on the board, that sort of thing.
Ie. which pins are being pulled out, more likely on the side typically
away from gravity.
Gravity always wins!
> KM> This isn't absolute but it's a pretty good guideline.
> Good starting points which usually work.
Usually good enough, if it's hardware. If it's software, can be any damn thing.
> > Doesn't eliminate video addressing statement as a possibility. I don't
> > recall how to look up; guessing "all f's" in the range end-point would
> > mean it's at the far end.
> KM> Addressing shouldn't cause this kind of visual screw up; it would
> KM> cause a lockup or no video at all due to the conflict. And if
> KM> you're not a modern gamer, or rendering video, you're not gonna
> KM> fill up that video RAM anyway.
> Probably so: this is another of my Black Box areas and so stuff in,
> something happens, stuff out. On the -- guess could call it
> 'clarification' area know there are maximum resolutions so I would guess there
> is some sort of upper limit. Doesn't seem to be pertinent as the
> video card and monitor seem to always adjust to each other.
Modern OSs probe the vidcard and the monitor, which proceeds to tell the
OS what it is capable of, producing a range of options that if wrong
will do no worse than look goofy, but with neither damage the hardware
nor leave you with a blanked-out display that needs a reinstall or CLI
magic to fix.
Modern OSs now understand this stuff, and have done so pretty reliably
for about 25 years. Part of the longstanding problem with linux was that
until about 10 years ago, or a bit longer for some of the more advanced
distros, you had to know your hardware parameters and sometimes input
them manually. It seems to have finally got this right. When you're
doing it for free, as has mostly been the case, hardware programming is
not near as sexy as cute apps and games, so it gets way less attention.
> So if I remember correctly Mike's problem was after a while his monitor
> would go black and need a reboot to get things going again. I don't
> recall if he stated a time but seemed he implied weeks or months. I
> want to get in on the thread because I have a similar problem with one
> essentially headless system which tends to not talk to a monitor after
> some time -- I'm thinking around 1.5 to 2 months.
Fedora used to do that, tho the problem seems to have gone away as of
v39. Except it would decide to not speak to the outside world after
about a week, unless regularly rebooted. Meanwhile PCLOS had been
running for several months, and WinXP for about a year and a half, with
no such issues.
As we skeap ?? speak Fedora is sitting there upgrading to v40. It's been
at it since 11pm last night, tho a lot of the time was 5GB of downloads
on a 3Mbps connection. Had to do a full update first, then run the
upgrade (fortunately the commands are still handy in the console
buffer... it started life as v32). It is now running the final step and
will be done in about an hour. You can see why I find rolling a lot less
trouble.
And I get my first look at KDE Plasma v6. Given the newness thereof
(just released) for the next while there will be a lot of updates,
possibly to the point of a Whole New Monkey. But they are usually pretty
good about getting the major bugs out (not least because unlike say
Xfce, which is one guy and change, it's a team of a hundred-plus folks.)
http://www.wholenewmonkey.com/
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