My grepping powers must be diminished because the problem of only having
640x480 pixel resolution from at ATI MACH64 graphics card after updating to
Digital Unix 4.0x has come up before on the list. The basic answer is that
I neglected to run the new ECU and update the driver for the video card
(though I must say I found no mention of having to do this in the Release
Notes for 4.0, 4.0B, or 4.0D). The complete procedure for doing this,
repeated from an earlier summary, is below. I shutdown the machine over the
weekend, followed the instructions, and everything is working fine now.
Thanks to:
Nicolas Michal <nmichal_at_ups.edu>
Sean O'Connell <sean_at_stat.Duke.EDU>
Alan Rollow <alan_at_nabeth.cxo.dec.com>
Stephen Carpenter <sac_at_uvo.dec.com>
Dr. Tom Blinn <tpb_at_zk3.dec.com>
Joanna Gaski <jgaski_at_WPI.EDU>
Bill O'Neill <woneill_at_pobox.com>
for the quickly setting me right.
kevin reardon
Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte
Original Problem:
After doing a clean install of 4.0D (upgrading from 3.2D-1), the on-board
video (ATI Mach64 ISA)is no longer properly recognized and a default VGA
driver is used, resulting in greatly reduced resolution for X windows:
/var/adm/messages:
May 18 21:07:30 cerere vmunix: vga0 at eisa0
May 18 21:07:30 cerere vmunix: 640x480 VGA, 16 colors
May 18 21:07:30 cerere vmunix: vga0: generic VGA driver
Analysis:
The problem is due to the ECU data not being updated before the V4.0
upgrade. With ECU V1.8 the ATI Mach64 graphics card is defined as a
standard VGA controller and Digital UNIX V4.0 therefore assumes that the
card is only capable of 640x480. The V1.9 ECU that comes with Digital UNIX
V4.0 has a configuration file specifically for the Mach64 and when this
entry is used the system can recognise the card correctly.
Solution:
Halt the system and insert the ECU V1.9 diskette into the drive. At the >>>
prompt type the command "ECU" and wait for the program to initialise. The
ECU program will give you a menu and you choose "Step 2: Add or remove
boards". Select the slot that is defined as "standard VGA controller" and
press DEL to remove the current definition. Go back into the menu and this
time select the empty slot that used to have the VGA definition and press
ENTER to add a board. The ECU will pause for a while to read the
configuration files and when it returns it will display a menu of valid
cards. Choose the ISA6400.CFG (ISA ATI MACH64 VGA controller) option and
select the EISA slot for that card. Press F10 to go back to the main menu
and then select Step 5 to save and exit.
Reboot the system and in the kernel configuration file change the graphics
controller line from:
controller vga0 at eisa0 slot ?
to:
controller ati0 at eisa0 slot ?
This will enable the ATI Mach64 device driver. Rebuild the kernel and
upon reboot the startup message will change to:
ati0 at eisa0
ati0: ATI Mach64-GX Rev. 3 (SVGA)
Received on Mon May 25 1998 - 10:26:19 NZST