X unstable with S3 server - fonts broken with SVGA server
Hi,
At home I have a potato box. It's an x86 PC, P233MMX, 96Mb RAM, all pretty
conventional except that the primary HD and floppy channels are dead (free
motherboard :-) so they are served via an isa multi IO card.
I can't get X to work reliably. The video card is a 'Diamond stealth 64' - ie
an S3 Trio64 chip. 1Mb RAM. If I use the S3 server then the machine just
hangs after 10-20 minutes, apparently during an HD access because the HD
light is stuck on and there is often filesystem corruption when I reboot.
It never crashes when the same machine is left (with X still running) but in
a text mode. It can run for days like this. I have no idea how to trace this
bug - any suggestions. I assume this is a hardware interaction problem. Are
there speed options I can turn down somewhere. Are there S3 server options I
can turn on/off to see if it helps?
Recently I changed to using the VGA server on this card for a bit. Horrible
display but no crashes for some hours - seems stable. Next I installed the
SVGA server and that also doesn't seem to cause crashes when left sitting
there but I can't really use it as something is badly wrong with the display
of fonts. Many font are just random blockiness where the writing should be.
gdm (ie gnome) menu text is OK but the 'welcome' and user/password text is
unreadble. Xterms are illegible as are eterms and gnome terminal. emacs body
text is OK but the menus are illegible. Gnome Help browser links are
illegible. Gnome filer text is OK as are all the menus.
I don't know how all these fonts are generated but I assume the broken ones
are all generated or rendered in the same way. Anyone seen this before?
I'd like to either make the S3 server work reliably or the SVGA server
display fonts.
TIA
please cc me responses.
Wookey
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Aleph One Ltd, Bottisham, CAMBRIDGE, CB5 9BA, UK Tel +44 (0) 1223 811679
work: http://www.aleph1.co.uk/ play: http://www.chaos.org.uk/~wookey/
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