Bug#653029: Firmware might help

[Graham <graham.knap@gmail.com>]

Hi,

I'm playing with an old ThinkPad A22p, which contains a Rage128 chip.
After upgrading to squeeze, it gave me the same "black screen" and
infinitely-repeating "Idle timed out, resetting engine" message in
Xorg.0.log.

Installing firmware seems to have helped. However, this doesn't
entirely solve the problem. The Xorg log indicates that the driver
knows that the machine has a 1600x1200 LCD. However, apparently due to
a DDC read failure, the driver switches down to a lower resolution
(1024x768?), and this doesn't work properly; the image is torn and
shifted. I had to create an xorg.conf file, and set the refresh rate
ranges to 60-60Hz (V) and 30-75kHz (H).

Hope that helps.

-- graham