Intel 945GM out of the box?

[b4rney]

I have a Jetway J9F2-Extreme Core Duo Mainboard as a media director but so far I haven't got the intel graphics to work and can only get UI1 with the vesa driver. I had read that the the intel 945gm should work out of the box. The wiki says it should work (I am using 710 RC1).

If I leave the intel driver in xorg.conf x-server will not start.

Anyone had similar issues? Can anyone guide me how to manually configure this MD to use the intel driver?

[niz23]

b4rney.

Have the same problem with an IBM ThinkCentre M51.
Only UI1 work. UI2 masked result in a black screen.

Have not had time yet to figure out why it does not work since the specs for the card should me enough to play at least SD resolutions.

Anyony knows?

/niz23

[b4rney]

OK managed to figure this out ... sort of.

I am running a 710 RC1 32 bit core (DVD install) and I added the 64 bit MD above. As far as I know this should work but it doesn't seem to work for me.

FIX
Using the web admin I changed the MD to i386 and clicked rebuild image.

I now get the AV wizard and can configure the DVI output. I went through the media setup and everything seems fine but I am now getting a screen freeze after a minute of no activity. I have to reboot.

I can't add this as a working motherboard to the wiki as it still doesn't run that well. UI1 seems OK though.

[methodus]

Hi b4rney,

I have built up two set top boxes with the J9F2 and got exactly the same problems you have.

When I try to use UI2 with overlay the hole machine crashes after some seconds.

UI1 works fine so far, but this is not why I spend 250€ for the board and another 250€ for a T7200...

I hope to fix this, but actually I see no future in LinuxMCE for these boards.

[b4rney]

Thanks for your input methodus. You have exactly the same setup as me down to the T7200 processor. Is your core 32bit or 64bit? Did you try rebuilding the MD as i386?

I still think it might be a setting in xorg.conf. I had it running stable yesterday with UI2 overlay for 20 minutes and watched a DVD. Today it's frozen with tearing graphics.

I'll post back if I get it stable.

[methodus]

I have the 32bit version. I was using the CD version as I need to install the drivers for my Hauppauge HVR-4000 first.

Actually I thought it is a Intel driver problem, but it is not. The driver works fine so far and I am able to run the UI test over several minutes without crash. It just crashes inside the media director.

Edit: could you just post your xorg.conf? I mean its the same, obviously... however, I have read in some ubuntu boards to use the i815 driver instead of intel. Have you tried this?

[b4rney]

Is your MD amd64 or 32bit? Mine was amd64. I have read that the CD install doesn't have all the drivers required by 64bit systems.

I don't know how to copy/paste the conf file (I'm quite new at this). I can vi into the file as root on moonxx but not sure what to do next!!
I haven't tried the i815 driver as I don't know how to change/remove drivers yet either.

I have tested my system tonight and I removed the overlay and just had the pictures changing and it was stable for ages. I pressed F7 for the overlay menu and within a minute it had frozen and locked up.

Happy to post my xorg.conf if someone can tell me how!

More info:
Core is 32bit with nvidia graphics and works fine
MD is now rebuilt as 32bit (was detected as 64bit) and freezes regularly if the overlay is visible

[methodus]

Do you have a graphical text editor? Actually you should have, because there is one installed in Kubuntu (kedit or similar)

As far as I know, you just have to change the xorg.conf and restart the x-server to use another driver. Usually the drivers are already included in the Linux kernel.

I want to try it now, and see what happens...

Edit: ok, DONT do this. DO NOT change the driver to i815. it will lead to a "Can not configure X server" error message when you try to reconfigure the screen using the wizzard of LMCE. It will automatically reset the driver to the intel driver as it set before.

I was wondering why nobody else have this problem.

[b4rney]

I haven't tried a lot of motherboards but I think from the instability that I am seeing we have a UI1 only Jetway J9F2-Extreme Core Duo Mainboard here.

In short using UI2:
The picture freezes when the overlay is visible and no key presses work. I have to ssh in and reboot or send the command from the web admin.
Sometimes it crashes instantly with graphic tearing.
DVI output doesn't always show the bios screen at post (have to quickly ctrl-alt-del until it shows).

Is it bios settings? Is it xorg.conf? Grrr!!!
I will keep playing around but it has been frustrating. Not sure if I should add it to the wiki as a 'does not work with UI2' m/board.

[hagayr]

had this same freeze problem with another 945 MB .
the only solution I found was to disable the LMCE screen saver (don't know whay ?).
in LMCE admin page go to media director page and press the Edit button near the software module.
you will get a new window , uncheck the screen saver and reboot .
you can add some background picture instead of the screen saver.

[niz23]

Hi everyone.

Have found why this happen.

There is a bug in xorg-intel driver version 2.1.1 that is included in ubuntu 7.10.
The bug affect hardware overlay functionality which UI2 use.
Have found numerous bug incidents in ubuntu site regarding this type of behavior.

It seem the have been fixed fixed around version 2.1 which is included in Hardy (8.04) along with some motion compensation that also got fixed at the same time.

I´m trying to figure out what I need to compile these newer version (newest is 3.1.1).
So far no luck, and it is impossible to find precompiled drivers as ubuntu make anything for 7.10 any longer.

If anyone know how to compile xorg drivers in kubuntu please let me now so we sort this problem out.


/niz23

[totallymaxed]

OK managed to figure this out ... sort of.

I am running a 710 RC1 32 bit core (DVD install) and I added the 64 bit MD above. As far as I know this should work but it doesn't seem to work for me.

FIX
Using the web admin I changed the MD to i386 and clicked rebuild image.

I now get the AV wizard and can configure the DVI output. I went through the media setup and everything seems fine but I am now getting a screen freeze after a minute of no activity. I have to reboot.

I can't add this as a working motherboard to the wiki as it still doesn't run that well. UI1 seems OK though.

To change from 64bit to 32bit you need to do the following;

Go to Web Admin -> Advanced -> Configuration -> Devices and select device template 28 "Generic PC as MD" and in the window that opens tick the "Allowed to Modify" tick box for the "#233 Model(string)" field. Then click "Save" at the bottom of the window.

Now go to Wizards -> Devices -> Media Directors and scroll to the MD you want to convert and edit the "Model" field to say "LMCE_MD_u0710_i386" and the "Architecture" field to say "i386" (**Omit the quotes when entering those strings into the fields**). Now click "Update" at the bottom of the page to save the changes. Then scroll back to the MD you want to convert and click the "Rebuid Image" button on the right hand side of the page next to the MD's entry.

Now wait... this can take a considerable amount of time and there is not much feedback that something is actually happening in the Web Admin page itself... after 10 mins or so a black window will appear and you will see some activity at last and then a small confirmation window will be displayed which you should confirm... and your done.

Its best to do this with the MD your converting powered off by the way... now boot the MD and it will startup and run the setup wizard etc.

Hope the above is helpful.


All the best

Andrew