catgate Posted June 2, 2009 Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 Earlier in the day, when I clicked on the "minimise" icon (the leftmost of the three in the top right hand corner) the screen contents were just deleted, as if the the right most (close) icon had been clicked. I rebooted and it remained the same.We went out shopping so the machine was switched off.On firing up again the screen reolution had gone all to pot and the display was about half as big again as it should be. It was not posible to go higher than 960 x 600. In fact the options above this are not now even listed (and it says it is running at 60Hz!!!!)I suspect that it is the monitor that is goosed rather than a software problem, but I would welcome any further thoughts on the matter, before I go delving into thesystem workings. As it is at present the machine is useless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rong Posted June 2, 2009 Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 Graphics card, can you try another Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catgate Posted June 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 Graphics card, can you try anotherIt's onboard. The only one I had in the house went into a friends machine some months ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rong Posted June 2, 2009 Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 I would go and get it back and try it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catgate Posted June 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 I have just dug out an old 17" CRT to try that. Its one that management's father used to play games on up to last October. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catgate Posted June 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 So I was wrong it was an old 15" Dell. However I plugged it in and off it went gaily. Linux certainly seems to accept what ever you throw at it without any fuss.So I feel fairly sure it is the hardware that is up that famous creek.Can I get one on expenses???? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rong Posted June 2, 2009 Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 Only if you win an election, if you go for the European you could probably have two or three Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catgate Posted June 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 It turns out not to be as simple as I was thinking, rong..There looks to be more to it than just the monitor.Although I now have a sensible sized image running at 1024 x 768 at 87 Hz the the minimise icon still does its deleting trick.I had thought that this was to do with some sort of faulty curser/pixel co-ordination but now I am not sure what to think.....or even how. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rong Posted June 2, 2009 Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 faulty curser/pixel co-ordination I would think would be more likely to be the video card, which is why I suggested it, can you do a repair with linux? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catgate Posted June 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 When you say "repair" are you suggesting the soldering iron into the motherboard, or a tweak of the software?I realised half an hour ago whilst pondering on the matter, that there was an update came through this morning connected to a prog/procedure (I think it was called cron..a sort of alarm clock type thing). I wondered if that just tickled something, though just how I know not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rong Posted June 2, 2009 Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 tweak of the software Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catgate Posted June 3, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 3, 2009 I have just plugged the Asus in to my W98se machine and on there the minimise etc. icons behave perfectly, so I am now faced with what looks like a fault on my Linux m/c motherboard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catgate Posted June 6, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 I have now fed it a new mother board and it has made not one jot of difference. To sort out the software side of things I fired the machine up from a live CD of my current OS thereby circumnavigating the resident OS.Again no change. I can get nothing higher than SVGA resolutions. I was running XGA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Have you checked the monitor cables out ? - try swapping them and see if that reveals anything Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catgate Posted June 6, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Have you checked the monitor cables out ? - try swapping them and see if that reveals anythingNo, Boris, I never gave that a thought. I will try it and see what happens.There is something very odd going on.I still have the silliness with the "minimise icon". When I use it the "screen" disappears without the usual icon appearing in the far left of the bottom tool bar. The screen is still there somewhere because when/if I restart the computer it usually comes back on start up. (As you may know I am on Ubuntu on that machine and it seems to have a very good emergency saving system). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catgate Posted June 10, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 10, 2009 Have you checked the monitor cables out ? - try swapping them and see if that reveals anythingI did not get to the cable swap, Boris. My other old monitors (CRT) all had fixed cables, so I threw all caution to the wind and ordered another 19" TFT thinking that if it did not do the trick my old W98SE machine would perhaps appreciate a change for the better.The new monitor was delivered but half an hour ago.Well it's a bit like the curate's egg. The resolution problem has disappeared and I can now get the 1024 x 768 range and upwards to 1440 x 900 (not that I will use the upper end)However I am still left with the original silliness with the minimise icon at the top right of the screen. When I try to minimise, the screen rapidly heads south and hibernates out of sight, or else just vanishes into the ether, and there seems to be no way of getting it back.It looks as though I need to find out if this is a function of Ubuntu or the monitor. At face value Ubuntu is now favourite for this one.I would appreciate any thoughts on the matter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catgate Posted June 11, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2009 Just for the sake of completion, I am pleased to say that I seem to have got back the functionality of the minimise button by adding another (or is it the same?) function from the "Add to Panel" menu. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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