[lug] whole screen (X) flashes

[John Karns]

On Sat, 17 Aug 2002, D. Stimits said:

> under linux, I would have to wonder if perhaps a bios setting for agp or
> video in general is causing this.

Hardware or firmware, something I suppose the Dell folks would have to
figure out.  It is definitely OS independent though - happens with IE 5 in
W2k under vmware too.

As far as settings, the BIOS in most of these laptops is a lot more
limited than the desktop machines.  There does appear a line in the main
BIOS screen which gives the card's model, but there is no option for
setting video interrupt like there is in most desktop machine BIOSes these
days - it's all automatic.

As a side issue, the flash update has had a major impact on the cooling
though, as before only one of the two fans ever fired up, and I had to keep
an eye on the machine under conditions where the cpu was under higher loads,
as it would really heat up the bottom of the CDR, so I had gotten in the
habit of keeping the tray open.  It's running a lot cooler with both fans
operating now.

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John Karns                                        jkarns at csd.net