ATI RADEON HD 4650 can't set primary display

[cncman]

Hi All,

Today I updated PCLOS via synaptic. You know... RELOAD>MARK ALL UPGRADES>APPLY.  Well FGLRX was updated and now all of my desktop icons and panels and launcher are all on the smaller secondary display and not on the larger primary display where they have always been. I can't seem to find a way to get them back to my primary display.

First I tried Catalyst Control Center as root, but can't find a primary display setting.

Second I re-initialized the driver in console as root using

Code: [Select]

aticonfig --initial -f
aticonfig --initial=dual-head --screen-layout=right
aticonfig --resolution=0,1280x1024 --resolution=1,1024x768and that worked until i setup the "multi-display desktop" in CCC then things reverted.

Finally I tried : CONFIGURE YOUR DESKTOP>DISPLAY AND MONITORS>SIZE & ORIENTATION>Primary output =CRT1>APPLY
This works... I hit "ACCEPT CONFIGURATION" then "Save as Default," but when I log out or reboot things are backwards again.

I've been configuring multi-display desktops on ATI's for years and never had this problem. I sure could use some help.

Thanks

P.S. If anyone knows how to get Flash videos to play full screen without freezing or stuttering I sure would like to know. (FYI un-checking "enable hardware acceleration" doesn't work)

[Just17]

I have only just spotted this post ....  I hope you got sorted out with the problems ......  IIRC there was a suggestion to go back to an older version of Flash for unresolved problems after disabling hardware acceleration.

[cncman]

Thanks for the reply Just17.

I haven't got this sorted in PCLOS. The main problem is that the new 12.x series ATI drivers are mucking about with the primary display. What really burns me is that the KDE System Settings utility won't save my working configuration as default on boot/login I have to set CRT1 as the primary display every time. Grr! Now I've just learned that AMD has relegated 4000 series cards to "legacy" status so I'm stuck with Catalyst 12.6 from now on I guess.

The Flash Player problem has been the only real thorn in my side since the PCLOS2010 release (I think that's when it started). So I've had just about every ATI driver/Flash combo since then, tried every setting i could think of, and nothing I could find works on my system. I can get full screen flash video, but it's slow, jerky, tears, freezes, and no matter how many times I press escape or click the shrink icon I can't get the video to return to normal size without killing firefox.

[Just17]

You seem to have a bunch of interrelated things going on 

Thanks for the reply Just17.

I haven't got this sorted in PCLOS. The main problem is that the new 12.x series ATI drivers are mucking about with the primary display. What really burns me is that the KDE System Settings utility won't save my working configuration as default on boot/login I have to set CRT1 as the primary display every time. Grr! Now I've just learned that AMD has relegated 4000 series cards to "legacy" status so I'm stuck with Catalyst 12.6 from now on I guess.

I suppose it is selecting the cards primary output by default ......  so is it possible to swap the display connections to the card?

The Flash Player problem has been the only real thorn in my side since the PCLOS2010 release (I think that's when it started). So I've had just about every ATI driver/Flash combo since then, tried every setting i could think of, and nothing I could find works on my system. I can get full screen flash video, but it's slow, jerky, tears, freezes, and no matter how many times I press escape or click the shrink icon I can't get the video to return to normal size without killing firefox.

Regarding Flash ....  there are two versions in the repository.

The older one did not have the 'smurf-look' problem and should therefore allow hardware acceleration which might help with your problems.

When using the newer one, and if hit with the 'blue' tinge on video, the fix is to turn off hardware acceleration.

Also you should disable desktop effects if getting display problems, to see if you can find some combination that is acceptable. Later the desktop effects can be turned on again to see what effect they have.

I hope you find a combination that works for you 

BTW ....  don't forget about the ATi configuration GUI from the repository ....  there might be some settings there that could help.

[cncman]

I suppose it is selecting the cards primary output by default ......  so is it possible to swap the display connections to the card?

AMD Catalyst Control center shows my Primary display as Screen 1 and my secondary display as screen 2 but the desktop still shows up on screen 2 even though I have screen 1 set as primary in System Settings as described in my first post. As a side note I dual boot with Kubuntu 64 bit on this system and have the exact same screen swapping issue with KDE and the AMD 12.x drivers. The only difference is that System Settings in Kubuntu will save screen 1 as primary and I don't have to reset it every time I log in as with PCLOS.

The real problem is not that the screens are swapped, but why won't KDE System Settings in PCLOS save the Primary output setting as default on login?

Oh, I'm upgrading KDE to 4.8 today maybe that will fix it. Here's hoping.

As for Flash Player.... I've always had desktop effects and compositing turned off. Gives better frame rates in FlightGear. I've never seen the smurf effect, but am aware of the two Flash Players. I have an older spare system with an Nvidia AGP card and have to use the older flashplayer on that system. I guess it couldn't hurt to try it out on my main system.

[agmg]

Slightly out of topic, but did you happen to notice strange behaviour when changing outputs through CONFIGURE YOUR DESKTOP > DISPLAY AND MONITORS > SIZE & ORIENTATION?

My laptop has an ATI Mobility Radeon HD4650 with Catalyst 12.4 drivers. Sometimes I connect the laptop to my 40'' TV to watch movies. When I try to disable my laptop's monitor and switch the output to TV only, it does the opposite thing the first time. It disables the TV and enables only the laptop's screen. The second time, though, is successful (and I get the popup window to confirm the changes I made). And of course, if I reboot, then both monitors go back to clone mode and both have laptop's screen resolution - 1366x768 pixels.

I noticed this strange behaviour with the 12.x versions of Catalyst drivers...

[ferry_th]

regarding about kde forgetting your setting, try to read this

HOWTO: Make KDE remember dual-monitor randr settings.

It works for me. On step 3, the config file  is  now in ~/.kde4/share/config/ .

[chainsaw_sculptor]

I've got exactly the same problem. However my graphics card is Nvidia GT540M which I've never been able to get to work and instead use the Intel 810.

So this would seem to be an issue with KDE4.