After another couple of days of horsing around trying to get the sound to work (see [url=http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=18280]this thread[/url) with no success, I decided that enough was enough. I went out into the garage and dug around and was able to dig up a sound card. (Some Diamond brand vortex card... doesn't matter for this though.) I popped it into the box I installed KnoppMyth on and bam - I have sound. I shut everything down, moved it from my computer center to the livingroom, patched it into the TV, turned it on, and I was able to see the bootup sequence on the TV fine - just like that, I thought I was in business.

The only problem is that the instant the PC boots into X, the TV screen goes totally, completely red. It's like the blue no-signal screen, only red instead of blue. If I switch over to a console using Alt-Fn, it comes back just fine. I'm thinking it's an invalid resolution or color depth or something, but don't know what it should be set to. I've searched the forums, but not turned up anything pertinent.

I'm going to try changing /etc/X11/xorg.conf and see if I can't get it working. I'll post back if I do, but in the mean time would appreciate any advice.

Just tried setting all color depths to 640x480 to no avail. I'm so close, but yet so far away...

Any pointers? There is no reference to tv out in the xorg.conf file - maybe there should be? The card I have is an old ATI AGP card that I'm using the composite video out on.

Could somebody please cut & paste their /etc/X11/xorg.conf file from a box that works when connected to a TV into this thread so that I may try to troubleshoot? I honestly do not know what else to do... it's got to be something with X because of the behavior described above.

hi
How are you connecting to the tv? component, composite, dvi, vga? Maybe while diddling with the sound card you dislodged the video.
Mike

Composite out connected to front AV jacks. I tested the box with a monitor and it worked fine. Plus, it works fine in console mode and the splash screen shows perfectly.

I had to add this under Section "Monitor" after plugging into TV when it was already setup on a monitor. Before making this change I would get nothing.

Tried what you suggested TooManySecrets and there was no change.

I then got sick of screwing around with it and re-installed from scratch using the tv option from the boot prompt. Installed fine, display was fine during install, rebooted, saw the display during loading, then woosh - nothing. Pure *white* screen this time. I did find a bunch of threads about this, but they all appear to be related to a nVidia driver not being loaded automatically. Further, when I switch to a terminal, only the bottom 1/2 of the screen is visible. Assing the ConnectedMonitor option to xorg.conf in this install produced the same effect, only the top of the screen starts ~2" from the bottom of the screen and goes off the screen, then the bottom 2/3 of the screen appears at the top with a wide white horizontal band between the two. The left edge of the display also starts in the middle of the screen, runs off the right side, and the right side starts on the left side of the TV with a gap between them. I'm guessing that setting it up without a monitor corrected the problem causing the red screen, but also caused this problem. (I'm guessing refresh rates, but that's wild speculation.) I've included all the information I can think of related to hardware below.

1.4 ghtz Celery
256 meg RAM
20 gig hard drive (yeah, I know it's small; planning on adding a 400gig mounted as /myth if/when it works and I decide if I like it)
ATI Rage 3d video card
SA71<somethin> capture card (not really worried about this right now)
Diamond Vortex sound card (because integrated Intel AC97 doesn't work)
Connected to Toshiba 27" TV via RCA cable from composite jack on video card


/etc/X11/xorg.conf shows the following under Monitor0:
HorizSync 28.0 - 86.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 75.0


I'm guessing that these are what's wrong. Could somebody who has a box connected to their TV in such a way post what they're using for these two options?

Thanks to everyone who's replied and in advance for advice given in the future.

OK, this is interesting... if I don't change anything and just reboot multiple times, every time I reboot, the screen position is changed. It's always mostly off the visible portion of the screen, but on every boot it's positioned differently.

At least before I re-installed, I could display and get to a console to test/troubleshoot; now that's even a chore because I can't see 40% of the screen and what I can see is chopped up all over the place. Looks like I did nothing but made things worse by re-installing...

A quick search for ATI Rage turns up this, maybe it helps?

I suspect the reason you are getting very few responses is that most of the posts I have read that deal with an ATI card end in "gave up, installed nVidia card, all works" or "found such-and-such link via Google...".

That link provided the solution SlowToLearn! I put the following line in my xorg.conf, rebooted, and voila - good signal going to my TV. I watched 2 DIVX files after getting home from work tonight. Thank you very much for the pointer; never dawned on me to search for the model card. (I figured for sure that it was a setting like refresh rate, sync setting, etc just based on how it was acting.)

Heh, it'd help future readers if I actually put the line I added in the post, huh?




That was it!