I am trying to setup another front end on a Toshiba 1800 laptop. The laptop has a Trident video card with TV out.

I went through the auto install and got connected to my backend with almost no problems. Video and sound worked perfectly on the laptop screen/speakers.

I then went and connected to my SDTV through the composite video out connection. After pressing the FN-F5 key I got a signal on my TV but it was rapidly scrolling diagonally.

Is this a function of the modelines being wrong? I know very little about modelines. If it is the modeling, should the laptop screen be off also (it isn't).

I had my other (slower) notebook connected to the same TV and it worked fine. Can I use the same modeline for the new system. In other words is the modeline related to the TV or to the video card (or both)?

Lots of questions I guess. Can any one shed some light on this for me.

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LINHES 8.6.1 BE/FE - MSI K9N6SGM-V with AMD A64 X2 4600+, 4GB Ram. 1.5TB WD. HDHR Prime. Nvidia GT210. MCE remote.
FrontEnd - Dell Vostro 400 3.0GHz Core2Duo NVidia GeForce210. MCE Remote

Either your resolution is set too high or your refresh rate is set too high. Read the instructions at the very bottom of the following page for refresh rate settings: http://www.mysettopbox.tv/doc.html

Thanks for the response elph. I went throught the instructions and checked the refresh rates. All look OK.
Is there an easy way to check modelines. What does a bad modeline look like?

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LINHES 8.6.1 BE/FE - MSI K9N6SGM-V with AMD A64 X2 4600+, 4GB Ram. 1.5TB WD. HDHR Prime. Nvidia GT210. MCE remote.
FrontEnd - Dell Vostro 400 3.0GHz Core2Duo NVidia GeForce210. MCE Remote

The first thing I would do is look at the boot process on the front end.

If it looks fairly clean (no scrambling, scrolling, etc...) then look at when it starts messing up. If it messes up when any part of the UI for the frontend loads, then assume that the refresh rate is too high. It's probably a probably a safe assumption. Search through the forums for details on making sure that your XF86Config-4 file is set up to restrict refresh rates to no more than 60Hz.

L0o0ky

I am sure that the XF86-Config4 file has the refresh rates set for 60Hz as written in the pamphlet. I discovered that I can see the text based sessions (alt-cntl-1) on the TV but nothing on the GUI. I assume this means that the hardware and driver are OK and this is just a settings problem.

Is there a startup log for the GUI that shows what resolution/refresh rate/ modeline etc. is being used?

Maybe the answer lies in there.

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LINHES 8.6.1 BE/FE - MSI K9N6SGM-V with AMD A64 X2 4600+, 4GB Ram. 1.5TB WD. HDHR Prime. Nvidia GT210. MCE remote.
FrontEnd - Dell Vostro 400 3.0GHz Core2Duo NVidia GeForce210. MCE Remote

http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=CheckingLogFiles

Also check out the troubleshooting page there.