[Savage40] Disabling the LCD and TV-out overscan questions

[Alex Deucher]

--- Tim Franssen <mail at timendus.com> wrote:

> Hello all,
> 
> I'm having two minor problems using the S3 savage driver for my
> specific
> purpose. In my e-mail to Tim Roberts I have explained the situation:
> 
> On 10/2/07, Tim Roberts <timr at probo.com> wrote:
> >
> > Tim Franssen wrote:
> > > I have recently received an old Toshiba Satellite Pro 4300 series
> > > laptop, and I'm trying to use it as a multimedia PC connected to
> a TV
> > > (and primarily used through the TV). I use Option "TvOnly" and
> Option
> > > "PAL" in my xorg.conf to tell the driver to use the TV instead of
> the
> > > laptop LCD. This works like a charm, however it doesn't turn the
> > > laptop LCD off. It doesn't receive any data anymore either, so
> the LCD
> > > displays some really ugly white "drain" effect, which I imagine
> can't
> > > be good for the hardware. Using the keyboard shortcut (Fn+F5) to
> > > switch between video devices does turn the LCD off. Does this
> have
> > > anything to do with the driver, and do you have any idea how I
> could
> > > solve this problem (i.e. turn the LCD off in software any other
> way)?
> > >
> >
> > What you're probably seeing is that the LCD itself is not being
> driven,
> > but the LCD backlight is still on, so you're just seeing through
> the
> > crystals in some "floating" state.  It doesn't do any damage, but
> it is
> > ugly.
> >
> > I never figured out a reliable way to turn off the backlight.  That
> > tends to be under the control of the motherboard, rather than the
> > graphics chip.
> 
> 
> Does anyone else have any idea on how to disable the LCD monitor,
> perhaps
> through less usual means? (attaching a loose VGA connector or
> whatever? :-))
> 
> I'd prefer to turn it off instead of just closing the lid and
> forgetting
> about it mainly because of the possible fire hazard... :-)

There's a vbe call to blank the panel.  the driver calls it in the DPMS
method for chips where we don't know how to blank the panel directly.

> 
> > The second question I have is if it is possible to adjust the TV
> > > overscan; I can't find anything about this, but it's a quite
> usual
> > > (and useful) feature. If it's not exposed through xorg options,
> can it
> > > be adjusted through a config file or by modifying the source..?
> > >
> >
> > There are registers in the chip for modifying the overscan.  I
> never did
> > it, but I thought someone on the mailing list actually played with
> > this.  You might sign up for the mailing list
> > (http://www.probo.com/mailman/listinfo/savage40) and submit the
> > question.  The mailing list only gets one or two message a month,
> so it
> > won't burden you.
> 
> 
> So, here I am. Does anyone have any experience with adjusting the
> overscan
> of the TV-out? And if so; how much work is it to tweak it to a
> specific TV?

there may be vbe functions to adjust the tv-out params, but I don't
really know what they are off hand.

Alex



       
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