PS/VP video solutions

PROBLEM - What are some common problems with the PS/Valuepoint video, and what are their solutions?

SOLUTION -

1. Poor display quality display is wavy, unreadable, rolling, or distorted screen, or screen jitter.

SOLUTION: Special display drivers are provided on diskette with every Valuepoint system; these MUST BE installed to give improved display performance and a choice of display resolutions. These drivers must be installed before following the solutions given for other display problems listed in this document.

Also provided on the display driver diskettes is a utility that allows the user to set the screen refresh rate: Most users will see screen flicker when the screen refresh rate is set to 60Hz or less (the default), flicker free performance requires the use of a refresh rate of 70Hz or above. On systems with Tseng video this requires the use of the VMODE command, on systems with Cirrus logic video this requires the use of the CLMODE command, on systems with S3 video this requires the use of the refresh command.

NOTE: Not all displays are capable of supporting all the display resolutions and display refresh rates: The display documentation must be consulted to find out which display resolutions and associated refresh rates are supported on that display.

2. Where can i obtain the latest video drivers for Valuepoint systems? solution: The latest video drivers can be obtained from the IBM BBS..

3. Selected refresh rates are not stored after system power off after setting the required refresh rate using the refresh rate utility, the selected refresh rates are not stored after system power off. When the system is next powered up the user is left in the default (flickering) refresh rates.

SOLUTION: Place the command that changes the display refresh rate in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file; details of the format of the command are included in the display driver documentation.

4. On systems with Windows preload software, the refresh rate command in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file does not change the refresh rate.

On systems where Microsoft Windows has been installed to start up automatically after power on by placing a win command in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file, and where the required refresh rates have been saved by a command in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file, the requested refresh rates are not seen on the display.

SOLUTION: Ensure that the command to change the refresh rate is placed before the WIN command in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. This is required even on for example VP/si sx systems where the refresh rates have been saved automatically by the clmode refresh rate utility, because the refresh rate command is always placed at the end of the AUTOEXEC.BAT file by the utility.

5. problems installing S3 Windows drivers
Problem: When installing the S3 Windows drivers by following the instructions in the documentation, or by using the setup utility in Windows, the program will ask the user to insert the "S3 flat model drivers disk". Pressing enter here will not satisfy the install program.

SOLUTION: When asked to insert the "S3 flat model drivers disk", leave the S3 Windows drivers diskette in the a: Drive, and change the required path from "a:\" to "A:". The drivers will now install successfully.

6. Flicker free display refresh rate not available at 640x480
Problem: When using the CLMODE refresh rate utility's menu driven interface, it is not possible to select a flicker free mode when at 640x480 resolution, only 60Hz refresh is available at this resolution.

SOLUTION: Use clmode's command line options - this gives additional options over the menu driven interface. For example, typing

CLMODE T6=1
will give 72Hz refresh rate for 640x480 resolution. Consult the documentation for a complete list of command line options.

7. Uneven, jerky, and hard to control mouse pointer.
Problem: After setting a new refresh rate using refresh.exe and then returning to Windows, the mouse pointer becomes hard to control. This problem occurs at some resolutions and not at all the possible refresh rates, and occurs only when refresh.exe has been run from within Windows.

SOLUTION: Place the refresh command, together with the appropriate arguments to set the desired refresh rate, in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file so that the refresh rate is set after a reboot.

8. P60/D display resolutions - readme errata the following video modes are not supported on the P/60 ATI 68800ax graphics controller:

o 800x600 at 16.7 million colors

o 1024x768 at 64 thousand colors

NOTE: The readme file that is installed when the ATI Windows drivers are installed states incorrectly that the above modes are supported.

9. upper display corruption
Problem: The upper one third of the display may be corrupted when switching from the MSDOS session and back to the desktop manager under Windows 3.11 with a 8514/A video driver installed.

SOLUTION: Perform the following:

a. exit out of Windows back to a DOS prompt b. insert ATI driver diskettes 1 into drive a c. enter install on the DOS command line. Wait for the main menu to appear. d. select "set power-up configuration" and press enter e. select "VGA memory size" and set it to 256K and press enter f. press F10 to save the configuration g. press "ESC" until you are back to the DOS prompt

10. Loss of standard character font data for the text mode on the screen.
SOLUTION: A FLASH update diskette, (level 51 or higher), is required to fix this problem.

11. ATI 8514 ultra video will be totally blank or system hangs with the error message "14215 ROM paging failure".

SOLUTION: Remove the ATI 8514 ultra adapter from the system and use the SVGA on the planar.

Additional Information: The root cause of the problem is a I/O conflict with register 4AE8 of the VGA. The ATI 8514 ultra adapter uses the register for the resolution controller and the Valuepoint uses the register for the video subsystem. The planar video must remain enabled.

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