Tell me more ×
Unix & Linux Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for users of Linux, FreeBSD and other Un*x-like operating systems.. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 1 down vote favorite
1

I have a Mini-PC with an ASRock AD2700B-ITX motherboard, which has an Intel PowerVR SGX545 on-board graphic chip. I installed Ubuntu 12.04 on it today.

Everything is working properly and is quite quick and responsive, except that the video resolution is too low. I cannot set it higher than 1280x1024. I have a BenQ G2220HD display, which is capable of 1920x1080.

Since both the graphics chip and the display are capable of higher resolutions, I assume this is a driver problem?

share|improve this question
can you confirm this is not supported natively by ubuntu? I was gonna get this chip too. also this the graphic card should be SGX545. NOT SGX454 as you mentioned above! – c2h2 May 16 '12 at 16:25

2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

I think the answer you got in your forum post is correct: if X.org doesn't have a chipset-specific driver, it's going to fall back to the generic VESA driver, which may not support all of the functions of that graphics chip.

I looked in the manual for that motherboard, and it is very sketchy on graphics issues. It claims "up to 1920x1200" but doesn't justify that with a video memory spec. Given the nature of the Atom and PowerVR, I'd bet it's taking a slice of system RAM for a video buffer, but I don't see anything in the UEFI section of the manual on configuring its size.

You could try forcing X to recognize the video RAM. Say sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/99-vesahack and put this in the newly created file:

Section "Device"
    Identifier "Screen0"
    VideoRam 9000
EndSection

This tells X that there is 9 MB of video RAM, enough for 1920x1200 at 4 bytes per pixel. If X won't restart when you do that, try changing it to 6750 kB, for 3 Bpp. I don't hold out much hope that this will work, but it's a thing to try. If it doesn't help, remove 99-vesahack.

Your best option may be to install a graphics card known to have good X.org support.

share|improve this answer
up vote 1 down vote

I have that same motherboard / OS setup and I'm using the cedarview drivers. I achieve full resolution but performance in 2D isn't brilliant.

http://daily.siebler.eu/2012/06/ubuntu-12-04-driver-for-intel-cedarview-atom-n2000-und-d2000-serie/

Seems that the manufacturer doesn't really care much about releasing Linux drivers for this chipset, it is a shame, it is a good-ish machine.

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.