# Sony Vaio laptop framebuffer support

## vitriol

Sony Vaio PCG-FX340 laptop

Kernel 2.6.0test9

Problem: framebuffer support does not work on my model laptop, text console doesn't use the entire screen, only a portion of it. 

Hey, just wondering if anyone has working console framebuffer support on a Sony Vaio laptop.

I'm using kernel 2.60. test9 because it has support for Vaio laptops that might help solve my problem. I've messed around with different framebuffer options in the kernel config, but so far I haven't been able to get the peachy graphical boot-up.   :Confused:  Also, the text console (including grub's gui at boot-up) does not take full use of my screen.....only a box within the screen. Of course this isn't a problem with xfree because I can configure x to run at 1024X768 without problems. 

So....any Vaio laptop users get framebuffer support and/or full use of your screen at boot-up?

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## hulk2nd

i get both working on my vaio (i have 2.4.22 ac) and maybe i have the solution for your problem. in the bios i have a setting called screen expansion or something like that. it was enabled when i bought mine but just for fun i disabled it once to see what it is and i had the same thing like you described it. so maybe you should take a look at your bios ...

greets,

hulk

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## vitriol

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, I bought the laptop used and it has a password on the bios.   :Confused:  The vendor couldn't get in contact with the original owner, and they refuse to let me directly contact them (privacy issues). So I called Sony. A sony rep told me they can't tell me how to unlock the bios because I'm not the original owner....guess I'm just out of luck.    :Crying or Very sad:   I've googled for bios cracks, too. Basically every post, forum, and mailing list I've seen (including the sony website) gave me no hope. Taking out the CMOS battery for a full day did me no good. It's a pretty hopeless situation.

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## MooktaKiNG

The problem is that you haven't setup framebuffer properly.

However, i have a vaio, and using kernel 2.4.22, the gentoo-sources gives me problem. anyway, it seems to work fine. except i have few minor problems, the bootsplash doesn'y come on, maybe becuase my root is reisefs and i don't have a seperate /boot  :Smile: 

Try using the latest stable kernel  :Smile: 

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## vitriol

Well, after battling with sony for a couple of weeks, they finally told me how to unlock my bios. It turns out that if you are locked out, there is a back door password (all numerical) 7 or 8 digits in length. Each vaio laptop has a different password based on the serial number.  :Very Happy: 

Moving along now.....I was unable to adjust the screen size in the BIOS on boot-up. I don't think its possible to use the entire screen (1024X768) at boot-up. To reply to the last post, I'm using the 2.6.x kernel because I've noticed a significant boost in speed with the beta kernel over the 2.4 series kernel. Also, 2.6.x has new support specifically for Sony Vaio laptops that I wanted to play around with. It didn't work for me.   :Rolling Eyes:  Go figure, nothing does. 

More and more people are using the 2.6.x kernel as it becomes stable. Hopefully soon there will be a splashimage/framebuffer support how-to based on the new kernel  :Very Happy: 

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## MooktaKiNG

what kind of extra features?

I want to be able to use my FN keys, but they are not recognised, i troed sonypi, or what ever its called, in the kernel.

i've got my bootsplash working. It was a stupid mistake that i would rather not say  :Razz: 

for some reason acpi doesn't detect my laptops lid being closed.

Its VEERRYY weird becuase the /proc files DO change. and if i do cat with the state file for lid button, the screen baclight goes off if my screen is closed. 

However acpi doesn't seem todo that and i even tried adding some event commands. It turns out that i think there are NO event for the lid being closed.

It gets stranger by the minute.

Anyway, this is totally off topic, but i think its a good place to post since everyone here has a vaio  :Very Happy:  :Very Happy: 

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## adammc

I'm using a Sony Vaio perfectly (Vanilla-sources-2.4.20) using the i810 framebuffer patch from http://i810fb.sf.net/

I believe this driver comes bundled in linux 2.6, is that the one you're trying?

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## vitriol

Really??

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## adammc

 *vitriol wrote:*   

> Just to clarify, are you guys that are using Vaio laptops with the i810 card getting FULL USE OF YOUR SCREEN at boot up?

 

yup, as soon as the kernel loads the driver the resolution switches to 1024x768 (along with having a lovely pic of tux in the upper left)

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## hulk2nd

as i already said, i also have a sony vaio and i dont need a patch like this. did you also follow the instructions from the "grub framebuffer and bootsplash" howto in docs, tips & tricks?

greets,

hulk

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## vitriol

Yes, I have tried using the grub framebuffer and bootsplash  howto. I didn't have any luck with it. I set vga=ask in menu.lst for GRUB and tried all of the video modes. None of them allow me full use of my monitor in the console. I've tried a few more kernel options and recompiled 3 different times today, no luck yet.

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## aBs0lut30

I have the R505-JL/C after i managed to get gentoo installed(thats a topic unto itself) i ran into the same problem you guys are talking about, i found in the 2.6.0-test9 docs a file about FB on the i810 and am wondering if anybody has tried or had any luck with setting video=i810fb??

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## hulk2nd

don't you guys use the vesa framebuffer driver? did you follow the instructions that were meant in the framebuffer and grubsplash howto?

@MooktaKiNG:

you have to add the sonypi parameters to your kernel line to get the fn keys working.

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## MooktaKiNG

 *hulk2nd wrote:*   

> don't you guys use the vesa framebuffer driver? did you follow the instructions that were meant in the framebuffer and grubsplash howto?
> 
> @MooktaKiNG:
> 
> you have to add the sonypi parameters to your kernel line to get the fn keys working.

 

yeh, i realised that few days ago, when i was inspecting the output of dmesg.

I'm an idiot  :Smile:  :Smile:  :Smile: 

why couldn't they just turn this feature on by default. And it seems the jogdial is on by default, but not the fn keys. that seems weird becuase not all sony laptops have jogdials, but most of the laptops do have fn keys.

Anyway, thanks for trying  :Smile: 

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## vitriol

I'm still having problems. I have yet to get full use of my console. Here is some of my output from dmesg:

```

agpgart: Detected an Intel i815 Chipset.

agpgart: Maximum main memory to use for agp memory: 320M

agpgart: AGP aperture is 64M @ 0xf8000000

I810FB: fb0         : Intel(R) 815 (Internal Graphics with AGP) Framebuffer Device v0.9.0

I810FB: Video RAM   : 4096K

I810FB: Monitor     : H: 29-30 KHz V: 60-60 Hz

I810FB: Mode        : 640x480-8bpp@60Hz

vga16fb: initializing

vga16fb: mapped to 0xc00a0000

fb1: VGA16 VGA frame buffer device

```

I've read the kernel docs relating to the i810fb more than once, and the gentoo guide to framebuffer support many times over. I have color in my console now, but I can't see any of the text. The color looks garbled, although I can see "Gentoo Linux" in the bottom right corner.Now I'm thinking that it could be a faulty configuration in grub. 

```

title=2.6.0-test10

root (hd0,0)

kernel (hd0,0)/boot/beta/bzImage root=/dev/hda3 video=i810fb:vram:2,xres:1024,yres:768,bpp:8,hsync1:30,hsync2:55, vsync1:50,vsync2:85,accel,mtrr

```

That is the current configuration I'm using. Its giving me the scrambled color console I described above. I'm trying different options, but with the same result. Any ideas? I'd appreciate it if someone posted their working grub.conf section for the video card. Thanks.

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## hulk2nd

i just use

```
kernel=(hd0,0)/boot/bzImage root=/dev/hda3 video=vesa:ywrap,mtrr vga=0x31A 

```

and everything works great

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## vitriol

```
video=vesa:ywrap,mtrr vga=0x31A

```

I tried that and got the error message "you have passed an undefined video mode." Going off of what i remeber, I believe the best mode I could get was 0F06.

The kernel documentation says that video=i810fb is required, that is why I wasn't using video=vesa.

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## hulk2nd

maybe your video card doesnt support that high resplution (1280x1024). try another one

```
    | 640x480  800x600  1024x768 1280x1024 

----+------------------------------------- 

256 |  0x301    0x303    0x305    0x307    

32k |  0x310    0x313    0x316    0x319    

64k |  0x311    0x314    0x317    0x31A    

16M |  0x312    0x315    0x318    0x31B
```

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## vitriol

I tried all of them down as low as 0x301 and had no luck  :Sad:  Probably the only option that will work is video=i810fb with the other required options as mentioned in Documentation/fb/intel810.txt

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## vitriol

I've made some changes to grubs options for running the i810 framebuffer, this is what I have now:

```

root@fux0red syn # cat /proc/cmdline

root=/dev/hda3 video=i810fb:vram:2,xres:1024,yres:768,bpp:8,hsync1:29,hsync2:30,vsync1:60,vsync2:60

```

I have vertical and horizontal sync to set my monitor specifications. To the best of my knowledge, I have everything set up right. However, immediately after rebooting, I run fbset:

```
root@fux0red syn # fbset

mode "640x480-59"

    # D: 25.176 MHz, H: 31.469 kHz, V: 59.489 Hz

    geometry 640 480 640 480 4

    timings 39721 48 16 39 8 96 2

    rgba 6/0,6/0,6/0,0/0

endmode

```

And to match what fbset says, yes, I AM running in 640x480, despite the fact that I set 1024x768 in grub. 1024x768 is the max resolution my monitor supports.

So maybe I could change it.....here is my attempt at setting 1024x768 after the kernel has booted up:

```
root@fux0red syn # fbset -xres 1024 -yres 768

ioctl FBIOPUT_VSCREENINFO: Cannot allocate memory

root@fux0red syn # 

```

I'm still lost in the sauce here. How do i allocate memory? Will this fix it?

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## adammc

it's worth a shot, change the vram setting to 4 (which is the default) to allocate 4meg of ram to the fb.

on another (related) topic, I've just tried using 2.6.0-test11- the framebuffer works perfectly, but when I change the driver X uses to i810 (it was fbdev because i810 seems to conflict with the previously mentioned patch from sf.net) it works the first time, but on the next reboot things seem to die right after the kernel finishes loading.  Which is odd, since I can't see how an X config setting can affect the kernel.  By die, I mean the screen goes blank (things still appear to be loading).  Changing the X config back doesn't have any effect, so I'm current using 2.4 again  :Rolling Eyes:  I can't figure out why it's doing it, and it's really starting to annoy me...does anyone have any ideas?

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## bushwacka

r505 with 2.6.1-mm1-rc1

this has the i810fb driver built in

i can get 1024x768x8 working with the vesa driver

i have not been able to get i810fb working in any combo or resolution or bit depth

has anyone been able to get i810fb (with 2.6.0 kernel) shown to work in their dmesg output?

some additional info:

i know bootsplash only works in bpp16

the goal here is simply to get the i810fb going at this color depth

the vesa driver and this chipset appears to be limited to 1024x768xbpp8

i know i810fb will yeild the bpp16 that bootsplash needs

right now, i can't even get i810fb to work at bpp8

if i find something to make this work i will post the results

please do the same...this is driving me nutz

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## adammc

I've got i810fb working on vanilla 2.6.0....what happens when you try it?

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## bushwacka

changed kernel to vanilla 2.6.0

some kernel options

```
<*> /dev/agpgart (AGP Support)

<*>   Intel 440LX/BX/GX, I8xx and E7x05 chipset support

[*] Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 4.1.0 and higher DRI support)

<*>   Intel I810

<*>   Intel 830M, 845G, 852GM, 855GM, 865G

[*] Support for frame buffer devices

<*>   Intel 810/815 support (EXPERIMENTAL)

[*]     use VESA Generalized Timing Formula

[*]   Video mode selection support

<*> Framebuffer Console support

```

grub.conf

```
default 0

timeout 313

title=Linux version 2.6.0

root (hd0,0)

kernel (hd0,0)/bzImage root=/dev/hda3 video=i810fb:vram:4,xres:1024,yres:768,bpp:8,hsync1:31.5,hsync2:48.5,vsync1:40,vsync2:70
```

various dmesg requests

```
$ dmesg | grep fb

Kernel command line: root=/dev/hda3 video=i810fb:vram:4,xres:1024,yres:768,bpp:8,hsync1:31.5,hsync2:48.5,vsync1:40,vsync2:70

$ dmesg | grep 810

[drm] Initialized i810 1.4.0 20030605 on minor 0

$ dmesg | grep 830

agpgart: Detected an Intel 830M Chipset.

[drm] Initialized i830 1.3.2 20021108 on minor 1
```

Still no luck.

adammc:

You mentioned XF86Config having an effect on fb on boot.  Would you suggest I need to edit this as a next step?  Thanks.

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## adammc

before (when using 2.4.20) I found that I could not use the i810 driver in X, as it conflicted with the kernel driver...in 2.6.0 the opposite seems to be true, and I can only use the i810 driver in X.  if you're already using the XFree i810 driver, that should be fine.

another thing I've found is that when booting for the first time (i.e. the system has been halted, not rebooted) it is necessary to first boot the old 2.4 kernel, then reboot into 2.6 for the fb to work - otherwise, I get a blank screen when 2.6.0 switches to framebuffer mode.  My feeling is that this is something to do with the BIOS, but I'm only guessing.  I've reported this on the lkml, but received no direct response - though I read in a later post that framebuffer in general is pretty messed up in 2.6.0 and they're working on it.

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## bushwacka

I am throwing in the towel for now.  Thanks for the help though, much appreciated.

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## yamakawa

I am not a VAIO user, but have a laptop with i830 chip.

So far I can not make FB working on bootstrap of Gentoo either except for a 1024x768 console screen.

On the other hand, on the same PC, Fedora shows 1024x768 full color graphic screen using bootsplash on bootsplash.

I do not know what is exactly needed for FB to work this way, but I think there is a clue for the chip.

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## yamakawa

 *yamakawa wrote:*   

> Fedora shows 1024x768 full color graphic screen using bootsplash on bootsplash.

 

I was wrong. They did that by a gtk application after immediately starting X on bootup.

It has nothing to do with bootsplash anyway.

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## Supplicium

if youll still need to get around the bios pass, you can open your laptop case and find the CMOS battery... its looks like a HUGE watch battery. Just pop that out for 20 seconds, pop it back in, put the case back on and power up. I hope that you can solve your issue in the bios  :Very Happy:  gl.

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## yamakawa

I did it! I did it!

Now my laptop is showing neat Larry the Cow bootsplash background in verbose mode or the nice "G" logo in silent mode!!!

The clue for me was in BIOS setting. In it, the video ram setting was 1MB, which is the default setting for the PC. I increased that value up to 8MB and hurray!!! It finally worked!!!

My grub.conf is like this

```

title=Gentoo GNU/Linux

root=(hd0,4)

kernel=/boot/bzImage-2.4.24-new root=/dev/hda5 resume2=swap:/dev/hda3 video=vesafb:1024x768-16@60 vga=0x317 splash=silent

initrd=/boot/initrd-1024x768

```

Hope it works for you.

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## hussein

I am using a Vaio R600MX with i810 graphics and a 1024x768 (XGA) TFT.

Using any 2.6 kernel, i810fb is easy.  Pass the following parameters (if you are getting a 'scrambled image' its likely that your refresh rate is wrong) once you have 'i810 framebuffer support' compiled into your kernel:

video=i810fb:xres:1024,yres:768,hsync1:30,hsync2:50,vsync1:50,vsync2:70,bpp:16,mtrr,accel,hwcur

et voila, a beautiful console   :Smile: 

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## raylpc

I'm also using a i830M chip, but HP gives me no option to increase the video ram in BIOS... I really want framebuffer because I want to use qingy which I already set up in one of my boxes and to try out fdo xserver which depends on framebuffer.

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## snowbum

I have a vaio z. I run kernel 2.6.4. Framebuffer works no probs. ATI radeon work with acceleration. That would be the 7500. All my drivers are compiled into the kernel except madwifi. If you like, I can post my kernel .config file. Everything works except suspend/standby.

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## jl44882

I got it working with vanilla 2.6.4 kernel with support compiled into the kernel. I've got a vaio fx503 with an intel i815 chipset.

I had to set "plug and play os" to "y" in my bios setup. Thx for many hints!

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## pele_smk

Ok, I can get this to work in every other distro under the sun that I've tried, but Gentoo, errr the one I want yet I just can't get. I've tried the framebuffer splash how to, and got nowhere. It brought up the selection of modes and I tried all of them. Some made the screen maybe a centimeter more, but I still havn't hit a home run. 

I feel ashamed of my laptop console since it only takes up the center of the screen. I want it all!! Any tips on where I should go? I have a r505gl kernel 2.6.8 gentoo dev sources and use the Intel 810/815 support (EXPERIMENTAL) driver. The final piece of the puzzle is the splash. If I can solve this life is at a climax!!! Too bad my sony memory stick drive on this laptop died a couple days ago. 

Anyone else have a problem with there magic gate slot breaking? I havn't heard of anyone having a problem with it. I just started using it after christmas this year and within a week, the slot pooted out on me  :Sad:  Now I have to carry around a usb cable and docking cradle instead of a simple slide of the memory stick. Basically the magic gate light on the laptop stays on constantly and upon entering a stick into the slot I get no response. NO new device at /dev/sda anymore and even in windows I get nothing.

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