S3 Savage IX8

From ThinkWiki
Revision as of 18:34, 4 October 2005 by 12.222.58.40 (Talk) (add tip for grabbing windows stuck on a "ghost" external monitor.)
Jump to: navigation, search

S3 Savage IX8 or IX8+

This is a S3 video adapter
S3 is now owned by Via Technologies

The IX8 and IX8+ chips share the same PCI-ID

Features

  • Chipset: S3
  • PCI ID: 5333:8c12
  • AGP 2X
  • 8MB SGRAM video memory

Linux X.Org driver

This chip is supported by the 'savage' driver as part of the X.Org distribution

ThinkPad LCD

Display on the internal LCD works as long as you set the monitor settings correct.

External VGA port

Works. Fn-F7 switches between either LCD and CRT but not both. To use both, use s3switch (on some models you need to run "s3switch lcd crt tv" even if you want only CRT and LCD, otherwise the CRT display is corrupted).

SVideo port

??

Linux kernel Framebuffer driver

This chip will work with either the 'vesa' or 'savagefb' driver as part of any recent 2.4 or 2.6 kernel.

To get nice 1400x1050 (some models have such displays) resolution in console try adding: vga=0x33c video=vesa:ywrap,mtrr to your kernel parameters (in your bootloader config).

Dual Monitor tip

The chip supports using an external monitor plus the LCD as one big monitor. This can lead to a problem if X is configured for this, but the external monitor has been detached. This creates a ghost monitor that you cannot see, but can move the mouse onto and applications can open windows on.

Sometimes in this situation it's necessary to grab a window from the ghost monitor and drag it into view. This can be done by moving the mouse onto the ghost screen and then holding down the ALT key, which allows you to click-and-drag a window back into view. To see what is on the ghost monitor, a screen capture utility like Ksnapshot can help you. When it takes a screenshot of the entire screen, it will show the contents of the ghost screen, even though you can't see it directly.


ThinkPad's this chip may be found in