Monitor problem, atleast I think so?

[Mitosis]

Hi guys, I currently have an old Pentium 3 computer with Linux SuSE on it and I am hoping to turn it into my home server. I had an IBM CRT monitor, but my Aunt needed a new one. So I swapped monitors with her so she didn't have to go out and buy a new one. The one she gave me, she used on her Pentium 4 that was running Windows XP Home Edition. Now the problem begins.

I boot up my Linux machine, everything works fine, to an extent. This is my first time using a Linux machine so I'm not sure, a screen comes up and it's displaying all of the functions (I think?) that are loading, like saying if it's ON or OFF and all that. Then the next screen I know is the Login, from when I had my old monitor. Everything  shown on the screen is a green background with white lines going up and down the screen. Is this the monitor? I'm not sure since my Aunt had WXP displaying with it...Should I get a new monitor for it?

Thanks in advance!

[K]

Sounds like a problem with the refresh rate.  You'll need to change it using whatever tools SuSE has to configure X, or edit the apropriate section of your xorg.conf to set the H/V refresh rates to safe values.

[Mitosis]

Sounds like a problem with the refresh rate.  You'll need to change it using whatever tools SuSE has to configure X, or edit the apropriate section of your xorg.conf to set the H/V refresh rates to safe values.

How would I go about doing that? (I'm not really familar with Linux). I can't see anything anyways so how can I set the refresh rates?

[K]

Sounds like a problem with the refresh rate. You'll need to change it using whatever tools SuSE has to configure X, or edit the apropriate section of your xorg.conf to set the H/V refresh rates to safe values.

How would I go about doing that? (I'm not really familar with Linux). I can't see anything anyways so how can I set the refresh rates?

You can do it from a terminal -- press CONTROL + ALT + F2 to get a new text terminal.  (press CONTROL+ALT+F7 to go back to your graphical session).

Navigate to your xorg.conf file.   This will usually either be in your home directory or in /etc/X11/ (keep in mind you'll need to be root if you edit this second one).

Code Select Expand


emacs xorg.conf


scroll down (page down, down arrow) until you see something like this:

Code Select Expand


# **********************************************************************
# Monitor section
# **********************************************************************

# Any number of monitor sections may be present

Section "Monitor"

    Identifier  "My Monitor"

# HorizSync is in kHz unless units are specified.
# HorizSync may be a comma separated list of discrete values, or a
# comma separated list of ranges of values.
# NOTE: THE VALUES HERE ARE EXAMPLES ONLY.  REFER TO YOUR MONITOR'S
# USER MANUAL FOR THE CORRECT NUMBERS.

    HorizSync   31.5 - 50.0

#    HorizSync 30-64         # multisync
#    HorizSync 31.5, 35.2    # multiple fixed sync frequencies
#    HorizSync 15-25, 30-50  # multiple ranges of sync frequencies

# VertRefresh is in Hz unless units are specified.
# VertRefresh may be a comma separated list of discrete values, or a
# comma separated list of ranges of values.
# NOTE: THE VALUES HERE ARE EXAMPLES ONLY.  REFER TO YOUR MONITOR'S
# USER MANUAL FOR THE CORRECT NUMBERS.
    VertRefresh 40-90

EndSection


change the VertRefresh range and HorizSync range to the correct values. You should probably google your monitor and see what values other people use. 
I have a 19" MAG Innovision 986FS and mine are
  HorizSync 30-70
  VertRefresh 50-90.

After you make the changes, press control+x then control+s to save.  Then press control+x then control+c to quit.  restart your x session.

[Mitosis]

Did all that, finally figured out how. Still is all messed up, what should I do? Install Slackware? Think I will still have the problem?