Fixing 800x600 resolution in Toshiba NB510 (GMA 3650) with vesa driver

Solution 1:

The black-screen problem is in fact a backlight brightness issue. If you look closely you can see the screen actually displays what it should, but the backlight is off.

Here are the steps I followed with the help of @pablomme to fix the issue using daily build of Quantal on new generation Atom Netbook. I tried it on N2800 and should be same for N2600 with the infamous GMA36x0 integrated graphics card, hopefully when using either the binary driver from Sarvatt's PPA or the gma500_gfx driver:

1. At the GRUB prompt, select the Ubuntu entry and press e.
2. Using the cursor keys, move to the line containing quiet splash and delete $vt_handoff from it.
3. Press F10 to boot.

4. At the desktop press Ctrl+Alt+T to open a terminal, type:

   sudo gedit /etc/default/grub
   

   press Enter, enter your password when prompted and press Enter.

5. In the editor that opens add the following line at the end of the file:

   GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX="auto"
   

   Then save the file and close the editor.

6. In the terminal type:

   sudo update-grub
   

   and press Enter. Once it's finished you can close the terminal.

With the above the brightness should no longer be reset to zero at boot-time, so you'll be able to see the screen. If you would like to change the brightness, open a terminal and enter:

sudo setpci -s "00:02.0" F4.B=BB

where CC is the value of the brightness (hexadecimal, going from 00 to FF; e.g. 00=minimum, 33=dark, 77=medium, BB=light, FF=maximum).

Solution 2:

The support for your GMA3600 can be provided directly by the kernel if you compile it with the option

CONFIG_DRM_GMA3600=y

many users on the internet report this option working well with the kernel 3.3 or higher.

This option is usually disabled and not adopted by many kernels that comes by default in many distros, Ubuntu isn't an exception.

just run this command

cat /boot/config-$(uname -r) | grep -i gma

and you will get what i'm saying.

I suggest to re-compile the kernel https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Kernel/Compile or to compile the driver that you need as module and load it if it's possible with your actual kernel configuration, remember to use a kernel >= 3.3 .

I also have found a topic in french that marked this issue as solved http://forum.ubuntu-fr.org/viewtopic.php?id=852521 .

the solution in that french thread is basically about installing this PPA https://launchpad.net/~sarvatt/+archive/cedarview and all the 3 packages in it http://forum.ubuntu-fr.org/viewtopic.php?pid=10015261#p10015261 .

There is also this blog with a slightly different solution using the same PPA as before http://daily.siebler.eu/2012/06/ubuntu-12-04-driver-for-intel-cedarview-atom-n2000-und-d2000-serie/