Hope someone out there can help me on this as I really haven't gotten an answer for this though. Should be something not to hard to figure out. Heres the deal

I have a Sony Vaio Labtop VGN-CR32 running Ubuntu 8.10, my screen is slight cracked so unable to use labtop fully, I went a bought a Acer X22S Desktop Monitor, I have hooked the monitor plug to labtop so that I can still use my labtop just not the screen, Sometimes I load in Gnome Desktop and the Screen will go Blank or black then come back then I'm unable to view my desktop for a sec or so, I wanted to use KDE also but the screen goes blank the comes back but its very fast ( see black screen see desktop non stop back and forth ) and i'm unable get anything done. any ideas on how to set this straight.

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)

00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)

All my NB are Sony - wouldnt use Ubuntu anything on a bet. Try a decent distro.

BR>Jack

Hope someone out there can help me on this as I really haven't gotten an answer for this though. Should be something not to hard to figure out. Heres the deal

I have a Sony Vaio Labtop VGN-CR32 running Ubuntu 8.10, my screen is slight cracked so unable to use labtop fully, I went a bought a Acer X22S Desktop Monitor, I have hooked the monitor plug to labtop so that I can still use my labtop just not the screen, Sometimes I load in Gnome Desktop and the Screen will go Blank or black then come back then I'm unable to view my desktop for a sec or so, I wanted to use KDE also but the screen goes blank the comes back but its very fast ( see black screen see desktop non stop back and forth ) and i'm unable get anything done. any ideas on how to set this straight.

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)

00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)

Hey, I'm sure you got this ironed out, since your post is two weeks old. But in case not, try this:

gksudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Look for the section that says:

Section “Device”

Identifier “Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller”

Driver “i810″

BusID “PCI:0:2:0″

EndSection

Insert the code:

Option “MonitorLayout” “CRT,LFP”

Option “Clone” “true”

Option “DevicePresence” “true"

just above the "EndSection" line

Save the file and exit.

Press “Ctrl + Alt + Backspace” to restart Xorg.conf

That should do it.

Dear johnnynmonic

I would like to say that your advice helped but it didn't it did just the opposite, I now no longer can get any display at all. Some error can up and if when i try to use startx it won't start. I am using a knoppix cd to try to take the advice you gave me out so hopefully that will fix my problem. at least before I could log in to gnome now I just get a black screen with my log in name just using commands and I'm unable to edit x11/xorg.conf

Dear johnnynmonic

I would like to say that your advice helped but it didn't it did just the opposite, I now no longer can get any display at all. Some error can up and if when i try to use startx it won't start. I am using a knoppix cd to try to take the advice you gave me out so hopefully that will fix my problem. at least before I could log in to gnome now I just get a black screen with my log in name just using commands and I'm unable to edit x11/xorg.conf

Doh! So sorry. You can edit the xorg.conf with no x in nano (a command line text editor):

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

and delete the change I suggested. So really truly sorry. I retire as xorg.conf troubleshooter on any machines but my own. Seriously, I feel really bad. I was sure that would work.

-jn

If you boot from Knoppix could you post the output of the command xrandr* when the external monitor is connected and switched on.

*type man xrandr from a terminal to see what it does first if you aren't sure, but don't worry it is perfectly safe:

DESCRIPTION
   Xrandr is used to set the size, orientation and/or reflection of the
   outputs for a screen. It can also set the screen size.

   If  invoked  without any option, it will dump the state of the outputs,
   showing the existing modes for each of them, with a '+' after the  pre-
   ferred mode and a '*' after the current mode.