SuSE Support Database
Title: Determining the Graphic Card

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Determining the Graphic Card
Request:
You intend to set up your X Window System, but you are unsure
about the type of graphic card you have, or you cannot precisely
determine it's type. Even worse, there is no documentation available.
Procedure:
To configure XFree86 properly, it is essential to know your
graphic adapter or at least it's chipset. If you are afraid of
opening your PC, you still have some ways to determine the type
of your card.
- First of all, have a close look at the messages that appear,
after you have switched on your system. Some graphic cards display
a message before the system BIOS starts checking the PC memory.
If you do not see a picture at this moment, because your monitor
needs some time to warm up, press the reset button on your PC, as
soon as you see a picture. The system will then repeat the coldboot
sequence.
- If you are still running MS Windows (95/98/NT): Windows can also
give you detailed information about your hardware setup. Check your
display properties by clicking the desktop background with the right
mouse button.
- If you think you have a PCI oder AGP graphic card like most modern
systems do, you can try the following command after booting Linux:
cat /proc/pci | grep -A 1 VGA
alternatively you can try the following command:
lspci | grep VGA
This will display all VGA-devices attached to the PCI or AGP-bus
(lspci is included in package pciutils since SuSE
Linux 6.0). The most cards should be displayed here. Very new models may
be displayed as "unknown PCI devices", which does not help us very much.
- Another helpful tool to find out the type of your graphic card
is "SuperProbe" which ships with the XFree86 package. Start this program
as user "root" and it attempts to determine the card. Please note that
it is possible that this programm will crash your system! You should not
run any other important programs in the meantime.

See also:

Keywords: GRAPHIC, ADAPTER, HARDWARE, DETECT, DETERMINE

Categories:
Hardware
, Graphic cards

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