[tlug] NEC Laptop

["Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon" <ronfaxon@example.com>]

I finally had my fill of w-me on the NEC laptop I was given (NEC LaVie 
C  LC60H/5), so I put in Linux (SuSE 9.1) and it's running fine, but a 
couple of observations/questions:


When previously running KNOPPIX, this information came up:

Video is Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x, using XFree86(ati) Server
Monitor is Generic Monitor, H:23.0-96.0kHz, V:50.0-76.0Hz
Using Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"


Based on that, when I got this message with the SuSE 9.1 install:

"Your monitor didn't report its X and Y size, this might cause display 
problems like unreadable fonts.  Do you want to configure your monitor 
geometry manually?"

- I clicked yes and set it to:

VESA 1024 x 768 @ 60Hz

- which works well, but still I continue to get the "... didn't report 
its X and Y..." message when firing it up on occasion and always when 
opening a new user.  Is this something to be concerned about?  Visually, 
the display is working well - although text characters are not razer 
sharp, they weren't under the original factory OS either (large but 
cheap LCD I think).


One other issue, and this is more serious I think.  Running Linux, the 
machine's cooling fan never runs!  And it's not because it's running 
cool either, as the machine runs quite hot.  It's always been a 
hot-running (temperature-wise) machine, but under the factory-install 
MicroMuck-ME, the cooling fan would run whenever you were doing anything 
other than letting it sit idle.  No amount of heavy usage will get the 
fan to running now, but when it's booted into MicroMuck (I set it up as 
a dual boot to make some of the software on the MicroMuck side usable - 
off-line!), the cooling fan runs normally.  I'm quite surprised by this 
result, as I thought something so basic to the system as the cooling fan 
would be handled by the BIOS....  I've got the rear legs up on the 
computer to keep the bottom of it off the desktop and provide some form 
of air cooling that way, but am I going to fry the machine working it 
without the cooling fan?  Considering a lot of laptops don't have 
cooling fans, I'm hoping the components are designed to deal with high 
temperature operation....

Any info or tips?


PS  The "Live-CD" version of SuSE 9.1 needs 256MB to run - and will not 
function on only 128MB.  The regular form or SuSE 9.1 (Professional) 
runs fine with 128MB however.