Q A few years ago, I was able to install Ubuntu Edgy Eft on my HP Pavilion. The installation went without a hitch; even the X Window System worked well. I have since upgraded to Hardy. However, around the time Hardy was released, live CDs stopped working on my HP. I would boot to them and make a selection from the boot menu, but I would never get a graphical interface. The screen would go blank and my HP f1703 monitor would tell me that the signal was 'out of range'. This happens no matter which distro I try with a live CD or bootable USB. At least with a USB, I can just drop in my working xorg.conf file from Hardy and it will work fine. But why is it that all of the newer live CDs fail when X starts? In each case, Linux is able to correctly identify my monitor, but is unable to use it with X
(I can get to a terminal).
A Do the old live CDs still work correctly? If not, it would appear you have a hardware problem. If they still work and only the more recent discs fail, then you are probably a victim of a change to X.org that causes hardware detection of your monitor's specification to fail, or at least report the wrong information. In essence this means the discs are still working, but your monitor doesn't like the resolution they have chosen for it. The 'out of range' message is coming from your monitor, which is what such devices output when they receive a signal outside of their specification. This is to prevent an incorrect setup causing long-term damage to their components. All is not lost, though, because most live discs enable you to change the resolution, and many other settings, before the main boot starts.
With Ubuntu, press F4 at the boot menu to get display options and choose Safe Graphics Mode. When booting from the OpenSUSE disc, press F3 to get a list of resolutions. Other distros have similar methods of picking a safer resolution that will not upset your monitor.