Trouble with intel graphics ThinkCentre M72e

Ask Fedora
, , ,
1

Hi There, I was hoping someone could help me,
I’ve installed Fedora 39 (Mate spin) on my ThinkCentre M72e and cannot seem to get proper graphics/driver support.
It appears the system has defaulted to using basic video drivers and will not recognise my multiple monitors and and will not provide smooth video playback when playing youtube videos (descends into a slideshow when fullscreen).

I am using intel integrated video provided by the Intel i3-2120T.

I have also attempted to use this tutorial (Intel Graphics - Best practices and settings for hardware acceleration?) but seemingly to no avail, but having not used fedora for some time I’m not sure if this is the correct process for me or if I’ve done it correctly for my system configuration.

I’ve also included some screen-shots for clarification, if you need any more information about my system please let me know.
Screenshot at 2024-01-21 17-20-20

Screenshot at 2024-01-21 17-20-27
Screenshot at 2024-01-21 17-20-27722×562 52.3 KB

2

output of “hwinfo --gfxcard” :

cmountford@fedora:~$ hwinfo --gfxcard
20: PCI 02.0: 0300 VGA compatible controller (VGA)              
  [Created at pci.386]
  Unique ID: _Znp.vMm5el7e70A
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0
  SysFS BusID: 0000:00:02.0
  Hardware Class: graphics card
  Device Name: "Onboard IGD"
  Model: "Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller"
  Vendor: pci 0x8086 "Intel Corporation"
  Device: pci 0x0102 "2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller"
  SubVendor: pci 0x17aa "Lenovo"
  SubDevice: pci 0x308f 
  Revision: 0x09
  Memory Range: 0xf7800000-0xf7bfffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  Memory Range: 0xe0000000-0xefffffff (ro,non-prefetchable)
  I/O Ports: 0xf000-0xf03f (rw)
  Memory Range: 0x000c0000-0x000dffff (rw,non-prefetchable,disabled)
  IRQ: 255 (no events)
  Module Alias: "pci:v00008086d00000102sv000017AAsd0000308Fbc03sc00i00"
  Driver Info #0:
    Driver Status: i915 is active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe i915"
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

Primary display adapter: #20
3

Hey there Chris ! The tutorial you followed was for Intel Xe Graphics ( 11th gen ), that is incompatible with the graphics hardware you currently have.

For that particular generation of Intel graphics ( called HD Graphics ) , I believe that is already in the kernel and there are no drivers to install. Intel began modernizing it’s graphics with Iris Xe in the Haswell generation of 2014+.

As to your fullscreen issue, What specific resolution were you targeting while in full screen? 720p or 1080p?

4

Hi there thanks for the reply :slight_smile: ,
I believe it was 1080p,
but the bigger issue for me is that fact that i cant seem to make use of multiple monitors (duplicated output on both screens and no ability to detect monitors, configure or change resolution on my displays).

If it is using the correct drivers any tips on improving the performance would be greatly appreciated :slight_smile: , as even though i recognise that this hardware is a little dated I feel that playback performance still isn’t what it should be.

5

2024-01-21_12-59-39
2024-01-21_12-59-39701×541 38.2 KB

You are basically software rendering here. So you are not using hardware at all, which adds to why you don’t have the monitors working. So let’s try something, do you have the mesa drivers installed?
We’d have to figure out which ones to get for your hardware.

6

No yet, should i install these?

I’m assuming it’s just sudo dnf install mesa?

7

There are a lot of Mesa packages, many will not apply here. You might not see a change.

8

Well after some exhaustive digging, this was a huge problem back in those days for this product. To get “Dual Display” working properly, you needed a DVI breakout cable. Which basically split the DVI signal down to 2 VGA. You cannot run 1 DVI and 1 VGA monitor and expect dual displays. All other suggestions were to purchase a discrete video card ( so a gpu equivalent to a GTX 210, or Radeon HD 5550 with 512MB or 1GB )

9

oh damn, i really do appreciate the legwork. It seems without some sort of workaround I’m rather SOL in that case, hopefully i can figure something out eventually. Unfortunately the discrete graphics card fix is probably a no go, as this is the tiny form factor version.

Seems I’m running into all sorts of issues tonight,
In addition to the graphics issues I’ve also been trying to resolve a Bluetooth issue, thankfully this one was a much simpler fix and a rather daft oversight from myself (was wondering why i was getting really glitchy and distorted audio output, turns out i simply forgot to connect antennas :sweat_smile: - which fixed it right up once i realised.)

(this computer was an ebay buy for not much money but was hoping to make it my daily driver.)

If i find a fix i shall be sure to add it to this thread in hopes of helping someone else in my situation.

10

Just as an aside, there isn’t any DVI on this machine It’s displayport and VGA but i imagine the case remains the same.

11

Redacted