alfakup
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2016 9:48 pm

Screen Sizing

Fri Jan 08, 2016 10:07 pm

Hello World,
Today I bought my first raspberry pi2, I installed the noob files to get this machine going everything worked except for the black bars on each side of my screen. I went through all the tutorials on how to fix the problem but I haven't had any success. Could part of the problem be that I am using and HDMI to DVI cable ( i wouldn't think this would be a problem)? I would appreciate any feedback. The monitor is a Samsung 75.0kHz 1600x1200.

elatllat
Posts: 1337
Joined: Sat Dec 17, 2011 5:05 pm

Re: Screen Sizing

Sat Jan 09, 2016 6:47 am

SBC with 32GB RAM: https://hardkernel.com

FAQ : https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com

Unanswered: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/search.php?search_id=unanswered

User avatar
AndyD
Posts: 2334
Joined: Sat Jan 21, 2012 8:13 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact: Website

Re: Screen Sizing

Sat Jan 09, 2016 7:40 am

alfakup wrote:Hello World,
Today I bought my first raspberry pi2, I installed the noob files to get this machine going everything worked except for the black bars on each side of my screen. I went through all the tutorials on how to fix the problem but I haven't had any success. Could part of the problem be that I am using and HDMI to DVI cable ( i wouldn't think this would be a problem)? I would appreciate any feedback. The monitor is a Samsung 75.0kHz 1600x1200.
It is unlikely that the HDMI to DVI cable would cause a problem.

Also, the stackoverflow.com link that @elatllat posted, suggests setting framebuffer_width and framebuffer_height, but these settings actually cause a lot of confusion and won't fix the problem of black bars around the screen.

Mostly, the black bars are caused either by the overscan settings or less often because the the automatically selected video mode isn't the optimum mode.

Could you run the following commands from a terminal and tell us the output.

Code: Select all

tvservice -s
fbset
On the Raspberry Pi I have at hand connected to a 1080p TV, the output is as follows:-

Code: Select all

% tvservice -s
state 0x12000a [HDMI CEA (16) RGB lim 16:9], 1920x1080 @ 60.00Hz, progressive

%fbset

mode "1920x1080"
    geometry 1920 1080 1920 1080 16
    timings 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
    rgba 5/11,6/5,5/0,0/16
endmode
The important numbers are, in the output to tvservice, you want to see 1600x1200. In the fbset output, you want the mode to match you screen so 1600x1200.

If you the resolution reported by tvservice is not 1600x1200, run the tvservce with the following two command lines:-

Code: Select all

tvservice -m CEA
tvservice -m DMT
This will give you a list of display mode that your screen has reported that it will support. Here is the list I got:-

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% tvservice -m CEA
Group CEA has 15 modes:
           mode 1: 640x480 @ 60Hz 4:3, clock:25MHz progressive
           mode 2: 720x480 @ 60Hz 4:3, clock:27MHz progressive
           mode 3: 720x480 @ 60Hz 16:9, clock:27MHz progressive
           mode 4: 1280x720 @ 60Hz 16:9, clock:74MHz progressive
           mode 5: 1920x1080 @ 60Hz 16:9, clock:74MHz interlaced
           mode 6: 720x480 @ 60Hz 4:3, clock:27MHz x2 interlaced
           mode 7: 720x480 @ 60Hz 16:9, clock:27MHz x2 interlaced
  (prefer) mode 16: 1920x1080 @ 60Hz 16:9, clock:148MHz progressive
           mode 17: 720x576 @ 50Hz 4:3, clock:27MHz progressive
           mode 18: 720x576 @ 50Hz 16:9, clock:27MHz progressive
           mode 19: 1280x720 @ 50Hz 16:9, clock:74MHz progressive
           mode 20: 1920x1080 @ 50Hz 16:9, clock:74MHz interlaced
           mode 21: 720x576 @ 50Hz 4:3, clock:27MHz x2 interlaced
           mode 22: 720x576 @ 50Hz 16:9, clock:27MHz x2 interlaced
           mode 31: 1920x1080 @ 50Hz 16:9, clock:148MHz progressive
% tvservice -m DMT
Group DMT has 5 modes:
           mode 4: 640x480 @ 60Hz 4:3, clock:25MHz progressive
           mode 9: 800x600 @ 60Hz 4:3, clock:40MHz progressive
           mode 16: 1024x768 @ 60Hz 4:3, clock:65MHz progressive
           mode 39: 1360x768 @ 60Hz 16:9, clock:85MHz progressive
           mode 82: 1920x1080 @ 60Hz 16:9, clock:148MHz progressive
If the resolution reported by tvservice is 1600x1200, but the mode reported by fbset isn't 1600x1200, then it is an issue with the overscan settings. The first thing to try is to turn overscan off. This may be counter intuitive, but by default with overscan on there is (if I remember correctly) a 16 pixel band of pixels left, right, top and bottom that is not used. To disable overscan you need to find the line in config.txt

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# uncomment this if your display has a black border of unused pixels visible
# and your display can output without overscan
#disable_overscan=1
and change it to

Code: Select all

# uncomment this if your display has a black border of unused pixels visible
# and your display can output without overscan
disable_overscan=1
As you are using NOOBS, the easiest way to edit conig.txt is to use the config editor on the NOOBS recovery screen. To get to the NOOBS recovery screen, hold down the [Shift] key on your keyboard when you power up your Raspberry Pi.

alfakup
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2016 9:48 pm

Re: Screen Sizing

Sun Jan 10, 2016 5:27 pm

Wow,
Thank you AndyD for responding to me.Sorry it took so long to give a response got busy this weekend and I didnt have a chance to mess with the the PI. I will look it over today and run threw your suggestions.

Side note:
The night that I was having the black bar issue I hooked up the PI to two televisions one LG and the other Sharp and I had no black bars just on my monitor.

Again thank you for your response and I will post later to let you know how your suggestions work out.

Respectfully,
Alfakup

Edit: didn't see this earlier: As you are using NOOBS, the easiest way to edit conig.txt is to use the config editor on the NOOBS recovery screen. To get to the NOOBS recovery screen, hold down the [Shift] key on your keyboard when you power up your Raspberry Pi. <-------- this was the first step I tried and it did not work.

I reformatted my sd card got rid of NOOBS and put raspbain on the hard way, I was reading somewhere ( i dont remember where) that running NOOBS may cause some problems with trying to change settings. As I said up top i after I did this I was able to get rid of the black bars on the televisions but not for the monitor. I thought that was odd as well but was happy to see I made some progress.
Last edited by alfakup on Sun Jan 10, 2016 5:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

alfakup
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2016 9:48 pm

Re: Screen Sizing

Sun Jan 10, 2016 5:30 pm

Thank you for the links I will check them out.

Respectfully,
Alfakup

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