Malcolm,

Please check vendors drivers.
Mine is ATI x1600 [same resolution as yours] the link is

http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/linux64/radeonprevious-linux64.html

HTH
Alex

Quoting Malcolm MacCallum <[log in to unmask]>:

> Like some machines mentioned in existing threads this has a 1280x800 screen.
> SL 4.4 which I am using seems not to know how to drive this. I
> tried using 915resolution but it cannot recognise the chipset type
> (which I believe to be an Intel 965 with GMA X3100) so I could not
> readily follow advice to poke the VBIOS. I also tried downloading the
> latest package from intellinux but was unable to configure and compile it:
> configure complains of not being able to find xorg-xserver xproto xvmc
> or fontsproto. Any advice on how to proceed would be welcome.
> 
> Malcolm MacCallum
>