I’ve been on a “local brand” notebook computer for almost a year – I believe it is just another China manufactured barebone notebook. It is a BYON M31W S/S with Intel Celeron M 550 processor. Thanks to my notebook choosing incompetency, instead of Intel chipsets, this notebook is utilizing SiS chipsets. Well, it was the cheapest option when I bought it, honestly speaking – and at that time (and still going for now) – that really matters.
It is from the SiS 67x family which is according to every Linux distribution forum I’ve visited is having a serious driver issue so it cannot use the chipset 3D ability. It seemed that SiS won’t let the 3D Linux display device driver – even the binary to be released to the public. There’s a story about a guy, Barros Lee who claimed that he wrote 3D driver for this chipset, bust cannot release it since he work for SiS and he is not permitted to do that.
The last time I use Mandriva Linux One 2009 which is supporting this SiS chipset which the display adapter is also known as Mirage 3+ right out of the box, in 2D acceleration mode though. Since Mandriva is not supporting the notebook’s power management feature very well and felt a little too heavy for my hardware, I gave Ubuntu 9.04 “Jaunty Jackalope” a try.
After some times spent downloading the disc image from the net and burn it to a disc, I install it and it was going with no problem at all. Initially, the display run only in vesa 600×800 mode, while normally the notebook should run at 1280×800. After some browsing on the Ubuntu forum, I came accross to this very generous guy who posted a nice debian package for the display driver. So I just download it (some registration needed) and install the package. And there I go with my first successful attempt on Ubuntu on this notebook.
I’m quite happy with this Jaunty, the sound is louder and clearer than Mandriva. It also runs the power management feature better (lid switch, hibernation and suspend), working buttons (browser, e-mail, and mute) and most of all, much-much faster boot time. The reason that I wait for the Jaunty and not Hardy Heron (8.04) right after I know Ubuntu, is that Network Manager applet is included on this distribution can manage my 3G network with more ease. I’ve tried Hardy, but my 3G modem works intermittently with this distribution, so I switched back to Mandriva at that time.
plain, uneducated point of view 
i have the same problem, sis 671 worked in 2d quite well in 2009 but poorly in 2009.1 Is anything happening?
Hi, thanks for posting a comment. I believe it is the KDE 4.2 thing. That’s why I switched to Gnome (Ubuntu). BTW, I believe SiS 672 (and Mirage 3+ display adapter) is adapted by Pegatron for The PEGATRON Ultra Slim Atom™ NetTop platform. It should put more pressure on SiS to release the 3D binary driver for Mirage 3+ display driver to the public.
Yup. It sucks. Mine’s a Packard-Bell MH35 (=NEC, who used to make okay stuff). Ever since I got it (with no intention of running Windows) it’s been a constant barrage of hardware annoyances. Power management is right out – I’ve yet to be able to boot the thing without turning ACPI off completely. The sound’s been a tad buggy. Although the ALSA driver improved a lot, there are still problems with it (in part caused by software I think). (The webcam isn’t really usable either, but that turned out not to be a hardware problem, just the sad state of webcam APIs on Linux.)
But the biggest annoyance is the SiS 671 “mirage 3” card which didn’t work at all to begin with (vesa mode, which is barely usable). At least we’ve got a somewhat functional 2d driver now (the x server crashes when changing certain video modes, or attempting to run some things – the driver is certainly buggy.)
SiS’s refusal to release drivers or specifications or anything, especially in light of having actually bothered to develop a driver, is just outrageous. Not how a serious hardware company should do business IMO. “incompetency” is the word.
Yes, it was cheap. Often cheap is good – it means generic, well-supported chipsets. But if it means SiS, I’ll be sure to spend the extra money in the future.
On xorg version 7.5, these drivers don’t work anymore. I have posted on my blog a new version, download it here: http://estebanordano.com.ar/sis-m671m672-driver-for-xorg-xserver-7-5-on-debian-sidux/
saurna mah driver kanggo display driver sis mung nga’ageungan resolusi hungkul tp teu support 3d acc, leres kitu, sanes?
Ps: simkuring nganggo byon m1841
Leres pisan kang!!!
thanks for this article. yes i have first come to that sis 3d guy blog. i thought it could answer my question. lol. anyways i found the link on this article, so i should thank you.