Bug 14869 - Screen goes black every few seconds with ati 6.8.0
Summary: Screen goes black every few seconds with ati 6.8.0
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: xorg
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Driver/Radeon (show other bugs)
Version: 7.2 (2007.02)
Hardware: x86 (IA32) Linux (All)
: medium major
Assignee: xf86-video-ati maintainers
QA Contact: Xorg Project Team
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2008-03-06 14:17 UTC by Bryan Christ
Modified: 2008-04-30 08:22 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:
i915 platform:
i915 features:


Attachments

Description Bryan Christ 2008-03-06 14:17:43 UTC
When playing a video clip with Xine (built from the latest stable sources) video clips play normal for a few seconds and then the screen goes blank for about 1 second--then the cycle repeats.  The video card is an integrate radeon on a HP Compaq dx5150 system.  Because the problem is unique to xine (doesn't happen on totem) I have file a BZ with Xine as well.  I don't recall seeing this problem before I updated my ati driver from the Fedora 8 "updates-testing" yum repository.
Comment 1 Alex Deucher 2008-03-06 14:57:46 UTC
Xine messes with dpms calls which cause the driver to unblank the screen periodically.  It's not really a driver issue.
Comment 2 Bryan Christ 2008-03-12 06:47:07 UTC
Alex,

The Xine developer had me run the following command which caused the screen to blank just as it does when I play a video:

xset dpms force on

He stated that running this command would "confirm whether it's a driver issue".  I'm assuming that this command should not cause the screen to blank.

Here is the respective bug report for context:
http://bugs.xine-project.org/show_bug.cgi?id=54
Comment 3 Bryan Christ 2008-03-12 06:50:55 UTC
I would like to keep this open until someone convinces me where the problem lies.
Comment 4 Alex Deucher 2008-03-12 10:19:47 UTC
(In reply to comment #2)
> Alex,
> 
> The Xine developer had me run the following command which caused the screen to
> blank just as it does when I play a video:
> 
> xset dpms force on
> 
> He stated that running this command would "confirm whether it's a driver
> issue".  I'm assuming that this command should not cause the screen to blank.

This isn't a driver issue.  That command forces the displays on.  If you run 'xset dpms force off'  your monitors be forced off.  If you run 'xset dpms force on' your monitors will be forced on.  forcing an output on or off may include some flicker depending on what programming sequence is required to do it.  What xine is doing is abusing that command to prevent the screen saver from kicking in by repeatedly executing it.
Comment 5 Darren Salt 2008-03-15 11:21:46 UTC
No, it *is* your bug. I see no reason to blank one monitor to unblank another monitor when it's already unblanked. (Fair enough if it actually needs to be unblanked, though...)
Comment 6 Egbert Eich 2008-04-29 01:32:20 UTC
Alex, if you track the state and avoid going thru the entire output power up sequence when not required the flicker should go away. In AtomBIOS terms calling TMDSA/LVTMAOutputControl(enable) should be OK.
Comment 7 Alex Deucher 2008-04-29 18:06:09 UTC
Please try latest ati git.
Comment 8 Darren Salt 2008-04-29 19:48:07 UTC
Just tested; looks good to me.
Comment 9 Bryan Christ 2008-04-30 08:22:46 UTC
Darren, Alex,

Thanks for working together on this.  I think this is the quickest turn-around I've experience on an Xorg bugzilla.

Bryan


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