Bug 66711

Summary: Xorg freezes with Radeon Xpress 1200/1250/1270 chipset
Product: xorg Reporter: Yuri <yuri>
Component: Driver/RadeonAssignee: xf86-video-ati maintainers <xorg-driver-ati>
Status: RESOLVED MOVED QA Contact: Xorg Project Team <xorg-team>
Severity: normal    
Priority: medium CC: mayocoko, programmer11180, simon, yuri
Version: unspecified   
Hardware: x86-64 (AMD64)   
OS: Linux (All)   
Whiteboard:
i915 platform: i915 features:

Description Yuri 2013-07-08 19:59:53 UTC
I have this card:
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RS690M [Radeon Xpress 1200/1250/1270] [1002:791f]
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RS690M [Radeon Xpress 1200/1250/1270] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
        Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff68
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 64, IRQ 44
        Memory at c0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
        Memory at ce300000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        I/O ports at 6000 [size=256]
        Memory at ce200000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
        Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: radeon

on the Toshiba L305D-S5895 laptop (64-bit CPU X2).

Both Ubuntu 12.04 and Mint 15 freeze after a while of work with graphics.
Mouse still moving when graphics is frozen.
In addition, update to Ubuntu 12.10 fails with system coming up with the black screen (this may or may not be related to the current issue).

Xorg (on Mint) identifies itself as X Server 1.13.3 (2013-03-07)
Radeon module version 7.1.0
Comment 1 Yuri 2013-07-08 21:28:23 UTC
Xorg process, when frozen, stays in the same state as when it is running normlly:
 1457 tty7     Ssl+   3:08 /usr/bin/X :0 -audit 0 -auth /var/lib/mdm/:0.Xauth -nolisten tcp vt7

Killing X-apps doesn't change the screen. Killing X itself causes its restart and it works ok again for a while until it freezes again.
Comment 2 Yuri 2013-07-09 06:41:13 UTC
I installed FreeBSD on the same machine. No freezes in FreeBSD.
Radeon driver there has an earlier version 6.14.3 compiled for 1.7.7

So maybe version 7.1.0 is faulty?
Comment 3 Michel Dänzer 2013-07-11 10:09:27 UTC
(In reply to comment #2)
> So maybe version 7.1.0 is faulty?

It's probably not that simple. Presumably you're not using KMS yet with FreeBSD, so the driver stacks are very different.
Comment 4 Yuri 2013-07-13 18:31:37 UTC
Maybe then this particular chipset/driver version should be extensively tested by developers to find the cause of instability.
Because as of now all linux distros with apt-based packages are broken and unusable on this chipset.
Comment 5 Simon Krix 2013-10-04 13:03:43 UTC
This issue also affects me on a Dell Latitude D531 laptop (same combination of RS690M plus a 64-bit dual-core Athlon), under Ubuntu 12.10 and 13.04. Exactly the same blank screen and unresponsive system on boot with kernel 3.8.0. If I add "nomodeset" to the kernel parameters, I can watch it freeze while the Ubuntu logo is displayed (the loading dots stop animating) but the system is still unresponsive to the keyboard. Attempting to log in blind and issue a shutdown command doesn't work.

This machine worked OK under Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, but I wasn't able to get accelerated video working.
Comment 6 Yuri 2013-10-18 00:01:11 UTC
Some Fedora-based distro might behave differently, depending on which versions they use and if their tests caught this problem. All debian-based ones will probably be the same.

Otherwise I am using FreeBSD.
Comment 7 Yuri 2013-12-19 23:55:02 UTC
I want to report that Xorg behavior on this HW improved, but still isn't stable.

Now current Linux Mint 16 (64-bit) runs for a longer while, but still freezes about once per day. From unusable it became semi-usable.

Once hung, mouse still moves, I can't kill X-processes, and it doesn't reboot gracefully thereafter. 'reboot now' causes OS to hang with black screen.

This issue is very bad, and I believe it affects many systems out there. It tarnishes the reputation of linux on such systems.

BTW, FreeBSD still runs there like clockwork, no freezing whatsoever.
Comment 8 Alex Deucher 2014-01-02 23:20:14 UTC
You might try a newer kernel.  There were some stability fixes for certain rs690 asics that went in 3.13.  Additionally a newer version of the mesa drivers may help.
Comment 9 Yuri 2014-01-08 07:48:50 UTC
I tried 3.13, and it didn't help. It still freezes.

What concerns mesa drivers, latest version 10 isn't in Debian repository yet. Also mesa driver isn't a kernel module. The freezing bug source is most likely in kernel or kernel modules.
Comment 10 Yuri 2014-02-13 03:53:30 UTC
You need to either fix this or provide the workaround.

Is it possible to have an option to disable KMS?
Comment 11 Alex Deucher 2014-02-13 16:01:23 UTC
Does booting with pci=nomsi on the kernel command line in grub help?  These asics are working fine for a lot of users.  If you want to use UMS, boot with radeon.modeset=0 on the kernel command line in grub and use the ums branch of xf86-video-ati:
http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-ati/log/?h=ums
and mesa 7.11:
http://cgit.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/log/?h=7.11
Comment 12 Programmist11180 2014-02-15 06:37:08 UTC
Hello. I have Gateway LT3103u.
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RS690M [Radeon X1200 Series]

I didn't see any freezes.
Comment 13 Martin Peres 2019-11-19 07:41:39 UTC
-- GitLab Migration Automatic Message --

This bug has been migrated to freedesktop.org's GitLab instance and has been closed from further activity.

You can subscribe and participate further through the new bug through this link to our GitLab instance: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-ati/issues/71.

Use of freedesktop.org services, including Bugzilla, is subject to our Code of Conduct. How we collect and use information is described in our Privacy Policy.