Created attachment 35915 [details]
Linux Xorg.0.log with acceleration enabled

Hi,

I recently dusted off an old computer and started setting it up.  I have the machine successfully booting Windows 2000 Pro with full acceleration and no issues, but am having difficulty getting X running with acceleration on FreeBSD 8.0 and Gentoo Linux.

The video card is a HIS Radeon 9200SE (ATI RV280):
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200 SE] (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
        Subsystem: Hightech Information System Ltd. Radeon 9200 SE Excalibur
        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11
        Memory at d8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
        I/O ports at 9000 [size=256]
        Memory at e8020000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at e8000000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: [58] AGP version 3.0
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
        Kernel driver in use: radeonfb

Monitor is a Sun Microsystems GDM-5410 20" CRT connected via the standard VGA port (no DVI in use).  Single-head configuration.

Operating systems/kernels affected:
- Linux 2.6.34 ("v2.6.34" git tag; git://repo.or.cz/linux-2.6.git)
- FreeBSD 8.0 "GENERIC" as provided on the FreeBSD 8.0 DVD

In the case of FreeBSD; I am using the binaries as provided by the FreeBSD team.  Under Linux, they are self compiled from Gentoo's package set.  In the latter case; HAL support is enabled.  In both cases, configuration was generated using `X -configure`.

Symptoms:

When an attempt is made to start X; the server appears to start, but then locks up in some kind of loop where it chews most of the CPU time.  Under Linux a black screen is shown to the user.  Under FreeBSD; a corrupted display is shown, likely the residual text-only display data, now being interpreted as graphic data (i.e. the lockup occurs between mode switch and video data being cleared).  In both cases, the system is still working, and can be accessed via SSH.

In both operating systems; I can get a usable display if I enable the NoAccel option for the video card device in xorg.conf.  This results in a usable, but very slow display.

This video card used to perform well under Linux, so I suspect a regression over the last few years since I last used this computer.  The problem is not experienced under Windows 2000, but is experienced under both FreeBSD and Linux, which therefore makes me suspect a component common to both: X.org.

The bug appears to be similar to bug 9284; however disabling DRI doesn't appear to have any effect -- the lockup occurs regardless.

Attached are the logs and other information I have.  I haven't been able to find a duplicate bug, but I could have been using the wrong keywords too.  If there's any additional information that could be useful, let me know and I'll try to provide it.