Upon starting X, the screen is briefly black, and over the next 30-60 seconds, bleeds to an off white from the corners of the screen. Eventually, the screen becomes a set of uneven splotches of white and dark purple. There never is any hint of windows running inside X, but they do respond to keyboard commands. X does not "hang", in that sense. I am able to back out to a virtual terminal with ctl-alt-f1. The machine is a Sony R505, and the graphics hardware is an i830M (Intel 82830), and uses the i915 kernel driver. I am running a 3.0.4-r1 kernel as provided by Arch Linux. I have xf86-video-intel version 2.15.0-2. As provided by Arch Linux, I am using the following packages xorg-server 1.10.3.901 (1.10.4 RC 1) xf86-video-intel 2.15.0-2 I previously ran an old (version ~2.8, I believe) of xf86-video-intel on this laptop without trouble. I have never used KMS on it. Since all recent version of xf86-video-intel require KMS to be enabled, and I don't know what my options here. I don't believe I can run an old version of xf86-video-intel that doesn't require KMS, with this xorg-server. The result is that this machine is no longer usable for X. I'd appreciate any assistance. (I will add attachments of my xorg logs later today, and would be pleased to provide anything else that could help elucidate what is going on.)
Created attachment 51202 [details] X log
Created attachment 51203 [details] dmesg
Created attachment 51204 [details] lspci
Created attachment 51209 [details] intel_gpu_dump > intel_gpu_dump.txt
Created attachment 51210 [details] cat /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/rom >vbios.dump
After a short chat on IRC, I'm adding a bit more debug output. In particular, I've now booted with drm.debug=0x4. I'll attach the updated dmesg. Additionally, I have attached the output of intel_reg_dumper, prior to starting X, as well as after. Finally, I'd like to clarify that I *can* use the console with KMS. I can also switch back to it with ctl-alt-f1 after achieving the "blank" screen in X. Thanks. I'd really appreciate any help getting this laptop to work again with X.
Created attachment 51855 [details] X was started at 95.681990
Created attachment 51856 [details] intel_reg_dumper_before_X
Created attachment 51857 [details] intel_reg_dumper_X (This is the output while on the "blank" X VT)
Created attachment 51858 [details] intel_reg_dumper_X_after_swithcing_to_console (This is after starting X, but switching back to a console.)
"+1" have seen this on various flavors of Ubuntu (up to 11.10) and even Chrome OS. Thanks for being diligent on reporting - I hope a solution can be found!
What can I provide to help a fix along? As another data point, I've tested using an external monitor connected to the VGA port. Upon connecting the monitor, before starting X, my laptop display immediately goes into the "bleed" mode, and never comes back until a reboot. The external monitor does display the console, though is very unstable, as if the refresh rate were wrong for what I connected. The rate and resolution is reported as correct by the monitor. I can start X, and the external monitor displays it. However, it is entirely unusable due to the instability I mentioned. To be sure, the laptop works just fine in Windows. I'm embarrassed that Windows is outlasting Linux on this laptop. Jacob
Aside from the modesetting errors, you're in for a rocky ride with incoherency...
Can you try getting a reg dump with nomodeset, and then experiment with setting video=VGA-1:d (both as kernel boot parameters).
timeout, maybe it's magically fixed. :)
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