Bug 9284 - Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy) Live CD freezes (black screen) for ATI cards unless disabling DRI or reducing AGP speed
Summary: Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy) Live CD freezes (black screen) for ATI cards unless disabl...
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: xorg
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Driver/Radeon (show other bugs)
Version: git
Hardware: x86 (IA32) Linux (All)
: high normal
Assignee: xf86-video-ati maintainers
QA Contact:
URL: https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/...
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2006-12-08 08:15 UTC by Monika Krug
Modified: 2007-02-07 13:46 UTC (History)
0 users

See Also:
i915 platform:
i915 features:

Attachments
xorg.conf after commenting out dri and glx with initramfs (4.07 KB, text/plain)
2006-12-08 08:16 UTC, Monika Krug 		no flags Details
Xorg.0.log after commenting out dri and glx with initramfs (46.42 KB, text/plain)
2006-12-08 08:17 UTC, Monika Krug 		no flags Details
always turn FW off unless asked for it by config file.. leave speed alone.. also use brackets, the old code gave me an error... (1.43 KB, patch)
2007-01-02 20:59 UTC, Dave Airlie 		no flags Details | Splinter Review
View All

Description Monika Krug 2006-12-08 08:15:22 UTC 
When booting from an Ubuntu/Kubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft) Live-CD/DVD for i386 or for
AMD64, either normal "boot and install" or "safe graphics mode", with or without
various boot parameters, the screen always turns black and stays black and the
computer freezes at that point of the boot process when the GUI (Gnome/KDE)
should be starting. It is not possible to get to a text console by pressing
Ctrl+Alt+F1 (nor F2...F12). The only thing one can do is reboot with Alt+SysRq+b. 

My processor is AMD64 and my graphics card is "ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AP
[Radeon 9600]". 

There are two workarounds: 
1) Boot with break=bottom, the (initramfs) prompt comes up, /chroot root, edit
xorg.conf with e.g. nano and disable the module "dri" by commenting out that
line, save and exit nano, type exit at the boot prompt twice, the boot process
continues and the GUI comes up, everything works then.
2) Alternatively change the AGP speed from 8x to 4x in the BIOS (if it's an AGP
card, not a PCI-E card). Then it is not necessary to do anything special, the
normal "boot and install" option works right away. 

This is a confirmed Ubuntu bug for ATI graphic cards:
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-ati/+bug/67487

Some people with NVidia cards reported the same problem, but other people said
that they probably experience a different bug. 

Most people that reported the bug seem to have AMD processors, but at least one
of the persons had an Intel processor.

Here's the xorg.conf and Xorg.0.log that I received after commenting out the
modules dri and glx (it turned out later on that it does not make a difference
if one disables glx or not): http://librarian.launchpad.net/5217493/xorg.conf
http://librarian.launchpad.net/5217508/Xorg.0.log

If it's useful, I can also get the Xorg.0.log when only commenting out dri and
not glx and when booting with AGP speed 4x and not making any changes to xorg.conf.
Comment 1 Monika Krug 2006-12-08 08:16:59 UTC 
Created attachment 8010 [details]
xorg.conf after commenting out dri and glx with initramfs
Comment 2 Monika Krug 2006-12-08 08:17:28 UTC 
Created attachment 8011 [details]
Xorg.0.log after commenting out dri and glx with initramfs
Comment 3 Michel Dänzer 2006-12-13 07:07:56 UTC 
Does it also work if you set up AGP 8x in the BIOS and use Option "AGPMode" "8"
in xorg.conf?
Comment 4 Monika Krug 2006-12-13 09:04:58 UTC 
Yes, after adding
Option "AGPMode" "8"
to the device section of the graphics card in the xorg.conf the GUI starts while
the AGP speed is set to 8x in the BIOS.
Comment 5 Eric Wasylishen 2006-12-17 20:22:01 UTC 
Using Option "AGPMode" "8" and having the AGP speed set to 8x in the bios fixes
this problem for me as well.
Comment 6 Michel Dänzer 2006-12-19 02:37:54 UTC 
I pushed a change to xf86-video-ati git which makes the radeon driver leave the
AGP transfer mode and fast writes unchanged by default. I'm afraid this is too
invasive for the 6.6 branch though.

Is anything else needed to resolve this bug?
Comment 7 Dave Airlie 2007-01-02 20:59:56 UTC 
Created attachment 8278 [details] [review]
always turn FW off unless asked for it by config file.. leave speed alone.. also use brackets, the old code gave me an error...

this breaks my AGP 4x v2.0 8500 in an i845 motherboard.

fastwrites gets left on and unless I explicity disable it in the xorg.conf X
dies very quickly..
Comment 8 Michel Dänzer 2007-01-02 23:12:12 UTC 
Looks good, please update the manpage to match the code as well.
Comment 9 Dave Airlie 2007-01-03 15:41:03 UTC 
okay fix checked into git..
Comment 10 Timo Jyrinki 2007-02-07 13:46:57 UTC 
Marking as fixed, reports say it did help.

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