[RV670] radeon 3870 X2 gives black screen if using extended desktop

Linux zwaardmeester 2.6.35-28-generic #49-Ubuntu SMP Tue Mar 1 14:39:03 UTC 2011 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Ubuntu 10.10

Can you please run "apport-collect 755715" to attach additional information?

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By "sometimes" do you mean it is an intermittent problem, or does it always fail during a normal boot?

Does the black screen happen early in the boot (when KMS kicks in) or first when X starts?

Hi Tormod, others,

thanks for helping. With "sometimes" I meant that fail-safe boot does work, but normal booting (with KMS on) is not.

The black screen appears right after the initial stage (with the blinking cursor), so it might have something to do with KMS. I can see the screen slightly changing color from black to dark grey a couple of times, and my TV turns entirely green (!!).

I did some additional testing and found out that the problem lies with the TV-Out and KMS. I have an old-school CRT television connected with S-video to my videocard. I found out that:

- booting with S-video cable connected, TV stand-by or turned on, gives black screen (green on TV).
- booting with S-video cable disconnected is succesful. I have now only the main LCD screen, after plugging in the cable again i can use the TV through the "Monitors" menu.
- booting with the GRUB-option "nomodeset" is also succesful. I will use this as a workaround.

What other things would you like me to report on this matter?

It would be nice if you can try a Natty live CD, or just install the latest natty kernel on to your Maverick system.

       RV670 Radeon HD 3690, 3850, HD 3870, FireGL V7700, FireStream 9170
       R680 Radeon HD 3870 X2

It's R680 btw, i have the x2 edition.

I just booted Natty live, lcd and tv seem to work in Mirror mode, but as soon as I want to use them seperatedly, the screen is distorted and all. I'll investiged installing it to the drive.

It seems like the driver just call it RV670... Note that almost all of this is set up in the kernel, so installing the natty kernel is almost as good as installing natty.

Allright, I would like to try changing just the kernel, how do I do that?

BTW, there are some pretty informative error messages in the syslog i gave in the first post, like

Apr 9 20:14:25 zwaardmeester kernel: [ 14.764007] WARNING: at /build/buildd/linux-2.6.35/drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/radeon_gart.c:176 radeon_gart_bind+0x1ab/0x1c0 [radeon]()
Apr 9 20:14:25 zwaardmeester kernel: [ 14.764008] Hardware name: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
Apr 9 20:14:25 zwaardmeester kernel: [ 14.764009] trying to bind memory to unitialized GART !

You can install the linux-image- .deb package from https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux
It will install alongside the old kernel, so you can choose between them when booting.

The syslog messages are pretty bad. Please attach the syslog from the new kernel.

The problem as described in post #29 is persistent with the new Natty kernel. Attached you'll find the corresponding syslog of a failed startup*.

BTW, even Ctrl_Alt_F1 does not give to show anything, even though i restart that way by typing blindly.

*startup with black screen.

So with only the natty kernel, you have the old black screen problem, but with the natty live CD, mirror mode works fine. Can the difference be that you are using automatic logon and have a ~/config/monitor.xml that sets up non-mirrored mode on your installed system? Please try removing that file.

You get those radeon_ttm_backend_bind messages even if the TV is not plugged in, right? So these are probably
unrelated issues. Bug 656486 reports on the radeon_ttm_backend_bind messages.

Indeed I have automatic login enabled and can confirm that mirrormode works after deleting ~/.config/monitor.xml. However, since my TV has a lower resolution than my main screen, i prefer to have the extended desktop.

I double checked the system logs, however there are NO radeon_ttm_backend_bind messages there when
(1) booting without the tv connected
(2) booting without monitors.xml

Thanks for helping Tormod.

For completeness, the Maverick kernel also works in mirrormode! So for my problem at hand, there is essentially no difference in behaviour between the two kernels.

Can you please replace your /lib/modules/2.6.38-8-generic/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/radeon.ko with the attached one (take a backup of the original). The difference is that it will print out a message when the GART is initialized. Please attach the dmesg output after booting with it.

Okay here it is. However, for some reason KMS does not seem to be enabled with this module.

TV is not working at all in X. (cannot find it)

Thanks. I think the module did not load at all, probably a version mismatch. What does "cat /proc/version_signature" say? I can try to recompile it again later. You can also try to load it manually using "sudo insmod ..." (with X not running).

Insmod does not work: error inserting 'radeon.ko' : -1 invalid module format

leo@zwaardmeester:~$ cat /proc/version_signature
Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2

Thanks for helping.

I was still on the -41 kernel... Try this one instead.

Same error with this one! Also, the file is very small... are you sure it should work?

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2786 2011-04-21 11:40 radeon.ko
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1461832 2011-04-11 06:25 radeon.ko.orig

Sorry, I must have made a mistake. Try this one. Actually, testing it by loading it manually might be difficult when you have radeon hardware, because the original module will be locked. Therefore, copy it into place and reboot. I have verified that this module loads fine with the 2.6.38-8.42-generic kernel.

Here it is. However, Ubuntu seems to be working in Metacity mode when booting with it. (i disconnected the tv)

Unfortunately there is no reference to radeon in that dmesg.txt. The one in /var/log only contains the early boot messages. Please check the /var/log/kern.log* files which are more complete, or run dmesg > dmesg.txt yourself. If there is still no radeon stuff in there, try to insmod it.

The above file is already the result of dmesg > dmesg.txt. Also i checked the /var/log/kern*.logs, no special part about gart there.

Insmodding still fails with the same error. I'm doing it like this:
- first ctrl-alt-F1 and log in
- then "sudo service gdm stop"
- then "sudo insmod radeon.ko" on the file --> gives error -1 invalid file format

Am i doing something wrong here?

Thanks,

Oh no, I just realized you are on amd64... I was building i386 modules :(

I am not going to cross-compile for amd64, but I will attach the patch here in case someone else is willing to do it.

Otherwise, you can also try booting a i386 live CD to see if the issue is the same there. In that case, you can boot with "radeon.nonsense=1" to block the normal radeon module, then insmod my module. But then you need to acquire the dmesg output afterwards, either by installing openssh-server and setting a password for the "ubuntu" live user and logging in from another computer, or by mounting a hard drive, and running "sleep 60; dmesg > /media/your-harddrive-ID/dmesg.txt" on another virtual console so that it gets written to your harddrive (or memory stick).

If this is too much for you, that's ok, we'll just have to wait and see if someone else can contribute.

I can try to boot from i386 USB stick, they have a seperate "partition" to store permanent data on. I need to set up "extended desktop" mode anyway first, then reboot, before the problems occur.

I'll be back :)

zwaardmeester, this bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? If so, could you please test for this with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ .

If it remains an issue, could you please run the following command in the development release from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal), as it will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report:

apport-collect -p xserver-xorg-video-ati REPLACE-WITH-BUG-NUMBER

Please note, given that the information from the prior release is already available, doing this on a release prior to the development one would not be helpful.

Thank you for your understanding.

Helpful bug reporting tips:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs

[Expired for xserver-xorg-video-ati (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]