fglrx drivers broken after upgrading to quantal with dual Mobility Radeon HD 4200 Series & Mobility Radeon HD 5400 Series cards

Bug #1070531 reported by Montblanc
46
This bug affects 9 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
fglrx-installer (Ubuntu)
Won't Fix
Wishlist
Unassigned

Bug Description

I'm using a HP Pavilion G62-a014SL that switches between two ATI cards: a HD 4200 and a HD 5400. After upgrading from Precise to Quantal, the resolution is very low, no compositing is available, Unity fails to load, no window decorations are present and I just get the cursor, a wallpaper and desktop icons.
I thought that since the Radeon HD 4xxx branch is now under the new driver support model, I had to install fglrx-legacy drivers from ppa:makson96/fglrx (even if my secondary card is in the original driver support model) which also downgrades the X server, but it didn't work: I just got a black screen and Xorg segmentation faults, no matter which xorg.conf is used (I tried with Quantal's default and 'amdconfig --initial -f').
I'm using the open source ati drivers now, which suffer from overheating. I can't get more that 30 minutes of uptime.
I also have the feeling that my system can't switch between the two VGA cards (as in bug #1021024 ). That could explain the overheating that I'm experiencing since forever (though with the open source ati drivers it's gotten even worse, as I said before) or why fglrx is failing to detect my cards / load properly. As you can see, switcheroo is enabled:
grep -i switcheroo /boot/config-3.5.0-18-generic
CONFIG_VGA_SWITCHEROO=y

but I haven't got any /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo .

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: fglrx 2:9.000-0ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-18.29-generic 3.5.7
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-18-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx wl
ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu4
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: [core,bailer,detection,composite,opengl,decor,place,imgpng,compiztoolbox,snap,vpswitch,resize,regex,gnomecompat,move,mousepoll,grid,wall,session,unitymtgrabhandles,animation,expo,workarounds,fade,ezoom,scale,unityshell]
CompositorRunning: compiz
CurrentDmesg: [ 23.428471] r8169 0000:03:00.0: eth0: link down
Date: Tue Oct 23 22:08:10 2012
DistUpgraded: 2012-10-19 19:21:19,811 DEBUG enabling apt cron job
DistroCodename: quantal
DistroVariant: ubuntu
DkmsStatus:
 bcmwl, 5.100.82.112+bdcom, 3.5.0-17-generic, x86_64: installed
 bcmwl, 5.100.82.112+bdcom, 3.5.0-18-generic, x86_64: installed
 fglrx, 9.000, 3.5.0-18-generic, x86_64: installed
GraphicsCard:
 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RS880M [Mobility Radeon HD 4200 Series] [1002:9712] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:143c]
 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Manhattan [Mobility Radeon HD 5400 Series] [1002:68e0] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:143c]
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release amd64 (20101007)
JockeyStatus:
 kmod:wl - Broadcom STA wireless driver (Proprietary, Enabled, In use) [auto-install]
 kmod:fglrx - ATI Fire GL (Proprietary, Enabled, In use)
 kmod:fglrx_updates - Video driver for the AMD graphics accelerators (Proprietary, Disabled, Not in use)
MachineType: Hewlett-Packard HP G62 Notebook PC
MarkForUpload: True
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.5.0-18-generic root=UUID=af5a08c0-82a3-47ac-976e-9fe1cbbd557c ro quiet splash ipv6.disable=1 enable_mtrr_cleanup mtrr_spare_reg_nr=1 vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: fglrx-installer
UnitySupportTest:
 Error: command ['/usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test', '-p', '-f'] failed with exit code 1: X Error of failed request: BadRequest (invalid request code or no such operation)
   Major opcode of failed request: 153 (GLX)
   Minor opcode of failed request: 19 (X_GLXQueryServerString)
   Serial number of failed request: 22
   Current serial number in output stream: 22
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to quantal on 2012-10-19 (4 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 06/03/2010
dmi.bios.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.bios.version: F.07
dmi.board.asset.tag: Base Board Asset Tag
dmi.board.name: 143C
dmi.board.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.board.version: 62.19
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: Chassis Asset Tag
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.chassis.version: Chassis Version
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnHewlett-Packard:bvrF.07:bd06/03/2010:svnHewlett-Packard:pnHPG62NotebookPC:pvr0497100000252710001020000:rvnHewlett-Packard:rn143C:rvr62.19:cvnHewlett-Packard:ct10:cvrChassisVersion:
dmi.product.name: HP G62 Notebook PC
dmi.product.version: 0497100000252710001020000
dmi.sys.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.8.4-0ubuntu3
version.fglrx-installer: fglrx-installer N/A
version.ia32-libs: ia32-libs 20090808ubuntu36
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.39-0ubuntu1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 9.0-0ubuntu1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental: libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental 9.0-0ubuntu1
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 9.0-0ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.13.0-0ubuntu6
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:2.7.3-0ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.99.99~git20120913.8637f772-0ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.20.9-0ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:1.0.2-0ubuntu3

Revision history for this message
Montblanc (montblanc) wrote :
Montblanc (montblanc)
summary: - Required input is missing.
+ fglrx drivers broken after upgrading to quantal
description: updated
Montblanc (montblanc)
description: updated
Revision history for this message
penalvch (penalvch) wrote : Re: fglrx drivers broken after upgrading to quantal

Montblanc, thank you for reporting this bug and helping make Ubuntu better. Unfortunately, you have unintentionally fell into at least 3 bugs at once:
1) Regarding your HD 4200 card in Quantal, you would be suffering from https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fglrx-installer/+bug/1058040 . You are welcome to go to that report and mark yourself affected.
2) A bug in fglrx-* using HD 5400.
3) A bug while using two cards simultaneously.

For now, this bug report can only focus on 2) as your HD4200 has a known bug in Quantal.

Hence, could you please comment to if you have a way to disable the HD4200 card in BIOS or another method?

Regarding your overheat problem, please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/Debugging/HighTemperatures#Working_around_overheat .

Changed in fglrx-installer (Ubuntu):
status: New → Incomplete
description: updated
description: updated
Revision history for this message
Montblanc (montblanc) wrote :

THREE bugs at once?! My usual luck! :)

Let me answer you step by step:

1) I understand. I marked myself as affected and subscribed to that bug. I hope it gets solved soon, since the fglrx-legacy workaround didn't work for me;

2) Ok, so let's keep this as a bug in fglrx-* using HD 5400. Unfortunately, the bios shipped with my notebook really sucks. There's no other word I could use to describe it. I can't change ANYTHING from the BIOS, that's why I meant to play around with switcheroo, but to no avail.

3) Thanks for the tips! The possibility to switch governor totally slipped out of my mind. Though, I can only think of it as a temporary workaround. The main reason why I think it overheats it's because it's keeping both VGAs active. Should I file a new bug report to address my issues while using two cards simultaneously?

Thank you so much for your patience, Christopher. :)

Revision history for this message
penalvch (penalvch) wrote :

Montblanc, thank you for responding. Regarding your comments https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fglrx-installer/+bug/1070531/comments/3 :
>"THREE bugs at once?! My usual luck! :) Let me answer you step by step: 1) I understand. I marked myself as affected and subscribed to that bug. I hope it gets solved soon, since the fglrx-legacy workaround didn't work for me; 2) Ok, so let's keep this as a bug in fglrx-* using HD 5400. Unfortunately, the bios shipped with my notebook really sucks. There's no other word I could use to describe it. I can't change ANYTHING from the BIOS"

For this bug report, if we have no way to disable the HD4200 card, then unfortunately we are at a standstill. You would want to use Precise until https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fglrx-installer/+bug/1058040 is resolved. Once it is, we can resume the conversation about this bug report.

>"3) Thanks for the tips! The possibility to switch governor totally slipped out of my mind. Though, I can only think of it as a temporary workaround."

Agreed.

>"The main reason why I think it overheats it's because it's keeping both VGAs active. Should I file a new bug report to address my issues while using two cards simultaneously?"

You are welcome to file a separate report about how the open source drivers suffer from overheat, via executing at the terminal:
ubuntu-bug linux

As well, please feel free to subscribe me to it, and please provide all requested information in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/Debugging/HighTemperatures .

>"Thank you so much for your patience, Christopher. :)"

No problem at all. Thank you for filing a separate bug report.

Changed in fglrx-installer (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Confirmed
penalvch (penalvch)
summary: - fglrx drivers broken after upgrading to quantal
+ fglrx drivers broken after upgrading to quantal with dual Mobility
+ Radeon HD 4200 Series & Mobility Radeon HD 5400 Series cards
Revision history for this message
madbiologist (me-again) wrote :

Overheating when using the open-source radeon driver was a known problem (even on single GPU configurations) which has recently been addressed in Ubuntu 13.10 "Saucy Salamander". See https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-ati/+bug/887842/comments/14 for further info but note that you don't need to fetch the updated firmware files if you are using Ubuntu 13.10 or later - they are included. Further to the information in that comment, the 3.13 kernel will also have support for dynamically powering down discrete GPUs on PowerXpress systems - see http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-November/048316.html and http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-September/045650.html for details.

Revision history for this message
penalvch (penalvch) wrote :

Montblanc, could you please provide the full computer model as noted on the sticker (ex. HP G62-224HE Notebook PC)?

Changed in fglrx-installer (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Incomplete
tags: added: needs-full-computer-model
Revision history for this message
Montblanc (montblanc) wrote :

Sure, Christopher.
It's HP G62-a014SL

description: updated
tags: removed: needs-full-computer-model
Changed in fglrx-installer (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
penalvch (penalvch) wrote :

Montblanc, thank you for the requested information. After checking into https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fglrx-installer/+bug/1058040 it has become known that AMD is refusing to provide further support for the Quantal+ kernel and xorg stack for your HD4200 card. As well, our downstream maintainers are also not willing to WORKAROUND this or provide downstream support outside of AMD's, or those already previously set as noted in:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fglrx-installer/+bug/1058040/comments/66

So, unfortunately, this bug report is at a standstill unless either the Ubuntu maintainers are willing to provide out-of-scope support, or AMD would resume their support of your card.

Thank you for your understanding.

Changed in fglrx-installer (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
status: Confirmed → Won't Fix
To post a comment you must log in.
This report contains Public information  
Everyone can see this information.

Other bug subscribers

Remote bug watches

Bug watches keep track of this bug in other bug trackers.