Cannot boot when video adapter set as PCI in BIOS

[Githlar]

This applies to 7.04 Feisty Fawn booted with acpi=off and noapic options

When I have my BIOS set to use PCI as the primary video adapter, Ubuntu does not boot. In recovery mode I see a cascade of errors (more than one page long) after "Loading hardware drivers" (see: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=507165). In regular mode, the loading bar just stops at three sections. When I have my BIOS set to use the onboard video, I have no problems.

Hardware information:
Computer: HP Pavilion a705w
Motherboard: MS-6577 v.3x ATX
Processor: Intel Celeron(P) 340 2.93 GHz
Memory: 1GB PC2700 (2x512)
Harddrives:
  IDE:
    Primary: 40GB Maxtor Fireball 3 ATA/133
    Secondary: 80GB Maxtor 6L080J4 (Ubuntu is installed here)
DVD Burner: VOM-12E48X
Video Adapters:
  On-board: Intel Extreme Graphics (with up to 8MB shared memory)
  PCI Adapter: VisionTek ATI Radeon 9250 (9200 Pro)

Attached are lspci and dmidecode results.

Need anything else?

[Githlar (githlar-deactivatedaccount)]

Oh, also, I don't know how this affects other versions of Ubuntu - this is my first installation of Linux.

[Githlar (githlar-deactivatedaccount)]

As requested, my lspci and dmidecode results as attachments.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Probably same issue in http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=511376.

[Githlar (githlar-deactivatedaccount)]

The above is not the same problem. That's the first problem I had with Ubuntu and can be solved by adding the acpi=off option.

[Githlar (githlar-deactivatedaccount)]

The problem resides in the S10udev boot script.

[Githlar (githlar-deactivatedaccount)]

When the above boot script is disabled, Recovery Mode boots. I haven't tried full mode like that, but I have the feeling it won't do much.

[Githlar (githlar-deactivatedaccount)]

Currently tracking down problem in udev. I was told disabling RAM for the video card in the BIOS fixes the problem, but my BIOS doesn't have that option - besides, wouldn't that kind of defeat the purpose of a video card?

[Githlar (githlar-deactivatedaccount)]

The udev .rules file causing the problem is: /etc/udev/rules.d/90-modprobe.rules

Specifically, this rule:
[code]# Load drivers that match kernel-supplied alias
#ENV{MODALIAS}=="?*", RUN+="/sbin/modprobe -Q $env{MODALIAS}"[/code]

In disabling this rule, I noticed an immediate effect - my onboard sound is not loaded. There may be other effects that I'm not aware of yet, but we'll see. I'm not familiar with the backend of Linux, but perhaps the "kernel-supplied aliases" need to be updated to support the ATI Radeon 9250?

[Githlar (githlar-deactivatedaccount)]

Err.. that's:

# Load drivers that match kernel-supplied alias
#ENV{MODALIAS}=="?*", RUN+="/sbin/modprobe -Q $env{MODALIAS}"

[Githlar (githlar-deactivatedaccount)]

Oops, I left the hash mark in there. Here is what it's supposed to look like (really):

# Load drivers that match kernel-supplied alias
ENV{MODALIAS}=="?*", RUN+="/sbin/modprobe -Q $env{MODALIAS}"

[Githlar (githlar-deactivatedaccount)]

As a side note, I find it strange that the Restricted Drivers Manager tells me I don't need restricted drivers, when I'm pretty sure I do. The ATI restricted drivers support my card.

[w4ett (w4ett)]

The 9200/9250 RV280 GPU cards are no longer supported by ATI. They are considered Legacy Cards, and the old legacy driver is not supported Xorg 7.2, only by the XFree86. I have the 9200 card, and been down that road before. ATI Driver support FGLRX starts with the 9500 series and above.

[Githlar (githlar-deactivatedaccount)]

Hm. I thought I had read somewhere on the Ubuntu Forums that the 9250 should be supported by the drivers because it was released after the 9500?

[w4ett (w4ett)]

the 9250 still uses the RV280 GPU.....As it was explained to me it was an additional budget "niche" card primarily for PCI bus use, although they did produce some AGP ones too.

[w4ett (w4ett)]

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/ATI

[Githlar (githlar-deactivatedaccount)]

I was going off this post: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=3049823, though the poster has some uncertainty. I believe that thread had a link to the above page. So, you're telling me I'm really stuck and that I can't use my ATI card what-so-ever?

[w4ett (w4ett)]

Well. my 9200 agp (also RV280 based) works pretty well with the xorg-driver-ati with glxgears speeds as follows.

w4ett@w4ett-desktop:~$ glxgears
4216 frames in 5.0 seconds = 843.149 FPS
4181 frames in 5.0 seconds = 836.126 FPS
4258 frames in 5.0 seconds = 851.485 FPS
4236 frames in 5.0 seconds = 847.128 FPS
4143 frames in 5.0 seconds = 828.557 FPS

Google Earth, and the Feisty GL Desktop (Desktop Effects) all work smoothly as well as streaming video and DVD playback. I'm not a gamer so it's sufficient for my uses.

If you get the sound issues sorted out, and depending on your needs, I'd have to say yes.

[w4ett (w4ett)]

Edit prior post:

If you get the sound issues sorted out, and depending on your needs, I'd have to say your card should work for you.

Addition:..I think it's more an issue of bus control chipsets than anything else. IMO

[Githlar (githlar-deactivatedaccount)]

I think it's a problem like that too. I mean, at least you were able to boot with your AGP card. I can only boot it with the system crippled. After I managed to make it bootable, I changed my driver to ATI and my PCI bus using the server configuration tool, but when it came up - it was a blank screen.

[Githlar (githlar-deactivatedaccount)]

(They should really make the bug posts editable...)
That is, the XServer configuration tool.

[Githlar (githlar-deactivatedaccount)]

As a comment to my "when I finally made it bootable" post:

Making it bootable required commenting out the above rule in the /etc/udev/90-modprobe.rules file. If that rule is taken out, I'm assuming that Linux isn't even recognizing the card as present.

[Githlar (githlar-deactivatedaccount)]

I've finally fixed this bug. I now have a new and better video card, but I'm pretty sure this would fix my original problem. It was a problem with with the onboard Intel video. Apparently, modprobe was loading what it needed for the Intel graphics (because I can't turn them completely off) and then tried loading my video card and freaked out. In order to fix it, I just blacklisted the Intel drivers.

Open /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

Add to the end of the file:

blacklist agpgart
blacklist intel_agp

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Beginning with the Hardy Heron 8.04 development cycle, all open Ubuntu kernel bugs need to be reported against the "linux" kernel package. We are automatically migrating this bug to the new "linux" package. However, development has already began for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. It would be helpful if you could test the upcoming release and verify if this is still an issue - http://www.ubuntu.com/testing . If the issue still exists, please update this report by changing the Status of the "linux" task from "Incomplete" to "New". We appreciate your patience and understanding as we make this transition. Thanks!

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

The Ubuntu Kernel Team is planning to move to the 2.6.27 kernel for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. As a result, the kernel team would appreciate it if you could please test this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. There are one of two ways you should be able to test:

1) If you are comfortable installing packages on your own, the linux-image-2.6.27-* package is currently available for you to install and test.

--or--

2) The upcoming Alpha5 for Intrepid Ibex 8.10 will contain this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. Alpha5 is set to be released Thursday Sept 4. Please watch http://www.ubuntu.com/testing for Alpha5 to be announced. You should then be able to test via a LiveCD.

Please let us know immediately if this newer 2.6.27 kernel resolves the bug reported here or if the issue remains. More importantly, please open a new bug report for each new bug/regression introduced by the 2.6.27 kernel and tag the bug report with 'linux-2.6.27'. Also, please specifically note if the issue does or does not appear in the 2.6.26 kernel. Thanks again, we really appreicate your help and feedback.

[Michele Mangili (mangilimic)]

This bug report is being closed due to your last comment regarding this being fixed with an update. For future reference you can manage the status of your own bugs by clicking on the current status in the yellow line and then choosing a new status in the revealed drop down box. You can learn more about bug statuses at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Status . Thank you again for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Feel free to submit any future bugs you may find.