System crashes or auto-reboots only when more than 1 monitor is enabled.

[Mark Underwood]

UPDATE: Read submitter's latest post first.

After the upgrade, the computer crashed at the login screen where it froze. I could not switch to a VT, login via SSH, or safer reboot via the magic keys: RESIUB.

Anyway - after a hard reboot, I noticed the graphics setup had changed. It was obvious because of the way the 22" handles resolutions or signals it doesn't like. It's cloning the only resolution it has made available: 1280x1024.

At some point after upgrade to 14.04 and before my second attempt to run Xorg, the original xorg.conf file was renamed (and not replaced) with the date added on the end. I replaced it with the original xorg and eventually tired different things to fix it by commenting certain lines.

The second run of Xorg: The graphic output looked the same with cloned 1280x1024. I noticed that even though I restored my xorg.conf file, it proceeded to unload radeon driver and then load and use FBDEV with LLVM pipe. Yay? Nope, I use folding@home so the CPU cores are too busy for OpenGL. Having and not having xorg.conf present seems to not have an effect on the resutlts. :(

The output of xrandr is:

<QUOTE>
xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 1280 x 1024, current 1280 x 1024, maximum 1280 x 1024
default connected 1280x1024+0+0 0mm x 0mm
   1280x1024 77.0*
</QUOTE>

I see no obvious reason from the log files why radeon was unloaded and not used for this card which is on the supported list still. Any ideas?

Thanks much.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: xserver-xorg-video-radeon 1:7.3.0-1ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-24.46-generic 3.13.9
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-24-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: XFCE
Date: Sat Apr 19 13:53:09 2014
SourcePackage: xserver-xorg-video-ati
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to trusty on 2014-04-19 (0 days ago)

[Mark Underwood (mark-micahangelo84)]

Update:

I disconnected one of the monitors (the 17" 1280x1024) and now the radeon driver is driving the display.

It's running fullscreen at max resolution but Xorg will fall back to fbdev if I plug the monitor back in and restart Xorg.

[Mark Underwood (mark-micahangelo84)]

Update2:

I tried connecting the cable for the 17" monitor and ran my usual command of xrander to get dual monitors:

<QUOTE>
xrandr --output DVI-0 --right-of DVI-1 --auto
</QUOTE>

Good news, it actually setup dual displays with extended desktop as it usually did ...

 ... but the computer was frozen. I rebooted and disconnected the 17" monitor's cable again. :(

xrandr gives the following - taunting me:

<QUOTE>
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 8192 x 8192
DVI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DIN disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-1 connected 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 160mm x 90mm
   1920x1080 60.0*+ 59.9 30.0 24.0 30.0 24.0
   1920x1080i 60.1 60.0
   1600x1200 60.0
   1680x1050 59.9
   1280x1024 75.0 60.0
   1440x900 75.0 59.9
   1280x960 60.0
   1360x768 60.0
   1280x800 59.9
   1152x864 75.0
   1280x720 60.0 59.9
   1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
   832x624 74.6
   800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3
   720x480 60.0 59.9
   640x480 75.0 72.8 66.7 60.0 59.9
   720x400 70.1
</QUOTE>

So, in my estimation, it's definitely a radeon driver issue and not Xorg.

[Mark Underwood (mark-micahangelo84)]

I recently tried more than one monitor after changing DPM to battery and when the system went bonkers this time: it rebooted after switching from Xorg to terminal.

I readied a camera and snapped the attached photo of the last text. Here's a transcription for search result's sake:

<QUOTE>
mce: [hardware error]: CPU 2: Machine Check Exception: 4 Bank: fe00000000800400
mce: [hardware error]: TSC 640cdf90bd036 MISC 3ffff
mce: [hardware error]: PROCESSOR 0:206a7 TIME 1402881103 SOCKET 0 APIC 4 microcode d
mce: [hardware error]: Run the above through "mcelog --ascii"
mce: [hardware error]: Some CPUs didn't answer in synchronization
mce: [hardware error]: Machine Check: invalid
Kernel panic - not syncing: fatal machine check on current CPU
Shutting down cpus with NMI
drm_kms_helper: panic occured, switching back to text console
rebooting in 30 seconds...
</QUOTE>

I installed the package for mcelog but it probably doesn't matter anymore since the system rebooted.
http://www.mcelog.org/faq.html#6

Any ideas?

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Mark Underwood, could you please run the following command from a terminal as it will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report:

apport-collect -p xorg 1310064

Please ensure you have xdiagnose installed, and that you click the Yes button for attaching additional debugging information.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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