Slow framebuffer on HP Compaq CQ50-110EM laptop

[Alex Valavanis]

(Apologies if I have selected the wrong package: I assume that the kernel is the right place to look?)

== Description of bug ==
When using framebuffer modes on this laptop, the refresh rate is unacceptably slow.

There is no such problem with gnome-terminal in X, or in text mode if I leave the framebuffer disabled.

There is also no such problem on four different desktop computers I have tried, including one with lower specification than this laptop, and one that also uses an nVidia gfx card.

== To reproduce the bug on Intrepid amd64 or i386 on this machine ==
1) Reboot laptop
2) Press "e" at Grub menu to edit the boot command. Enable the framebuffer device by adding vga=791 to the kernel line and then boot
3) Switch to a text teminal by pressing [CTRL]+[ALT]+[F1] and log in
4) Use a pager to view a 100-200 line text file e.g.

$ less /boot/grub/menu.lst

5) Press and hold the down arrow on the keyboard to scroll through the file (...slowly!...)

== Further information ==
$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 8.10
Release: 8.10
Codename: intrepid

$ apt-cache policy linux
linux:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 2.6.27.8.12
  Version table:
     2.6.27.8.12 0
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com intrepid-proposed/restricted Packages
     2.6.27.7.11 0
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com intrepid/restricted Packages

[Alex Valavanis (valavanisalex)]

To give a better idea of the problem, I have selected a large file and timed it being concatenated it to standard output

$ wc /boot/config-2.6.27-8-generic
 3480 5404 85316 /boot/config-2.6.27-8-generic

$ time cat /boot/config-2.6.27-8-generic

== Results ==
Framebuffer terminal: 4m21.427s
gnome-terminal in X: 0m0.997s

[kernel-janitor (kernel-janitor)]

Hi Alex,

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? Can you try with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/karmic .

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

apport-collect -p linux 297704

Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

[This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Alex Valavanis (valavanisalex)]

I'm struggling to reproduce this on karmic with grub2. I can't seem to get framebuffer modes working at all so I can't test the bug yet. If I use either the kernel parameter "vga=791" or add the line "set gfxpayload=1024x768x16" before the kernel line in grub2, the system boots normally but switching to a text terminal just gives a blinking cursor.

[Alex Valavanis (valavanisalex)]

Architecture: amd64
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 0: CONEXANT Analog [CONEXANT Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: alex 2339 F.... pulseaudio
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'NVidia'/'HDA NVidia at 0xc0000000 irq 19'
   Mixer name : 'Nvidia MCP78 HDMI'
   Components : 'HDA:14f15051,103c360a,00100000 HDA:10de0002,10de0101,00100000'
   Controls : 18
   Simple ctrls : 8
CheckboxSubmission: 1af93e18cbef28223ca5b4e96b1eb631
CheckboxSystem: da6ba67402e3a098955a433dcdf84e0c
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=314ef581-3a6d-40b3-834a-936fd381e365
MachineType: Hewlett-Packard Compaq Presario CQ50 Notebook PC
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: linux (not installed)
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=ab557466-0ff7-4f89-9390-6d43cdf5f439 vga=791 ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-backports-modules-2.6.31-14-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.24
RfKill:
 0: phy0: Wireless LAN
  Soft blocked: no
  Hard blocked: no
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic x86_64
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare
WpaSupplicantLog:

XsessionErrors:
 (gnome-settings-daemon:2372): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
 (polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:2452): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed
 (nautilus:2415): Eel-CRITICAL **: eel_preferences_get_boolean: assertion `preferences_is_initialized ()' failed
 (gnome-panel:2395): Gdk-WARNING **: /build/buildd/gtk+2.0-2.18.3/gdk/x11/gdkdrawable-x11.c:952 drawable is not a pixmap or window
dmi.bios.date: 05/07/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.bios.version: F.3A
dmi.board.name: 360A
dmi.board.vendor: Wistron
dmi.board.version: 08.54
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Wistron
dmi.chassis.version: N/A
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnHewlett-Packard:bvrF.3A:bd05/07/2009:svnHewlett-Packard:pnCompaqPresarioCQ50NotebookPC:pvrF.3A:rvnWistron:rn360A:rvr08.54:cvnWistron:ct10:cvrN/A:
dmi.product.name: Compaq Presario CQ50 Notebook PC
dmi.product.version: F.3A
dmi.sys.vendor: Hewlett-Packard

[Alex Valavanis (valavanisalex)]

OK, the issue in post 3 is now resolved. However, the scrolling is still extremely slow with vga=791 on karmic rc.

$ apt-cache policy linux-generic
linux-generic:
  Installed: 2.6.31.14.27
  Candidate: 2.6.31.14.27
  Version table:
 *** 2.6.31.14.27 0
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com karmic/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[Alex Valavanis (valavanisalex)]

Tried using a mainline kernel (linux-image-2.6.32-999-generic) but all I get is a blinking cursor in the top-left of TTY[1-6] when I use vga=791.

[Alex Valavanis (valavanisalex)]

Framebuffer behaves very well using the new nouveau driver in lucid. I'll mark this as invalid.

[Kyle McKay (mackyle)]

I had the same issue, in fact even the Ubuntu startup sound was playing slowly. To review the symptoms, disabling the startup splash shows that startup messages fly by and the screen scrolls very, very fast until this happens during startup:

Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 80x30

And then it gets painfully slow. GDM login is fine, gnome-terminal is fine, but Ctrl-Alt-F1 through Ctrl-Alt-F6 are just painfully slow to use. Fortunately I was able to find a solution (and I'm adding this comment so anyone else who finds this bug like I did via googling can have it too).

Just add this line to the end of /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer.conf:

blacklist vga16fb

(if the problem persists look for other possible fb devices to blacklist with lsmod | grep fb)