X server hangs at boot time when running on battery power

[Lars Gjesse]

Binary package hint: xorg-driver-fglrx

When I do a fresh restart into Kubuntu, my Thinkpad T60 displays a black screen after the initial splash. This is reproducible when the laptop runs on battery power. With AC power attached, it starts up normally. After a successful startup, I can remove the AC adapter and keep working, and suspend/resume also works OK on battery power.

The syslog for a boot sequence which halts the X server is attached under the name 'syslog_error'.
This log contains some interesting lines:

2009-01-02 11:56:06 LARST60 kernel [ 33.502485] [fglrx] Reserved FB block: Shared offset:0, size:1000000
2009-01-02 11:56:06 LARST60 kernel [ 33.502495] [fglrx] Reserved FB block: Unshared offset:3fb7000, size:44000
2009-01-02 11:56:06 LARST60 kernel [ 33.502498] [fglrx] Reserved FB block: Unshared offset:3ffb000, size:5000
2009-01-02 11:56:07 LARST60 kernel [ 34.218576] Uhhuh. NMI received for unknown reason a1 on CPU 0.
2009-01-02 11:56:07 LARST60 kernel [ 34.218592] You have some hardware problem, likely on the PCI bus.
2009-01-02 11:56:07 LARST60 kernel [ 34.218598] Dazed and confused, but trying to continue

I really don't think there is a hardware problem. After all, the PC is a dual boot system, and I can start into Windows XP on battery power with no problems. The open-source 'ati' driver also works fine on battery power, but I prefer fglrx because Google Earth doesn't work with the 'ati' driver.

Except for the fglrx module/X server, everything seems to work normally. I can reboot the PC using Ctrl+Alt+Del.
For reference, I have attached an example syslog where the AC adapter is attached under the name 'syslog'.

The problem is observed on Kubuntu 8.10 running on a Lenovo Thinkpad T60 (using ATI Mobility Radeon X1300).

I have attached a sample Xorg.0.log, which although not from the same boot sequence as the above trace is representative. It is characteristic that it ends with the line saying "Initializing built-in extension XEVIE"

I have also attached my xorg.cong. It is pretty basic.

On rare occasions, I have experienced the syslog contains an entry indicating an 'ASIC hang'. I'm not 100% if it is related to this problem, but it smells a bit like it. This is attached under the name 'asic_hang'.

[Lars Gjesse (larsgjesse)]

I found out that this problem is the same as reported in the forum:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6301778

However, the suggested solution (sudo aticonfig --auto-powerstates=off) didn't work for me. Instead, the following:

sudo aticonfig --acpi-services=off

does the trick.
Guess it is really an FGLRX issue.

[Steve Zemanek (steve-zemanek)]

Lars,
Thank you for that work around, that did the trick for me.
--auto-powerstates=off would prevent X from crashing if the computer already boot in AC power, but did not fix the problem with booting on battery

--acpi-services=off solved the bootup problem

Thanks

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

I've posted a new version of the -fglrx driver to our xorg-edgers PPA,
would you mind testing it either on Jaunty or Karmic and see if it
resolves this bug?

Get fglrx 8.620 here:

  https://edge.launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ppa

[Lars Gjesse (larsgjesse)]

Unfortunately I'm not able to use fglrx anymore since upgrading to Jaunty. My graphics chip (X1300) is no longer supported by ATI from the 8.600 release.
It's really a disappointing level of support from ATI for my not-that-old laptop (Thinkpad T60), but that's another story.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Okay thanks for letting us know. Since it's no longer supported on -fglrx we'll close the bug report at this time. Hopefully you'll find the open source -ati driver suits your needs sufficiently.