[PPC][r200] X11 color corruption on a radeon 9000 mac edition

[Jean-François Gagnon Laporte]

Hi there,

First of all it was working fine on Breezy. The problem that I am having is that when I switch to X11 (vt7) the colors on the screen have all a reddish tint on it. Even weirder is that if I switch resolution using gnome-display-properties all of the colors comes back to normal. My colors are all ok during usplash and in a virtual console but when I switch to X11 (either manually or when gdm starts) the colors becomes reddish. I have tried some variations like trying 16 or 24bit color depths, with or without dri/glx, with or without UseFBDev and with or without AGPFastWrite but it doesn't affects the situation. Here is my xorg.conf :

(xorg.conf edited to contain only the relevant bits)

Section "Device"
        Identifier "ATI Technologies, Inc. Radeon RV250 If [Radeon 9000 Pro]"
        Driver "radeon"
       BusID "PCI:0:16:0"
        Option "UseFBDev" "true"
        Option "AGPFastWrite" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier "L90D+ DVI"
        Option "TMDS"
        HorizSync 31-80
        VertRefresh 56-75
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "Default Screen"
        Device "ATI Technologies, Inc. Radeon RV250 If [Radeon 9000 Pro]"
        Monitor "L90D+ DVI"
        DefaultDepth 16
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth 16
                Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth 24
                Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        EndSubSection
EndSection

I will attach my Xorg.0.log after this. Thank you for looking after this.

[Jean-François Gagnon Laporte (kioshen)]

This is my log as of March 20th with a fully updated Dapper Drake.

[Henrik Nilsen Omma (henrik)]

Hi,

Thank you for the detailed bug report. Could you please also attach the output from the command 'sudo ddcprobe'? That might help us work out why it is not being configured properly. Thanks.

- Henrik

[Jean-François Gagnon Laporte (kioshen)]

I have attached the output of `sudo ddcprobe` as requested.

If you need anything else don't hesitate to ask :).

[Henrik Nilsen Omma (henrik)]

Thanks for the info. Setting status back to unconfirmed until someone else sees the same thing or fixes it ...

- Henrik

[EuroCity (eurocity)]

I have exactly the same problem, since Edgu and Dapper, and now also in Feisty and Gutsy: colour corruption, even with entire regions of the screen altered (as, for example, in the Kubuntu startup screen), and also some strange moving dots/patterns surrounding objects such as buttons, for example: well, it's quite difficult to describe it exactly.

Howevere, if one changes the screen resolution forth and back again (e.g., from 1280x1024 to 1024x768 and then again to 1280x1024, with the Screen Resolution control panel or by launching a game (Planet Penguin Racer, for example) which changes the resolution), then everything (re)turns normal, with exact colours and no disturbances.

My hardware is an upgraded Power Mac G4 AGP, with a Radeon 9000 Pro Mac Edition video card and a LaCie photon18blue monitor, connected through DVI.

BTW, could it maybe be caused by the DVI-only conncetion? Or could it be a PPC-only problem? Who knows...

[EuroCity (eurocity)]

(Sorry for the typing errors above: I thought that one could always edit afterwards.)

Anyway, I would add one more thing: this happens in *all* PPC distributions since some years ago (ergo, since some Xorg revision which introduced this bug, probably); sofar, I have tried Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, OpenSUSE and Ubuntu - all have the same problem!

Well, quite annoying bug, to say the least...

[EuroCity (eurocity)]

... Problem solved!!! :-)

Following my intuition, I connected the LaCie photon18blue to the Radeon 9000, not only - as previously - with the DVI-D (digital) cable, but also with the D-Sub (analogue) cable: both were supplied with the monitor, which has dual connectors.

I just had to move the DVI cable to the ADC port of the Radeon (with the supplied adaptor) and then connect the D-Sub cable to the DVI port (with the other supplied adaptor): and voilà, the Ubuntu 7.04 Desktop CD booted up with no X11 errors (previously, it worked only with the "video=ofonly" option) and the screen was perfect from the beginning, with no colour corruption whatsoever.

I then installed Ubuntu 7.04 PPC from the Desktop CD, and the installed system behaved perfectly, too: no video problems at all! :-)

So, essentially, at least from my experience, it seems to be something related to having a DVI-only connection between the display and the Radeon graphics card...

[EuroCity (eurocity)]

... And, of course, the main connection is still DVI also with the "new" dual arrangement.

[Jean-François Gagnon Laporte (kioshen)]

Thanks for finding out a way around the bug. I used my monitor in dvi mode too so I guess it may be related. Unfortunatly, I have since wiped out my installation since it is now on a production machine. I'll try feisty again when I'll have a chance to confirm the workaround.

So basically, you plugged your main monitor in the ADC slot and you plugged a second one on the DVI connector using an adapter ? Does it work with only one monitor ?

Thanks

[EuroCity (eurocity)]

I only have one monitor (the LaCie photon18blue, with two connectors), which I thus connected to the Radeon on my G4 with both cables simultaneously. BTW, in Mac OS X 10.4.9 the two connections now appear as dual monitors: interesting, but hardly useful, with only one display.

I used the two cables that already were supplied with the monitor: a DVI-D cable (previously my only connection) and a VGA (D-Sub) cable; I had to move the DVI cable to the ADC port on the Radeon, using the supplied DVI-to-ADC adaptor, because the VGA cable could only be connected with a similar VGA-to-DVI adaptor.

As you know, the Radeon 9000 Mac Edition has one ADC and one DVI-I connector: so if you use both a digital and an analogue cable at the same time, you must plug the digital one into the ADC port and the analogue one into the DVI port.

Anyway, albeit with some more cable clutter in comparison to the previous "clean" DVI-only configuration, it worked!

Why? Really, I don't know: but maybe you or some of the hardware/software gurus here could imagine an explanation...? :-)

[EuroCity (eurocity)]

FYI, besides Ubuntu 7.04, I also installed Fedora 7 and OpenSUSE 10.2 on the same computer: and everything works in any distribution.

So, it is definitely an X11 and/or hardware-related bug...

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Please try out 7.10beta, which has a newer driver along with other fixes.

[Jouke (digigram)]

Have similar problem, gutsy on powermac g5 with ati driver and dvi connection. Screen looks extremely light. Ubuntu brown/orange looks yellow and the grey of this text is hardly visiable from it's background. Did not have this problem in feisty.

[Jouke (digigram)]

My output form ddcprobe
oem: ATI Radeon AR
memory: 0kb
edid:
edid: 1 3
id: 52ad
eisa: ACR52ad
serial: 770a1061
manufacture: 11 2006
input: separate sync, composite sync, analog signal.
screensize: 41 26
gamma: 2.200000
dpms: non-RGB, active off, suspend, no standby
timing: 720x400@70 Hz (VGA 640x400, IBM)
timing: 640x480@60 Hz (VGA)
timing: 640x480@67 Hz (Mac II, Apple)
timing: 640x480@72 Hz (VESA)
timing: 640x480@75 Hz (VESA)
timing: 800x600@56 Hz (VESA)
timing: 800x600@60 Hz (VESA)
timing: 800x600@72 Hz (VESA)
timing: 800x600@75 Hz (VESA)
timing: 832x624@75 Hz (Mac II)
timing: 1024x768@60 Hz (VESA)
timing: 1024x768@70 Hz (VESA)
timing: 1024x768@75 Hz (VESA)
timing: 1280x1024@75 (VESA)
ctiming: 1272x1017@61
ctiming: 760x608@61
ctiming: 880x660@109
ctiming: 248x198@81
dtiming: 1440x900@69
monitorrange: 30-82, 56-76
monitorname: Acer AL1916W
monitorserial: ETL5209005

[Jouke (digigram)]

OK I get a more readable - but still not great looking - screen when I add "gamma 0.4" to the monitor section in xorg.conf

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

I don't know if this will fix this specific issue, but I've backported a bunch of high importance patches that upstream recommended, that fix problems sort of like this one, so I think it would be worth the time to test. Please try this .deb and report what you find:

http://people.ubuntu.com/~bryce/Testing/ati/

If we can determine that the patches in this deb fix this bug, they may be candidates for backporting to Hardy.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue for you? Can you try with latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. In the development cycle for Intrepid there have been some vast improvements in the open source ati video driver and we could use your help testing them. Could you please download the latest Alpha CD image of Intrepid and test this particular bug just using the Live CD? You can find the latest image at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing . Your testing can help make Ubuntu and the open source ati driver even better! Thanks in advance.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

We're closing this bug since it is has been some time with no response from the original reporter. However, if the issue still exists please feel free to reopen with the requested information. Also, if you could, please test against the latest development version of Ubuntu, since this confirms the bug is one we may be able to pass upstream for help.