Xorg high processor usage and flickering screen with fglx/dual screens

[Graham Hagger]

Binary package hint: xorg-driver-fglrx

I've just done my fifth reinstallation of the Jaunty release candidate having tried for some time now to resolve problems with my two monitors and the FGLRX driver.

My setup is as follows:

ATI RadeonHD 4850
28" 1920x1200 LCD connected via DVI
17" 1280x1024 LCD connected via VGA

After a fresh install of Jaunty x86_64 from the alternate install CD, I get 1280x1024 resolution mirrored on both screens, with flickering on the 17" LCD. At this point it is using the standard VESA driver.

After either of applying all updates, then installing the FGLRX driver via Jockey, OR just straight installing the driver with no other updates, I get a VERY slow X display on reboot, with much flickering on the smaller screen, and again 1280x1024 mirrored. Any attempt to open the display properties tool to change the resolutions etc results in it hanging with the dialog box just an empty grey square on the screen.

Has anyone else had a similar problem? And if you need more information from me, please let me know what to run/include in an additional report and I'll be happy to provide.

Thanks,

Graham

[Slaughtyaardvark (lovelygorbachev)]

I have the same problem. I have a Radeon 3850. One 19' 1440x900 LCD, and one 19' 1152x864 CRT. The GNOME panels are on the LCD, so I suppose that's the primary. I started with the ati driver, which works perfectly. Using the Preferences --> Display applet, I de-mirrored the displays, and set the above resolutions. I then switched to fglrx using Jockey. The resolutions carried over.

With fglrx active: GDM is mirrored. While loading into GNOME, the loading process takes quite a bit longer that when using the ati driver, and the CRT flickers repeatedly. As soon as the panels load, the flickering stops, and the panel contents then load quite quickly.

When I start the Display applet, I run into the same flicker+slow X+grey square problem as above. The only way out of the situation is to log out, which takes a while, as the panels are fairly unresponsive.

I also get the flickering when just loading up Totem, but strangely, not Banshee. When playing videos, the audio is fine, but the video is quite choppy. I've tried opengl overlay with video overlay off, and I've also tried opengl on + textured video on. I've tried adding these options with both aticonfig, and just manually, with gedit.

I don't know if this is relevant, but with fglrx and compiz active, windows maximize across both monitors, rather than just one. Also, maximizing takes about 2 seconds. Minimizing is a fraction of a second, as usual.

With fglrx active, glxinfo reports direct rendering active, and glxgears gets ~10000 fps.

I've switched back to the ati driver, because a working desktop is more important to me than a pretty one :), but I'm happy to switch back to try things out, if anyone has any ideas, or wants more information. I'll be keeping an eye on this page.

Thanks for your time,
Ryder

[Slaughtyaardvark (lovelygorbachev)]

Forgot to mention, the card has two DVI ports only; the CRT is connected via a DVI->VGA adapter.

[Slaughtyaardvark (lovelygorbachev)]

Well, thanks to a very informative post on the ubuntu forums: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1152121&highlight=fglrx , my problem is now fixed.

To do a bit of copy/pasting from that post:

Edit /etc/ati/amdpcsdb
In the section labeled [AMDPCSROOT/SYSTEM/DDX]
Add this:

EnableRandR12=Sfalse

and in xorg.conf
add this:

Option "EnableRandR12" "false"

I believe I rebooted at this point.

I then set up pairmodes using the aticonfig command:

sudo aticonfig --add-pairmode=1152x864+1440x900

then it was a matter of loading up Catalyst Control Center, and activating Big Desktop, and then setting the overall screen resolution to 2592x900.

Presto! Completely working and fast compiz. I hope this fixes your problem, Graham.

Cheers,
Ryder

[bugbot (bugbot)]

This bug report was filed against an old version of Ubuntu.
Can you confirm whether this is still an issue in natty?

If you don't mind, it would be very helpful if you could update the bug
report in launchpad to 'Fix Released' if it is no longer an issue for
you, or if it is still occurring under natty, please tag the bug 'natty'
so it's easier for us to track.

[bugbot (bugbot)]

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.