VGA screen sometimes is croped and has dithering DVI Screen is always normal ATI x800

Bug #579028 reported by Harald
14
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
xserver-xorg-video-ati (Ubuntu)
Expired
Low
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: xorg

Since updating from Karmic to Lucid, one Display in a Dual Monitor configuration is sometimes cropped and has then dithering.

It is an ATI x800 (R420) graphic interface with two monitors one connected to the VGA and one connected to the DVI connector.

I can not find any rules when the problem occurs. It started when first booting after the update. Changing back to the old /etc/X11/Xsession.d/98vboxadd-xclient file helped for soume obots but the problem reapeared again. Now the problem comes up about every second time.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: xorg 1:7.5+5ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-22.33-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-22-generic i686
Architecture: i386
CheckboxSubmission: 6c1df3001b3f6f37f438c8ca21e697e6
CheckboxSystem: 46feaa48d06cf3e67f2915684d7220e3
Date: Tue May 11 23:58:17 2010
MachineType: To Be Filled By O.E.M. 775Dual-VSTA
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-22-generic root=UUID=310bf049-eeb8-4815-a648-15febdef0527 ro splash
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 LANG=en_GB.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: xorg
Symptom: display
dmi.bios.date: 12/11/2006
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: P2.40
dmi.board.name: 775Dual-VSTA
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.chassis.version: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvrP2.40:bd12/11/2006:svnToBeFilledByO.E.M.:pn775Dual-VSTA:pvrToBeFilledByO.E.M.:rvn:rn775Dual-VSTA:rvr:cvnToBeFilledByO.E.M.:ct3:cvrToBeFilledByO.E.M.:
dmi.product.name: 775Dual-VSTA
dmi.product.version: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.sys.vendor: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 codename: lucid
 architecture: i686
 kernel: 2.6.32-22-generic

Revision history for this message
Harald (hdmuell) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Harald (hdmuell) wrote :

as far as I can find (based on the time stamp) out GdmLog0 was taken when the bug occurs and GdmLog1 when the Display seems to work correctly.

Bryce Harrington (bryce)
affects: xorg (Ubuntu) → xserver-xorg-video-ati (Ubuntu)
Bryce Harrington (bryce)
Changed in xserver-xorg-video-ati (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Harald (hdmuell) wrote :

It looks like a race condition during boot.

If it happens the visual effect can even be seen, while booting, before the login screen. The login screen is always ok, but afterwards the effect reappears.

There is another video effect which is new compared to Karmic. In the boot sequence the screen has sometimes just a noisy picture and than the old or a new picture reappears again. (while changing video modes?)

Revision history for this message
Harald (hdmuell) wrote :

I tried it with the live/installation CD for 10.4 again. The effect appears as well. I fiddled around with the monitors.

What helped was switching to same image in all monitors (the effect vanished) and back again (and did not reappear).

Revision history for this message
Harald (hdmuell) wrote :

As a workaround I added nomodeset to the kernel parameters.

As the bug came up with Lucid, I give just a short sketch how to solve the problem with gub2. (standard in Lucid)

Edit /etc/default/grub
add the parameter nomodeset to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT. This line is in my configuration now:
  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="splash nomodeset"

Then run sudo update-grub in a TTerminal

Just to try if it works for your case ye you can edit the entry in Grub once before booting (see instructions at the bottom of the Grub boot menu at boot time) the line to edit is similar to
 linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-22-generic root=UUID=....... ro splash nomodeset

write nomodeset to the end of this line (as in the line above)

Revision history for this message
Harald (hdmuell) wrote :

I got the idea to switch off kernel-based mode setting by the following article:

http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Rock-it-What-s-new-in-Fedora-13-1006388.html (Information that this technique is used in Ubuntu + that it can be switched off)

using nomodeset is also a workaround for Bug: 583610

So my conclusion is that the bug must be somehow related to kernel-based mode setting.

So maybe the package is no longer correct?

Since I have the workaround boot time is much shorter. Before it took ages until xorg came up.

Revision history for this message
penalvch (penalvch) wrote :

Harald, 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? If so, could you please test for this with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ .

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

apport-collect -p xserver-xorg-video-ati REPLACE-WITH-BUG-NUMBER

Please note, given that the information from the prior release is already available, doing this on a release prior to the development one would not be helpful.

Thank you for your understanding.

Helpful bug reporting tips:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs

Changed in xserver-xorg-video-ati (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Low
status: Confirmed → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

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

Changed in xserver-xorg-video-ati (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Expired
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