Black screen on boot with sandy bridge processor

[Alan Goldblatt]

This is on an HP Compaq 8200 Elite all-in-one, with an Intel i3-2100. The live CD for Oneiric boots to a black screen. I instead installed Lucid, which works fine, but without proprietary graphics abilities. Upgrade to Natty resulted in a black screen on boot again. Booting with the Lucid kernel still works fine.

I tried installing the 3.1 kernel, thinking the issue was supposed to have been fixed, but it too boots to a black screen. For now I'm running Natty with the Lucid 2.6.32-28 kernel. I'm afraid to even try updating to Oneiric lest apt remove the one working kernel I have left... Especially since my experiment with 3.1 failed.

It would seem that the sandy bridge support in the newer kernels is broken, but the generic support works if one boots to a kernel prior to sandy bridge "support".

Thanks for your help everyone!

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: xorg 1:7.6+4ubuntu3.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-28.55-generic 2.6.32.27+drm33.12
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-28-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: openafs
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: [core,bailer,detection,composite,opengl,decor,mousepoll,vpswitch,regex,animation,snap,expo,move,compiztoolbox,place,grid,imgpng,gnomecompat,wall,ezoom,workarounds,staticswitcher,resize,fade,unitymtgrabhandles,scale,session,unityshell]
CompositorRunning: None
Date: Tue Nov 8 14:38:02 2011
DistUpgraded: Log time: 2011-10-25 11:37:22.112653
DistroCodename: natty
DistroVariant: ubuntu
GraphicsCard:
 Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0102] (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:3395]
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04.2 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20110211.1)
MachineType: Hewlett-Packard HP Compaq 8200 Elite AiO Business PC
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-28-generic root=UUID=eb95af9d-a8fb-462e-880b-0d1936a43c4d ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
Renderer: Unknown
SourcePackage: xorg
Symptom: display
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to natty on 2011-10-25 (14 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 07/01/2011
dmi.bios.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.bios.version: J10 v02.03
dmi.board.asset.tag: MXL1411NWS
dmi.board.name: 3395
dmi.board.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: MXL1411NWS
dmi.chassis.type: 13
dmi.chassis.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnHewlett-Packard:bvrJ10v02.03:bd07/01/2011:svnHewlett-Packard:pnHPCompaq8200EliteAiOBusinessPC:pvr:rvnHewlett-Packard:rn3395:rvr:cvnHewlett-Packard:ct13:cvr:
dmi.product.name: HP Compaq 8200 Elite AiO Business PC
dmi.sys.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.4+bzr20110606-0ubuntu1~natty2
version.ia32-libs: ia32-libs 20090808ubuntu13
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.23-1ubuntu6
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 7.10.2-0ubuntu2.1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental: libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental N/A
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 7.10.2-0ubuntu2.1
version.xserver-xorg: xserver-xorg 1:7.6+4ubuntu3.1
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.14.0-0ubuntu4.1
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.14.0-4ubuntu7.2
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:0.0.16+git20110107+b795ca6e-0ubuntu7

[Alan Goldblatt (alan-b-goldblatt)]

Bump.

Does anyone have any ideas here?

[Alan Goldblatt (alan-b-goldblatt)]

Workaround: all kernels will boot and run fine if I add "nosplash nomodeset" to "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT". I have successfully upgraded to Oneiric, but can only run with the VESA driver.

[Geoffrey Lee-Dadswell (geoffrey-lee-dadswell)]

I have exactly the same problem, including the need for VESA drivers. I've been documenting my rather noobish, and totally unsuccessful, attempts to resolve the issue here

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1912002

[Alan Goldblatt (alan-b-goldblatt)]

Update: I installed the 3.2.0 Kernel and now the proprietary graphics work. Apparently the bug in the Sandybridge Kernel modules has been fixed as of 3.2. I can boot without the nomodeset, etc., and the graphics show as "Intel Sandybridge Desktop". Unfortunately, I still can't run Compiz, so I'm still stuck with Unity 2d. If I try to run 3d I get to the desktop, but the panel, launcher, desktop icons, etc. never load, and there's very little functionality. There is (apparently -- according to a number of forums) an incompatibility between Sandybridge and Compiz. There's talk of workarounds involving installing xorg-edgers and removing some modules that Compiz currently blacklists (Compiz blacklists a number of Sandybridge modules), but I haven't tried that yet.

[Geoffrey Lee-Dadswell (geoffrey-lee-dadswell)]

I just installed the ubuntu build v3.2-rc4-oneiric kernel. This appears to have fixed all of the graphics issues. I've removed "nomodeset" from the grub options. I even have compiz so I'm able to log in to unity 3D. I've even customized a bit with ccsm and everything is working just fine.

[Joseph Salisbury (jsalisbury)]

This bug was filed against a series that is no longer supported and so is being marked as Won't Fix. If this issue still exists in a supported series, please file a new bug.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.