Suspend using vesa driver and NVIDIA 8400M GS doesn't work

[rez]

Package: xserver-xorg-video-vesa

1. Load Feisty Fawn x86 on Dell 1420n laptop with 8400M GS NVIDIA graphics card.
2. Update kernel to 2.6.20-16.
3. Open /etc/X11/xorg.conf and change driver type to "vesa" in "Device" section. Restart gdm.
4. Initiate Suspend process by going to System -> Quit -> Suspend. (system will go into suspend mode).
5. Press power button to resume operations.
6. All I get is a blank screen

[Matthew Garrett (mjg59)]

Nvidia disable the reinitialisation code in their video BIOS after boot. Since that's the only way we can reinitialise the video without using the binary nvidia driver, graphics can't be reinitialised. Fixing this requires nvidia to document the sequence needed to reinitialise the graphics hardware from D3cold.

[Nick_Hill (nick-nickhill)]

Hello Matthew

 don't know if this helps, but I have provided xorg.0.log outputs for the 6100 before and after suspend to RAM in my Bug #128413 , after resume from STR, the computer is responsive, can SSH in, but has no display. It may be a special situation with this chipset where the machine is actually accessible (not catatonic) after STR with Nvidia GPU.

The differences in Xorg.0.log can be summarised as:

Before STR, we had line 631:
(**) Option "dpms"
but after STR, neither that line or anything after it is written.

After STR, re-starting X gives on line 617:
(WW) NV(0): Cannot read colourmap from VGA. Will restore with default

Otherwise, the two files are the same.

[Matthew Garrett (mjg59)]

That's the expected behaviour - the machine has resumed fine, but the graphics hardware has not been reinitialised.

[Henrik Nilsen Omma (henrik)]

This cannot be fixed without data from Nvidia, closing.

[Jose De la Rosa (jose-de-la-rosa)]

Canonical won't fix w/o input from nVidia. Closing and focusing on nv and nvidia drivers.

[TJ (tj)]

This also affects Hardy amd64 on Sony Vaio VGN-FE41Z using "nv" driver.

[Timothy R. Chavez (timrchavez)]

The bug task for the somerville project has been removed by an automated script. This bug has been cloned on that project and is available here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1306155