black screen on live-cd startup

[centx]

Had the same problem with the Jaunty release, and it seems that it hasn't yet been fixed in karmic daily releases.

I'm currently using jaunty(9.04) since it worked changing the drivers to fglrx. My guess is that this is related to all the AGP problems with the ati driver, but IANAD, so I can't be sure. My card is a sapphire radeon 3850 512 MB agp version, which AFAIK is a pci-express card with a agp converter, which might be useful to know.

I'll attach dmesg, lshw and lspci -vvv output from my current 9.04, if outputs from 9.10 is requested I guess I can get those too.

What's happening:
1. booting up.
2. Desktop loads.
3. black screen with a cursor on.
4. change to vt1 (alt+f1), checking if the machine responds to input, this works.
5. change back to X (alt+f7).
6. machine locks up, doesn't respond to any input at all.

[lspci]
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82875P/E7210 Memory Controller Hub (rev 02)
     Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 80f6
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV670PRO [Radeon HD 3850]
     Subsystem: ATI Technologies Inc RV670PRO [Radeon HD 3850]

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Please test if this is still an issue with the new driver we're staging in the following PPA for testing:

https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/kms

If you can reproduce the issue there, report here with a fresh Xorg.0.log and the output of dmidecode, and we'll forward it upstream.

[centx (centx)]

The same happened with the updated driver, only with more flickering before the white screen came up (after this X seems to be frozen).

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Based on the description of the symptoms, this might be caused by an incorrect AGPMode setting, which is relevant when DRI is enabled, which can produce black screen on boot problems. You should test if changing this makes the issue go away. In your /etc/X11/xorg.conf set AGPMode to various values like this:

 Section "Device"
    ...
    Option "AGPMode" "2"
 EndSection

Possible values include 1, 2, 4, 8. You can see what it's currently set to by looking in /var/log/Xorg.0.log. It's worthwhile to test all four values even once you find one that works. If this takes care of it for you, we may be able to establish a quirk to set it for your hardware combo, if you can provide the following data:

   * AGPMode value(s) that work
   * Make/Model of laptop or motherboard
   * Output of lspci -vvnn
   * Is the system all factory hardware, or have any parts been replaced?
   * Is there an AGP Mode in the system BIOS?
     - If so, is it set to the factory default?

For more details on this, please see the "ATI AGP Mode Quirk" section at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Quirks

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

[This is an automatic notification.]

A new version of the -ati driver is now available in Karmic.

This is a significant update to -ati which brings in kernel mode-setting
(currently disabled) and scores of fixes for DRI2, EXA, etc.

I've posted the new version of this driver to the following PPA,
would you mind testing it and seeing if it resolves the bug you
reported?

  https://edge.launchpad.net/~bryceharrington/+archive/ppa/+sourcepub/709908/+listing-archive-extra

If you're not running this release of Ubuntu, you can try booting the Karmic
LiveCD and loading the PPA onto it, and then log out/in to restart X.
ISOs are available at http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/releases/

After testing Karmic, report back here whether it's still an issue or not,
and if it is please post a fresh Xorg.0.log and 'dmesg' output.

Note there could be new bugs... please file these as new reports using
the command 'ubuntu-bug xorg'.

[centx (centx)]

I'll see if I can get down to it. I have gotten a new computer, so I haven't been able to test it yet.

[Igor Gomes (igorgomes)]

I can confirm this still happening with karmic alpha 6. After the live cd boot, it shows a brown-to-black fade (slowly) and then nothing else. I can't go to other terminals.

And I do confirm that using the option i915.modeset=0 allows me to boot perfecly.

Best,

Igor Gomes

[Igor Gomes (igorgomes)]

Just to add: HP Pavillion dv2000. I'll keep it till tomorow. Let me know if I can be any help.

Best,

Igor Gomes

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

We're closing this bug since it is has been some time with no response from centx. 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.

[centx (centx)]

As I no longer has access to the 3850, I can't tell if this bug still is relevant or not.