Ubuntu 9.04 RC shows nothing on screen at boot

[Stephen Monteith]

Booting Ubuntu 9.04 RC iso image. I see nothing on the screen until I get to the logon window, to get there I had to use key combinations from I knew from booting on another PC to go through boot screen prompts. Once booted up the screen resolution is so unusable that I can not make adjustments. I believe this problem is due to an unusual hardware setup. This consists of an RCA HDTV rear projection TV using DVI input from an ATI Radeon 9250 graphics card. I believe Ubuntu is picking the wrong graphic port or screen resoution on the card at boot. Please note that I have not tested other Ubuntu ISO images previous to this attempt.

Here are the properties of the card (From Windows XP)

Name RADEON 9250
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_5960&SUBSYS_59601002&REV_01\4&56EB5F&0&0008
Adapter Type RADEON 9250 AGP (0x5960), ATI Technologies Inc. compatible
Adapter Description RADEON 9250
Adapter RAM 128.00 MB (134,217,728 bytes)
Installed Drivers ati2dvag.dll
Driver Version 6.14.10.6614
INF File oem1.inf (ati2mtag_RV280 section)
Color Planes 1
Color Table Entries 4294967296
Resolution 1707 x 960 x 60 hertz
Bits/Pixel 32
Memory Address 0xE0000000-0xEFFFFFFF
I/O Port 0x00002000-0x00002FFF
Memory Address 0xC0100000-0xC01FFFFF
IRQ Channel IRQ 16
I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB
I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF
Driver c:\winnt\system32\drivers\ati2mtag.sys (6.14.10.6614, 1.47 MB (1,540,608 bytes), 2007-10-29 19:26)

Name RADEON 9250 - Secondary
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_5940&SUBSYS_59611002&REV_01\4&56EB5F&0&0108
Adapter Type RADEON 9250 Secondary AGP (0x5940), ATI Technologies Inc. compatible
Adapter Description RADEON 9250 - Secondary
Adapter RAM 128.00 MB (134,217,728 bytes)
Installed Drivers ati2dvag.dll
Driver Version 6.14.10.6614
INF File oem1.inf (ati2mtag_RV280 section)
Color Planes Not Available
Color Table Entries Not Available
Resolution Not Available
Bits/Pixel Not Available
Memory Address 0xE8000000-0xEFFFFFFF
Memory Address 0xC0110000-0xC011FFFF
Driver c:\winnt\system32\drivers\ati2mtag.sys (6.14.10.6614, 1.47 MB (1,540,608 bytes), 2007-10-29 19:26)

System information (From Windows XP)

System Manufacturer IBM
System Model 808515U
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 3 Stepping 4 GenuineIntel ~2793 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date IBM 2CKT25AUS, 2008-01-21
SMBIOS Version 2.31
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111)"
Total Physical Memory 1,024.00 MB
---
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.21.
Architecture: i386
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: ubuntu 2458 F.... pulseaudio
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'ICH5'/'Intel ICH5 with AD1981B at irq 17'
   Mixer name : 'Analog Devices AD1981B'
   Components : 'AC97a:41445374'
   Controls : 34
   Simple ctrls : 23
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
IwConfig:
 lo no wireless extensions.

 eth0 no wireless extensions.
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha i386 (20100224.1)
Lsusb:
 Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
MachineType: IBM 808515U
Package: linux (not installed)
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/hostname.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz quiet splash --
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-14.20-generic
Regression: No
RelatedPackageVersions: linux-firmware 1.31
Reproducible: Yes
RfKill:

Tags: lucid needs-upstream-testing
TestedUpstream: No
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-14-generic i686
UserGroups:

dmi.bios.date: 01/21/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: IBM
dmi.bios.version: 2CKT25AUS
dmi.board.name: D865GKD
dmi.board.vendor: Intel
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: ������������������������
dmi.chassis.type: 6
dmi.chassis.vendor: IBM
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnIBM:bvr2CKT25AUS:bd01/21/2008:svnIBM:pn808515U:pvrThinkCentreA50:rvnIntel:rnD865GKD:rvr:cvnIBM:ct6:cvr:
dmi.product.name: 808515U
dmi.product.version: ThinkCentre A50
dmi.sys.vendor: IBM

[Rocky Stone (rstone-mail)]

There are issues with ATI Radeon graphics cards and xserver 1.6 and/or 2.6.28 kernels.
See https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-ati/+bug/293698 - [RV280 9250] No signal to monitor in 8.04 unless NoDRI used
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-ati/+bug/348332 - [RV250][JAUNTY] X Freezes with Radeon driver EXA/XAA Composite
and https://bugs.launchpad.net/xorg-server/+bug/133192 - Blank screen or distorted image because of wrong default AGPMode value

I also have ATI Radeon 9250 (RV280) and adding NoDRI in /etc/X11/xorg.conf solved my blank-screen-after-boot issue:
Section "Device"
        Identifier "Configured Video Device"
        Driver "ati"
        Option "NoDRI"
EndSection

[Stephen Monteith (stephen-monteith)]

Actually X runs fine. If I boot from the CD (now Release CD), there is nothing displayed on the screen until gdm loads and I get a login prompt. So I don't think it's an X issue, but perhaps a problem with the video settings during boot up.

[Martin Olsson (mnemo)]

I've seen a similar issue on intrepid previously. I had a box with an "ATI Radeon XPRESS 200M 5955" card where I could see the GRUB menu just fine but the entire boot sequence was black (until I got to GDM so basically usplash was black or what it's called).

I find it strange that you don't even see the grub menu though? Because of this I've opened this bug against grub as well, maybe one of their triagers/devs can comment on what component is broken if the grub menu isn't even shown.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

As per comment #2, doesn't seem to be an X issue.

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

Hi Stephen,

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? Can you try with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/ .

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

apport-collect -p linux 364057

Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

[This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Stephen Monteith (stephen-monteith)]

I will have access to the hardware in a couple of days and will run the tests then.

[Stephen Monteith (stephen-monteith)]

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[Stephen Monteith (stephen-monteith)]

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[Stephen Monteith (stephen-monteith)]

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[Stephen Monteith (stephen-monteith)]

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[Stephen Monteith (stephen-monteith)]

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[Stephen Monteith (stephen-monteith)]

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[Stephen Monteith (stephen-monteith)]

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[Stephen Monteith (stephen-monteith)]

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[Stephen Monteith (stephen-monteith)]

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[Stephen Monteith (stephen-monteith)]

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[Stephen Monteith (stephen-monteith)]

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[Stephen Monteith (stephen-monteith)]

I booted off the lucid development iso (http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/lucid/alpha-3/lucid-desktop-i386.iso). I couldn't test the upstream kernel. It was difficult enough to get these results. The screen resolution and detected monitor is wrong. I should be able to see 720p resolution but I'm only allowed to select 720p. Because of this I couldn't see the whole desktop making navigation difficult..

During the boot process I didn't see the initial menu, but after a short wait the Ubuntu logo appeared on a black background until I got the the desktop.

[dino99 (9d9)]

This is no more a supported version; and grub legacy upstream is also stopped, only receiving possible random fixes locally