Comment 5 for bug 558395

I have the same problem ( on a VPC Z12 ) but unlike others I can find no way to get the Intel card working - though this may be because I have kept the fake raid 0 set up and am dual booting with Windows 7, and so booting without using grub 2 seems impossible. However, I have tried booting the live DVD in "rescue mode," and then inserting the i915 module from a root shell in the raid 0 device, and this too results in a black screen... which is even more odd because booting the live DVD normally results in working graphics with the i915 and Intel drivers being used. So, there is something different happening when the live DVD starts the modules/X-server which is not necessarily down to the boot loader.

I also found the modified sony-laptop driver, sony-laptop-zseries-0.9np7, and by changing the first line in the "sony_ovga_dsm" function to 'static char *path = "\\_SB.PCI0.GFX0._DSM";', I can get the stamina/speed lights to light as appropriate when I echo to /sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/speed* ( can't remember the exact name! ) and power consumption drops when switching to stamina mode, BUT the blank screen still happens.

If I boot normally and then load the i915 module with "modeset=0", the blank screen does not happen, but when I start the X server I get a kernel panic.

Looking for any clues as to where to go next with this - I can use the machine with the NVidia card/drivers but ideally I'd like to use the Intel card and disable the NVidia one ( without modifying the BIOS that is! )