11.04 Wont Boot With Mobility Radeon HD 3400

[ndstate]

Hello,

Ubuntu 11.04 64bit will not boot with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3400 Series graphics card. After showing a screen briefly it will indefinitely sit at a black screen. Please let me know what other information to include.

Thanks

[Fabio Marconi (fabiomarconi)]

Hello
Try to boot in textual mode, power on, hold down left shift, when grub menu appear press the key e and in the linux line remove quiet and splash, then ctrl+x to boot, refere where the system encounter problems.
Thanks
Fabio

[ndstate (ndstate)]

Hello,

I am booting directly from the install cd and skipping grub, is there any way to turn off quiet splash if I am going that?

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

I believe you can press F6 in the CD menu and edit the kernel boot line. In addition to "splash" and "quiet", please also remove the new "vt.handoff=7" option.

If you still get only a black screen, you can disable the normal driver and fall back to the vesa driver by giving a bogus option to the driver. For radeon cards, use for instance "radeon.nonsense=1".

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

There really isn't enough information provided here to know what might be going wrong. However from the description so far it sounds like it's failing at initializing the kernel drm driver, or getting stuck during early parts of the boot prior to X.

If you can get some additional diagnostics such as dmesg from the failed boot, that might clue the kernel guys in on what might be going wrong. In that case please reopen the bug.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

If you have a working maverick system, I would suggest installing the natty kernel there. When selecting the natty kernel at boot, you should be able to reproduce the problem. Then you can boot the maverick kernel again, and access the logs from the natty kernel boot (/var/log/kern.log in particular).

[ndstate (ndstate)]

Hello,

I was able to get it to boot with "radeon.nonsense=1" while booting the following reported failing but it still booted, I assume this has to do with that previous line: "load fallback graphics"

I had removed quiet and splash but "vt.handoff=7" was not present in the boot line.

[ndstate (ndstate)]

I have attached kern.log -- what else can I provide to help solve this issue? Thanks! :)

[ndstate (ndstate)]

Dmesg is attached.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Thanks, but I am afraid we will need the kernel log corresponding to a failed boot. This is obviously not so easy to acquire in a live CD session, but if you are installing natty you can get it afterwards. Or what I said in comment 5...

[ndstate (ndstate)]

I dont have maverick, can I install the natty kernel in lucid without issue? Otherwise I could see if I could free up some hd space and install natty, but will that mess up my grub? Thanks!

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Yes, you can install the natty kernel in lucid as well. Sometimes when you install newer kernels in older releases you will have some dependencies on firmware packages that you might need to upgrade as well, but for these tests that should not be a problem.

By the way, for laptops with Radeon cards I would recommend using a newer kernel. since the power management is much better since 2.6.35 (I use power_profile "low").

If you install natty, and you are afraid of touching the lucid grub setup, choose to install the natty grub to the natty partition, and not to the MBR. Then in your lucid grub configuration, add an entry to "chain-load" the natty grub:

menuentry "Natty" {
        set root=(hd0,6)
        chainloader +1
}

where, of course, you substitute hd0,6 with the natty partition where natty grub was installed.

[ndstate (ndstate)]

Hello,

I installed natty in a separate partition. For some reason despite telling it to install grub to the natty partition, the natty kernel/partition showed up automatically in the lucid grub menu.

Anyway, I have attached kern.log ... let me know if anything else is needed.

Thanks

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Thanks, but we need the kernel log corresponding to a failing boot (without the "nonsense" option) so that we can see the output from the radeon module. Please look through the kern.log.* files.

[ndstate (ndstate)]

Sorry about that. It seems that the kernel is not logging to kern.log when it doesn't boot all the way. I just attempted to boot normally, let it sit at the black screen for an hour, had to power off by holding the power button, and when I went back in an checked kern.log there was only the one from yesterday. There are no other kern.log files in /var/log. Any ideas?

[ndstate (ndstate)]

Any idea why its not working correctly?

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

It is possible that the module loads and freezes the system before the disk is mounted read/write. You can try booting with the "radeon.nonsense=1" option, then at the console (ctrl-alt-f1):
 sudo stop gdm
 sudo modprobe radeon
and see if you now get anything logged. If still not, it might seem that it crashes the system immediately so nothing can get written to disk. In that case one possibility to get more information is logging over the network to another computer, https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/Netconsole

[ndstate (ndstate)]

Thanks for your response.

In the console when I try the command sudo modprobe radeon I get the following error:

[292.757763] radeon: Unknown parameter 'nonsense'
FATAL: Error inserting radeon (/lib/modules/2.6.38-8-generic/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/radeon.ko): Uknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)

dmesg just reports the error with nonsense.

I had stopped gdm and everything. Any more ideas? Is my only option netconsole?

[ndstate (ndstate)]

I tried netconsole and couldn't get it to work. Could ubuntu be crashing before it has time to log stuff over the network? I ask this because I am not seeing the computer in question on my router status page telling me what computers are connected. The computer only shows up as connected to the network when I use radeon.nonsense=1 after gdm loads.

Or am I just confused and there is another issue?

[Khalife Dany (enduo)]

Hello there,
I just made the update to 11.04 and i have the same problem
Here is a brief explanation of the steps that occur during the boot, as i noticed above these were not clearly mentioned ..

I have a dual boot setup alongside with windows 7 so at the dual boot screen, choosing ubuntu usually displayed a black screen with the boot options, which after the update is purple (and font size is smaller, not sure if that's also a bug or on purpose)

After choosing the latest Generic, the boot will show up some boot text quickly and then get to the splash screen
Immediately after the 4'th "dot" appears on the loading screen, my display would go to black, then turn on again, then back ... indefinitely
In other words, the display dims over and over....

I did not reach the login screen yet and i have no option of stopping the loop other than Ctrl + Alt + Delete (Escape used to work before when i had a similar situation)

In my next attempt, i tried going to the recovery mode to check for errors, did not get anything, and when i chose the resume option, i experience the same thing as above

I am fairly new to ubuntu and i don't know what to do besides that.. If there is anything i can do to help, please let me know, i am usually online most of the day :)

[ndstate (ndstate)]

Khalife, it seems like your computer is booting further than mine. Mine does not even make it to the loading screen, it almost instantly goes to the black screen and freezes, ctrl alt delete does not work on my computer.

After your computer does not boot you should copy kern.log and post it on here so they can help debug the issues. I would recommend trying to start the computer up normally then letting it crash. Restart your computer. At grub change the command line and add in radeon.nonsense=1

Now it should boot all the way. Let us know what happens and be sure to post a kern.log for a failed boot. Further instructions can be found in the above posts. :-)

[Haynes (123haynes)]

Not sure if this helps, but in case you use Toshiba Notebooks, try the following boot parameter : pcie_aspm=off
It seems that the BIOS of the Toshiba Notebooks is somwhat messed up and doesn't return the correct values for the Active State Power Management of the pcie devices.
This results in not being able to boot in newer kernels.
Switching the Active State Power Management off in the boot options will fix this problem.
Afaik there is a bugreport for this already but i dunno the number of it atm.

[Fabio Valentini (fafatheone-deactivatedaccount)]

I also had issues booting Natty final 64bit Live CD on ATI Radeon HD3400. I get the boot menu, choose "Try without installing" and then, after some time, the screen freezes and the OS is unresponsive esponse to keyboard or mouse.
Adding "nomodeset" to the boot line worked fine for me, the Live CD booted into Classic GNOME. After installing Natty onto the disk, no more tinkering of boot options was necessary, everything just worked fine after that in my case.

If it helps, I am using a Sony VAIO FW series (never had Ubuntu related problems with that one before).

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

pmp6nl, in response to comment 17: Unfortunately modprobe picks up the "nonsense" parameter so you will have to use insmod instead. The inconvenience with insmod is that you have to take care of module dependencies, that is, you first have to modprobe other modules that radeon depends on. Run "modinfo radeon" to see its dependencies.

[Khalife Dany (enduo)]

Sorry for being out, i tried a different approach today and i got it working with the linux image that doesn't have "pae" at the end (forgot the full name :()

so i added the radeon.nonsense=1 at the grub before booting and that didn't fix the boot (not sure if it was supposed to but anw)
then i went to log viewer using the other linux image (without the pae) and i got these 2 logs

Log 1 is from today
Log 2 is from yesterday

I hope this helps,
If any else is needed i am ready to post more logs :)

[Khalife Dany (enduo)]

and this is log2, i figured only one is allowed per post

[ndstate (ndstate)]

Hi Tormod

I modprobed the dependencies: drm drm_kmw_helper ttm i2c-algo-bit

When I run insmod radeon I get : insmod: cant read 'radeon': No such file or directory

I tried searching for the error but I did not find any help. Any other ideas? Thanks for your continued help.

Should I maybe try upgrading to 11.04 final and see if anything gets fixed?

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

You need to give the full path to insmod:
 sudo insmod /lib/modules/2.6.38-8-generic/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/radeon.ko

About upgrading to 11.04 final: I think the kernel is the same, 2.6.38-8.42.

[Sam Zhai (sam-tbocs)]

Hey guys.
I have a HP Touchsmart TM2 with Intel + ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5450. I have the same issue when I try to start up the ubuntu but it just stuck at some command lines, which seems to contain a stack list that is all about ATI drivers and Xorg stuff.

For the people who gets into a black screen, I actually have the same issue, but that's just because the brightness is turned to the lowest. So if you press the brightness adjust button on the keyboard, the screen will light up. If you disable the gpu, you can run gnome. Otherwise, you will see the terminal line stuck there...

I did not install ATI closed-source driver. What I have been using is purely Xorg.

[Sam Zhai (sam-tbocs)]

Update! I just got into Unity by deleting xserver-xorg-video-ati and xserver-xorg-video-radeon! Everything is slow currently, but it proves that soemthing is wrong with the open source driver.

I will try to install the closed-source driver.

[Sam Zhai (sam-tbocs)]

Another update. I have to say I was using wubi. Everything works totally fine (I mean Unity 3d perfectly running) when I am running the DEMO mode (even if running the demo mode through wubi). Weird!

[Khalife Dany (enduo)]

@Sam Zhai
Yes! I forgot to mention that its someone what the brightness that is toggeling..
And also I am using wubi!

So Wubi + Ati Driver

Do you have a tempo fix? i mean currently i am using the 3rd linux image at grub but its slower at startup then previously
I mean before, as i enter my pwd and press enter everything would appear, now its like a 5 second delay, sometimes more :(
so i am hoping that other image will be faster :D

[ndstate (ndstate)]

Tormod,

I executed the command and it froze my computer, not sure if thats expected or not (I hard rebooted after letting it sit for awhile). Anyway, I have attached some logs. I had deleted the logs before bootup so they are for one boot and executing the command only. I am not sure if it logged what you needed or not -- let me know.

I appreciate your continued help, thanks alot!

P.S. According to auth.log it looks like I executed the command on: Apr 30 11:20:00 --- just to give you an idea when looking at the logs.

[Sam Zhai (sam-tbocs)]

@Khalife Dany

Finally, I solved the problem by installing an independent Ubuntu, instead of using Wubi anymore.
Something is wrong with Wubi accessing the driver.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Thanks for the logs. So it seems the machine does not lock up completely once you load the module, since it kept logging for some minutes. However, it seems from Xorg.0.log that X was running when you loaded radeon. Did you stop gdm first? Otherwise X will start up, detect there is no radeon module, and do its own mode setting. Then when radeon is loaded, it will also want to do mode setting, and conflicts may arise.

You can also try a normal boot again, but with the "radeon.modeset=0" option. Then radeon will be loaded but not do mode setting. Then X will start, and use radeon for other things, but do its own mode setting.

Also when using insmod, you can add the "modeset=0" option to the end of the line.

At this point, it will also be worth trying out the oneiric kernel on your natty installation. On https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux click on the arrow next to "2.6.39-0.5" then on "amd64" under Builds to get to the debs, you only need to install the linux-image-*-generic deb.

Another thing to try is booting a 32-bit live 11.04 image.

[Jano (janoxakespam)]

Hi,

Same problem with Dell Studio 1537 (Mobility Radeon HD 3450). At the loading screen it faces out to black and nothing more happens.
It happened with an update from 10.10 to 11.04 (keeping same /home) and full clean installation both 32 bit and installing from usb.
Live version (with the usb creator of ubuntu 10.10 works perfect (In fact i am using it right now)
I am going to try the solution proposed by #29 and then updating to the privative drivers.

[ndstate (ndstate)]

Hello again,

Shoot I forgot to stop gdm. Are you still able to get the info you need? Anyway, I tried to run all of those commands again in addition to stopping gdm and I got en error: "-1 File exists" when I ran insmod.

"radeon.modeset=0" on boot will allow it to boot, however it looks like unity does not work.

Is there a way I can help you all develop a more permanent solution that can be implemented into the code so people dont have this problem continually? I guess for people that just want to install ubuntu but run into this problem (it seems like it has been around since 10.10).

Thanks!

P.S. I can also try those other solutions.

[Khalife Dany (enduo)]

@Sam Zhai :
Thanks for that, i wish i could completely switch to linux
I am still using windows for PIC programming and other stuff since the software i use on windows is either not supported or doesn't work well with wine :(

Anyone tried to use the linux image suggested in comment 36 please let me know as i am not so exited to be the first to do so :D

[Relja Ljubobratovic (relja1990)]

Hey guys, I'm also new to linux, and I have similar problem, but something different from the ones who are having black screen.

I'm also having ati radeon graphic card - 4200 in my case, and I have freshly installed ubuntu 11.04. When my ubuntu starts up I have log on screen, and after logging in, I have welcome sound and just default background without working panels and right click menu. But, I can start ubuntu from fail safe graphics mod, and I get nothing when I install ATI driver from there.

any help would be great.

Thanks!

[Santeri Savonlahti (shanttu)]

New to Launchpad and do not know correct ways to report stuff. I was wondering could this be related to this bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-ati/+bug/735126

[ndstate (ndstate)]

@Santeri Savonlahti I was wondering that also.

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This bug is missing log files that will aid in dianosing the problem. From a terminal window please run:

apport-collect 763909

and then change the status of the bug back to 'New'.

If, due to the nature of the issue you have encountered, you are unable to run this command, please add a comment stating that fact and change the bug status to 'Confirmed'.

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

[Liudmil Mitkov Mitev (sesarr-bg)]

I can confirm the kernel crashing with default parameters on my HP touchsmart tm2.
It doesn't crash if I add "radeon.modeset=10 to the kernel params but vgaswitcheroo doesn't work.
Here's the crash dump:

28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] ------------[ cut here ]------------
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] WARNING: at /build/buildd/linux-2.6.38/drivers/pci/dmar.c:634 warn_invalid_dmar+0x98/0xb0()
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] Hardware name: HP TouchSmart tm2 Notebook PC
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] Your BIOS is broken; DMAR reported at address 0!
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] BIOS vendor: Insyde; Ver: F.0B; Product Version: 049E100000200800000120000
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] Modules linked in:
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] Pid: 0, comm: swapper Not tainted 2.6.38-8-generic >
> Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] [<c12a4a28>] ? warn_invalid_dmar+0x98/0xb0

#42-Ubuntu
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] Call Trace:
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] [<c104f912>] ? warn_slowpath_common+0x72/0xa0
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] [<c12a4a28>] ? warn_invalid_dmar+0x98/0xb0
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] [<c12a4a28>] ? warn_invalid_dmar+0x98/0xb0
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] [<c104f9a2>] ? warn_slowpath_fmt_taint+0x32/0x40
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] [<c12a4a28>] ? warn_invalid_dmar+0x98/0xb0
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] [<c17b5b6a>] ? check_zero_address+0x53/0x123
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] [<c12e1c93>] ? acpi_tb_verify_table+0x4b/0x4e
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] [<c12e1bd5>] ? acpi_get_table_with_size+0x59/0xae
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] [<c17b5c4c>] ? detect_intel_iommu+0x12/0x78
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] [<c17930c0>] ? pci_iommu_alloc+0x35/0x5a
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] [<c179e35c>] ? mem_init+0xe/0x26d
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] [<c17a76d2>] ? __alloc_bootmem_node_nopanic+0x72/0x93
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] [<c150717f>] ? printk+0x30/0x39
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] [<c17abb64>] ? page_cgroup_init_flatmem+0xab/0xd9
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] [<c178d638>] ? start_kernel+0x1b6/0x366
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] [<c178d3d5>] ? pass_all_bootoptions+0x0/0xa
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] [<c178d0e0>] ? i386_start_kernel+0xe0/0xe8
Jul 28 21:00:30 touchy-feely kernel: [ 0.000000] ---[ end trace a7919e7f17c0a725 ]---

[RogerP (rogerpowell59)]

I too am affected by this bug (exactly as reported by pnp6nl). Trying to install 11.04, 64bit from DVD.

I have a Toshiba satellite Pro, Intel Core Duo P8400, Radeon 3400.

I get the flash screen then it dies. If I press F6, then I get the choice of language and the initial menu. I have tried various ACPI settings but whatever I do, the system crashes soon after I select Install.

I have also tried various BIOS settings and some of the above suggestions. There seems to be no way of setting pcie_aspm=off in the BIOS.

If it helps I will get a log file / dmesg but I expect you know the problem by now.

Pity there is no work around after 5 months.

[RogerP (rogerpowell59)]

Got a work around for the install from DVD, at least. On the Toshiba, set the SATA Compatibility Mode to "Compatability" (That gets rid of the stupid emulation 0/1 question.)

On the first flash screen press F6. Choose your language

Press F4 and select "Use driver update disc"

Now select install. It will ask you to insert the disk. (If you have a driver update disk, by all means stick in when it asks.) I didn't have a disk so I let fail to find the driver. I think I pressed ESC to get to the text and then return. It seemed to give up and skip the graphics setting. After that the install went smoothly.

Of course, I can't get it to boot now (!) beyond the grub menu but at least I have an OS in place and I just need to figure out what I did last time I did a clean install. I know there is a new driver from ATI.

The graphics resolution during the install was perfect. Whatever graphics driver it was using was absolutely fine. How can I use the same one (in the same way) during boot up? Then the work-around would be complete.

[RogerP (rogerpowell59)]

See also: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1743535

[ndstate (ndstate)]

Just an FYI 11.10 beta1 works perfectly without modifying anything.

[RogerP (rogerpowell59)]

Thanks pmp6nl. I would just like to add that I'm now fully up and running with 11.04 64bit on my Toshiba laptop with its HD3400.

The trick was adding "nomodeset" on the grub boot line, which finally got me to the log in screen. Following that I have installed all recommended updates (inc a lot of xorg ones) and (taking a big risk) installed the proprietary FLGRX driver. Everything is fine.

In post no 46 I may have selected nomodeset in the install as well, come to think about it. (I was trying lots of different combinations of settings at the time.)

[penalvch (penalvch)]

pmp6nl, thank you for reporting this and helping make Ubuntu better. This bug report is being closed due to your last comment regarding this being fixed with an update. For future reference you can manage the status of your own bugs by clicking on the current status in the yellow line and then choosing a new status in the revealed drop down box. You can learn more about bug statuses at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Status. Thank you again for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please submit any future bugs you may find.
For others who marked themselves affected and want to debug the issue in natty 64-bit, please file a new report via the Terminal:
ubuntu-bug linux