[RV610 HD 2400 Pro] blank screen starting X, then goes to standby

[Erik Edelmann]

Binary package hint: xorg

I've just installed Xubuntu-8.10 on a computer with an ASUS M2N motherboard, AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core BE-2400 CPU, and a ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO graphics card.

I had some problems with X: after booting from the installation cd, instead of starting X, the screen went blank, and after a while into stand by where it remained. I then tried the alternate install disk. Installation from that went smoothly, but when (re)booting the newly installed system, starting X failed again with the same symptom; screen in stand by. I switched to a virtual console, and after lots of trial and error I was able to make X work the following way:

1. Install the radeonhd driver (xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd)
2. Through 'Xorg -configure' + heavy hand editing, create the xorg.conf file in the attachment.

And with that it seems to work nicely. Problem solved for me. I decided to report it anyway to

a) Make developers aware that the automatic X configuration tool on (X)ubuntu-8.10 has a problem with ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO cards
b) Tell other users having the same problem that there's a workaround
[lspci]

[lspci]

[lspci]

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

[This is an automated message]

Hi erik-edelmann,

Thanks for including the attached files. Could you also include your /var/log/Xorg.0.log?

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

The logfile from the failing session would be more interesting, but I understand that it's a bit difficult to obtain. You could try a jaunty livecd if the driver version it has works better.

[Erik Edelmann (erik-edelmann)]

I downloaded the daily build (as of December 28 19:30 EEST) of jaunty-desktop-amd64.iso, and tried it.

It works a little slightly bit better than before, but only a slightly little bit; instead of just going to stand by, it pops up a window that says

"""
Ubuntu is running low-graphics mode

Your screen graphics card and input device settings could not be detected correctly. You will need to configure these yourself
"""

I clicked OK, and got a window saying

"""
What would you like to do?

( ) Run ubuntu in low graphics mode
( ) Reconfigure graphics
( ) troubleshoot the error
"""

Choosing "Run ubuntu in low graphics mode", I got a mostly black screen, with a horizontal band of semi-random colours across the screen, where it stuck. I rebooted, and tried "troubleshoot the error" next. That gave me a window saying

"""
What information would you like to review?"

( ) Review the xserver log file
( ) Review the startup error
( ) Edit the configuration file
( ) Archive configuration and logs
"""

The three first alternatives would just give me the same window back again, without showing any logs or errors, nor letting me edit anything. The last option told me it had saved the configuration and logs /var/log/<something>, but that's presumably a RAM file system, so it didn't help much. I tried to switch to a virtual console to copy the archived log files to a USB stick, but I just got the same blank screen with horizontal band as before, from where I couldn't escape, except by rebooting. (Feature request: and an option to save the logs to a USB-stick!)

[Erik Edelmann (erik-edelmann)]

I now tried the jaunty daily alternate disk, and installed it on a spare hard disk of mine. The installation went fine, but when rebooting the new system, X behaved in the same manner as for the jaunty live described above. This time, however, when I chose "Archive configuration and logs", /var/log resided on a physical hard disk rather than RAM, so I got it in store fore you. Hope you'll find it useful!

[Jason Straight (jason-jeetkunedomaster)]

I'm having the same problem with jaunty with a HD 3200, X starts black. I've made sure all possible traces of fglrx are removed, and also purged and re-installed xserver core, any ati/radeon drivers, and libgl1 mesa and dri.

radeonhd driver works, but is god-awful slow.

Attaching my logfile

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

radeontool in Jaunty* can be used to assist in debugging this issue. After installing it, you run it like this:

  radeontool regmatch '*' > regdump_good.txt

  radeontool regmatch '*' > regdump_broke.txt

Run it two times. Once when you have a working screen (for any driver), and once in the broken case (either from the tty console or logged into the sick box remotely).

Attach both of those to this bug report, and we can then forward this issue upstream. Thanks ahead of time!

[* Note: radeontool is available in earlier versions of Ubuntu but is too old; if you need to run it on an older version of Ubuntu, you can obtain and build it from the upstream git tree at http://cgit.freedesktop.org/~airlied/radeontool/]

[Erik Edelmann (erik-edelmann)]

Since X in Jaunty is too broken to even let me switch to a console, I can't run anything there. I therefore downloaded the newer version of radeontool and used in Intrepid. regdump_good.txt is from my main 8.10 installation with the fix described in the initial posting, regdump_broke.txt is from a plain, untweaked 8.10 installation on an external hard drive.

[Sam Liddicott (sam-liddicott)]

I have this problem with Jaunty alpha 3 (+ all updates) with a radeon mobility HD 3200

With fglrx, When X starts the LCD screen washes out with weird lines. Switching to a text console does not show a usable screen, although I find I can still type.

With the radeon driver I get a black screen when X starts

Intrepid works fine.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hi Erik,

I have to apologize, I asked you for the wrong info. Upstream tells me that radeontool output is only valid for pre-R5xx series chips. For r500 and newer, including the R600-based HD 2400 Pro, they actually need the output from avivotool.

avivotool is in the radeontool package, so you already have it installed. Would you mind please re-running your two cases again, and instead collect the output from avivotool? Run it like this:

  avivotool regs all > avivotool_good.txt

Thanks ahead of time, and sorry for the incorrect directions I gave.

[Erik Edelmann (erik-edelmann)]

No problem. Here's the avivotool output.

[piglet (pig-let)]

Thanks Erik for your xorg.conf! With a few adjustments it worked for my Radeon 2400 PRO as well.

For the community I attached my config file for a dual head config of two 1280x1024 screens. X started in a lower resolution, but that was easily fixed using System->Preferences->Screen Resolution. I had to set the screen layout with grandr (also available at System->Administration->Multiple screens). I have to do that every time I start X. It seems my xorg.conf file does not tackle that yet.

I also put a lot of effort in getting the ati driver up and running. Nothing but blank screens. The only error I got was a message that the acceleration wasn't available. X starts, sound works, but the screens stay blank. The ati driver worked before my upgrade from 8.04 to 8.10...