[GM45] Need TVout quirk for 8086:2a42

[isazi]

The computer boots to low resolution sometimes because a non-existing TV-out is detected and the resolution is set according to this ghost-monitor. This is very similar to bug 273306, except that has a ghost-monitor on the VGA-out and can therefore not be quirked out. The TV-out quirk has been confirmed to fix the problem for this computer, and it does not have an TV-out port.

The computer is a Lenovo Thinkpad SL500.

[original]

I'm using Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04 beta, everything was fine with with video card until yesterday when I upgraded the intel video driver with that one:

xserver-xorg-video-intel_2%3a2.6.3-0ubuntu5_amd64.deb

Now I cannot have more the resolution that I used to have (1280x800).

My video card is that one:

Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller

[lspci]
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub [8086:2a40] (rev 07)
 Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:20e0]
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:2a42] (rev 07)
 Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:20e4]

[isazi (isazi)]

Those are the X server logs.

[Geir Ove Myhr (gomyhr)]

Thank you for reporting this bug. We would like some more information from you.

* What resolution do you get now?
* What is the native resolution of the monitor you are using, and how is it connected to the computer?
* Can you attach the output of `xrandr -verbose` and `lspci -vvnn`?
* Could you add the line
Option "ModeDebug" "true"
to the device section of the /etc/X11/xorg.conf, restart and upload the Xorg.0.log resulting from that?
* To make sure it is really the new -intel package that is the problem, could you try downgrading again to the previous version (I think you can find that package in /var/cache/apt/archives)? Please include the Xorg.0.log (with the ModeDebug option) and `xrandr -verbose` from that as well.

[isazi (isazi)]

Hi,

sorry but I've just upgraded the package to version 2.6.3-0ubuntu8 and everything's fine right now, I can get the resolution of 1280x800 without modifying the Xorg.conf file.

[Geir Ove Myhr (gomyhr)]

Thank you for the update.

[isazi (isazi)]

The upgrade to driver version 2.6.3-0ubuntu9 drove the problem back.

[isazi (isazi)]

Log from this version.

[isazi (isazi)]

Previous startup when everything was fine (driver version 2.6.3-0ubuntu8).

[Geir Ove Myhr (gomyhr)]

Okay, I'm opening this again...

With the new version, could you answer the questions and try the things I asked for in the comment above? (#2)

[Geir Ove Myhr (gomyhr)]

And please remember to check that it is really the upgrade from 0ubuntu8 to 0ubuntu9 that makes the difference, by downgrading to 0ubuntu8 and testing.

[isazi (isazi)]

Here we are:

* the resolution I get now is 1024x768
* the native resolution of my monitor is 1280x800 and it is a laptop lcd, so it is connected directly with an inside flat cable
* xrandr and lspci output in later posts
* same for Xorg log with debug enabled
* i'll try to downgrade too after i've enabled the debug mode

[isazi (isazi)]

xranrd --verbose

[isazi (isazi)]

lspci -vvnn

[isazi (isazi)]

This is the actual log with ModeDebug enabled but I cannot identify where the problem is really cause now I've rebooted and it's working.
I've tried some trick like booting with ac adaptor in and after only with battery but seems is a little bit random, so, sometimes he gets the right resolution and sometimes not.

[Geir Ove Myhr (gomyhr)]

Thank you for the information. You say your monitor is on the laptop (they are connected through something called LVDS). You never had an external monitor connected when you had the problems? Your first log says there is an external monitor connected to the TV-out port, and this is what is causing the lower resolution (it tries to mach the resolution with what it thinks is on the TV-port). It is not an uncommon problem that the driver thinks there is something on the TV-port when there isn't.

First of all, it seems like this behaviour is not related to the package version of the intel driver, but is something that comes and goes randomly. It would be nice if you could confirm this by logging out and in several times. The resolution should be fine every now and then and wrong every now and then.

Secondly, when you have checked that this comes and goes, take a look at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Quirks under "Ignore TV Output Quirk" (the behaviour is nowadays a lower resolution instead of what is shown in the picture). Try to disable TV-out and verify that the bad case never happens again. (I have a very similar bug, except that it is the VGA that pretends to be there every now and the, bug 273306).

Finally, what is your exact laptop model? Does it have a TV-out connection at all?

[Geir Ove Myhr (gomyhr)]

By the way... Please attach the Xorg.0.log when the low resolution strikes again.

[isazi (isazi)]

Yeah, I'll try to take the logs if the low resolution strikes again :)

My laptop is a Lenovo Thinkpad SL500 that have VGA and HDMI external ports (not connected to an external monitor, by the way) but not a TV-Out port.

[isazi (isazi)]

So, it happened again and I've took the logs.

[isazi (isazi)]

xrandr output too.

[Geir Ove Myhr (gomyhr)]

Thank you for this information. Now that we have confirmed that this happens randomly independent of the package version, we'd like to confirm that disabling the TV-out really takes care of this (I would be very surprised if it doesn't). This test may be a bit tedious, but should remove any doubt about my suspicions.
1. Log out and in again several times. Each time you log out the X-server is restarted and the "bad" case may happen (i.e. you get lower resolution than expected). Count how many times you have to log in and out before the bad case has happened three times. (If you install fvwm and switch default desktop session to that temporarily, the login/logout will be much faster than with KDE/Gnome).
2. Add the TV-out quirk to your xorg.conf as described at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Quirks .
3. Log in and out the same number of times. Verify that the bad case never happens.

There is one more test you can do if you want to that may tell us how similar this is to bug 273306. When you have the resolution you want, run xrandr several times. Does it show "TV connected" instead of TV disconnected every now and then? If you find this hard to spot manually, you can write this on the command line:
for a in `seq -w 1 200`; do echo $a; xrandr >xrandr-$a.out; done
This will generate 200 files with xrandr output with filenames xrandr-XXX.out. To see if any of them are different, run
md5sum xrandr-*.out | sort | less
This will list the md5sum of all the files, which will be the same for most of them, but you can then check out the different ones.

As a side note, I noticed from the log that you have set a few options in you xorg.conf. For documentation, could you attach that file to this bug as well? Also, both your xrandr --verbose outputs are for the bad case, it would be nice to have one for the good case as well (it will probably have TV disconnected but without the 0mm x 0mm part seen in the uploaded files).

[isazi (isazi)]

I'm checking if adding the quirk to xorg.conf solve my problem.

[isazi (isazi)]

The bug is no more hitting me after I've applied the workaround explained here https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Quirks

[Geir Ove Myhr (gomyhr)]

Thank you for the update. Since the computer doesn't have any TV-out port and the TV-out quirk works, it should probably be enabled by default. I will update the bug title accordingly.

It would be interesting, though, if once the upstream solution to bug 273306 is ready, it will apply to this bug as well, or if the fix will be only for the VGA port.
(http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20463)

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

isazi,
    As you may already know, modesetting is something that the kernel does now. As such I am opening a kernel task for this bug. I would appreciate if you could test this against the latest Lucid build to see if this is still an issue for you in the current kernel. If you do encounter the issue there I'd also appreciate a test against the latest vanilla kernel.

I'll also be closing out the xorg task on this bug as invalid due to the modesetting migration to the kernel.

Thanks!

-JFo

[isazi (isazi)]

Hello Jeremy,

I'm kinda sorry but I've no time to test this bug right now, I'm working
at an important project with this computer and cannot install another OS
or kernel, however I haven't had any problem of that kind with Ubuntu
9.10 so far.

Bye

--

Alessio "isazi" Sclocco - Metro Olografix member

http://alessio.sclocco.eu/isazi/

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

isazi,
     That is good news. I completely understand not wanting to harm your machine by testing while in the middle of important work. As such, and since you seem to be having no problems with Karmic, I am going to set this bug as Fix Released. Please comment on the bug or change the status if you encounter this issue again once you are able to test on Lucid.

Thanks!

-JFo