X display with Intel i915 driver occasionally goes blank after resume from suspend

[Wirawan Purwanto]

Binary package hint: xorg

I have had Ubuntu 10.04 on my laptop (see details in attachments) since September 2010. I have been using kernel modeset. This one has a hybrid Intel/ATI display. I disabled the ATI one and only used the Intel. Here is the relevant lspci output:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)

For a while this laptop suspended and resumed with no problem whatsoever. I use this laptop as a work machine that I suspend/resume often (once or twice a day if not more). Recently (for a few months) the laptop sometimes wake up with a bizzare behavior on the LCD display: it flashes a bright light then the LCD went black. Never to recover until I rebooted the laptop. Trying to suspend and resume again won't help.

The result from dmesg etc came from a fresh reboot, so it might not show anything there.

Once I tried to "scavenge" for debug info or other logged problems when this happened by gathering all the dmesg, /var/log/kern, /var/log/messages or /var/log/Xorg.0.log -- they did not contain anything useful AFAIK. I can attach them if you want.

The difficulty is that this bug would not appear consistently. It only appears randomly and I can't tell when it would happen. I am filing this bug report just in case other Thinkpad users with intel integrated graphics also experienced similar problem (or if it has been reported elsewhere). I have a suspicion that perhaps some kernel update in the past caused this bug, since it never happened before.

Another point to consider: from time to time I would use xrandr to duplicate or extend the display to external VGA projector. (`xrandr -q' is usually all I did and the magic is done). Not sure if this has to do with the problem said above.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: xorg 1:7.5+5ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-31.61-generic 2.6.32.32+drm33.14
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-31-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu May 5 11:47:45 2011
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100816.1)
MachineType: LENOVO 2764CTO
PccardctlIdent:
 Socket 0:
   no product info available
PccardctlStatus:
 Socket 0:
   no card
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-2.6.32-31-generic root=UUID=bd2ced17-1c8e-475d-8630-23a7d9363d51 ro quiet nosplash
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: xorg
Symptom: display
dmi.bios.date: 10/30/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.bios.version: 7UET50WW (1.20 )
dmi.board.name: 2764CTO
dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.board.version: Not Available
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Information
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.chassis.version: Not Available
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvr7UET50WW(1.20):bd10/30/2008:svnLENOVO:pn2764CTO:pvrThinkPadT400:rvnLENOVO:rn2764CTO:rvrNotAvailable:cvnLENOVO:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
dmi.product.name: 2764CTO
dmi.product.version: ThinkPad T400
dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO
glxinfo: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 codename: lucid
 architecture: x86_64
 kernel: 2.6.32-31-generic

[Wirawan Purwanto (wirawan0)]

Hmm... nobody responded. I found a few posting on Ubuntu Forums which might or might not be relevant:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1467927

* This one says flickering about once a minute. I did not experience this. I did experience occasional flickering but not as often as once a minute. The flicker is very quick and the display goes back to normal. I was afraid if this was my hardware error; but now I suspect it is probably software-related.

* The "solution" mentioned there (about disabling RANDR service) does not apply to me. Apparently it is for KDE-based Ubuntu desktop; I am using GNOME.

* But there is a mention about a bug in Lucid intel driver (see post #10):

"For what I've read, there's a bug on Lucid with the Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset, and it hasn't been fixed, so we're out of luck. If anyone else knows more about this, please let us know!"

No specific reference pointed out. I wonder if the bug is related to black screen problem I occasionally have.

[Chris Wilson (ickle)]

Pagefip vs modeset race.