Bug 9685 - Radeon HD video chipset < 5000 must use vesa driver, boot option nokmsboot
Summary: Radeon HD video chipset < 5000 must use vesa driver, boot option nokmsboot
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Mageia
Classification: Unclassified
Component: RPM Packages (show other bugs)
Version: 4
Hardware: x86_64 Linux
Priority: Normal critical
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Mageia Bug Squad
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2013-04-10 14:31 CEST by Jim Beard
Modified: 2015-12-24 05:33 CET (History)
3 users (show)

See Also:
Source RPM: kernel-desktop-3.8.6-2.mga3-3-1.mga3
CVE:
Status comment:


Attachments
xorg log when I change driver in xorg.con to radeon (19.72 KB, application/octet-stream)
2014-01-12 00:41 CET, Dušan Pavlík
Details

Description Jim Beard 2013-04-10 14:31:28 CEST
Description of problem:  The lastest kernel removed nokmsboot from the grub boot line and configured the video card to use the ATI driver.  This will fail on all Radeon HD cards prior to 5000, with the screen going blank except for an error message Out of Range.


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):


How reproducible: Install kernel-desktop-3.8.6-2.mga3-3-1.mga3


Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.


Reproducible: 

Steps to Reproduce:
Comment 1 Thomas Backlund 2013-04-10 14:57:44 CEST
Nope, this is wrong.

the opensource ati driver supports HD cards < 5000 series too.

It's only the proprietary fglrx driver that dropped support for HD cards < 5000 series.

Is radeon-firmware installed ?

And what is your card ?

lspcidrake -v | grep Card

CC: (none) => tmb

Comment 2 Jim Beard 2013-04-10 15:33:02 CEST
kernel-firmware-20130307-2.mga3
kernel-firmware-nonfree-20130307-1.mga3.nonfree
radeon-firmware-20120322-5.mga3.nonfree

Card:ATI Radeon HD 4870 and earlier: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI|RS780

From hardinfo:
VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RS780 [Radeon HD 3200]
Comment 3 Jim Beard 2013-05-09 06:10:11 CEST
Install of kernel-desktop-3.8.12-1.mga3-1-1.mga3 (64-bit) resulted in a change of driver in /etc/X11/xorg.conf to "ati" from "vesa" and the error message during boot OUT OF RANGE once again broke the machines ability to boot.

I booted to a different OS on the machine, mounted the Mageia 3 RC partition, changed "ati" to "vesa" and rebooted, only to have the boot fail again.

I then rebooted to failsafe, rebuilt the initrd with dracut -f, and rebooted.  All was well.

FWIW, you may BELIEVE that the ati driver supports AMD HD cards, but it does not and never has worked with my AMD Radeon HD 3200 card.  Every time a new kernel install changes the driver from vesa to ati, this machine fails to boot.

Hardware Class: graphics card
  Model: "ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics"
  Vendor: pci 0x1002 "ATI Technologies Inc"
  Device: pci 0x9610 "Radeon HD 3200 Graphics"

Machine: Gateway DX43090-09, 64-bit, AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core processor 7450
Comment 4 Thomas Backlund 2013-05-09 11:10:31 CEST
That hw used to use radeonhd driver until ~2 years ago when a user reported that ati driver worked better, so it was switched then.
(https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1267)

Now if your hw still have problem, maybe we can switch it to vesa in ldetect-lst.

but we need to do the mapping on sub-vendor/device level.

so we need the output of "lspcidrake -v |grep Card"
Comment 5 Jim Beard 2013-05-09 16:16:13 CEST
[jim@jdb ~]$ lspcidrake -v |grep Card
Card:ATI Radeon HD 2000 and later (radeon/fglrx): ATI Technologies Inc|RV730XT [Radeon HD 4670] [DISPLAY_VGA] (vendor:1002 device:9490 subv:1787 subd:2009)
Comment 6 Thomas Backlund 2013-05-10 19:28:57 CEST
Before "flipping the switch" to vesa... a few questions...

Do you have latest bios installed ?

Can you try latest kernel-3.8.12-2.mga3 ?

And one thing more... I now read the initial report again, and see I missed the real problem... you state "with the screen going blank except for an error message Out of Range."

So it is most likely working regarding the gpu, but fails to detect your display properly...

Can you try to ssh into that system when it's booted with ati driver, and capture logs and dmesg...
Comment 7 Jim Beard 2013-05-11 05:19:53 CEST
Do you have latest bios installed ?

dmesg contains a line that goes
DMI: Gateway DX4300/RS780, BIOS P01-A2 06/16/2009
I have never attempted to tinker with the BIOS on this machine.  It did go into the shop for replacement of the power supply and "tune-up utilities" were installed, which may have updated the BIOS.

I installed kernel-3.8.12-2.mga3, changed the driver to "ati" in /etc/11/corg.conf, and rebooted (with nokmsboot on the grub boot line) into run 3.

There was a brief blank monitor screen about the time checks on the hard drives started, and then the screen flashed on again.  The machine booted fine.

I looked in dmesg and in Xorg.0.org, and the machine is using the xorg ati driver and is working fine.

If you want dmesg and logs, for 3.8.12-2 kernel or any of
vmlinuz-3.8.10-desktop-1.mga3
vmlinuz-3.8.11-desktop-1.mga3
vmlinuz-3.8.12-desktop-1.mga3
vmlinuz-3.8.12-desktop-2.mga3
vmlinuz-3.8.8-desktop-1.mga3
vmlinuz-3.8.8-desktop-2.mga3
vmlinuz-3.8.8-desktop-3.mga3
please tell me what you want and where to put it.
Comment 8 Thomas Backlund 2013-05-11 08:33:03 CEST
dont use "nokmsboot" with the ati driver. it only works in kms mode.
Comment 9 Jim Beard 2013-05-11 17:58:39 CEST
It looks like the service.harddrake is saving me from my ignorance, in this instance.

service.harddrake run during reboot seems to be the guilty party.  It first ran 
/sbin/display_driver_helper --is-kms-allowed and then deleted nokmsboot for every thing but the failsafe boot.
Comment 10 Felix Miata 2013-11-11 03:55:04 CET
Conforming summary better to reality: older, non-HD cards with bigger numbers, such as 7500 (rv200), work fine with ati radeon FOSS driver, and do not need nomodeset.

Summary: Radeon video chipset < 5000 must use vesa driver, boot option nokmsboot => Radeon HD video chipset < 5000 must use vesa driver, boot option nokmsboot

Comment 11 Dušan Pavlík 2014-01-11 11:38:23 CET
I mean, I have same problem in mag3 (same official and unofficial update from yandex.ru kernel 3.10.24) and mag4beta2 live cd. Radeon firmware are installed.

My boot ending with radeon driver:

Printout about starting services
OK service
OK service
.....
...
..
.
.
"_" (blinking). (CTRL+ALT+FX do nothing (no console starting))


Fglrx and vesa is working fine.


If  I change in drakconf fglrx driver to radeon and going to test, result is "no screen found"


Can it be same problem? "https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5984"

Hardware:  lspcidrake -v | grep Card
ATI Radeon HD 6400 and later (radeon/fglrx): Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]|Trinity [Radeon HD 7660D] [DISPLAY_VGA] (vendor:1002 device:9901 subv:1043 subd:8526)

motherboard: ASUS F2 A85-V PRO, procesor Trinity

CC: (none) => pavlikd

Comment 12 Dušan Pavlík 2014-01-12 00:19:58 CET
This is could same problem? 

https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5426

Or make changes for better support fglrx this problem?
Comment 13 Dušan Pavlík 2014-01-12 00:41:54 CET
Created attachment 4756 [details]
xorg log when I change driver in xorg.con to radeon

If I erase nokmsboot option nothing changed.

Now boot is ending with 

fsck....
fsck....
Comment 14 Nic Baxter 2015-12-24 05:33:33 CET
It has been almost 2 years since last comment. 

Hi, thanks for reporting this bug.
We are sorry, but we no longer maintains this version of Mageia. Please upgrade to the latest version and reopen this bug against that version if this bug exists there.
As a result we are setting this bug to CLOSED:WONTFIX

Status: NEW => RESOLVED
CC: (none) => nic
Version: Cauldron => 4
Resolution: (none) => WONTFIX


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