Bug 9711 - Intel chipset netbook completely loses video
Summary: Intel chipset netbook completely loses video
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: Mageia
Classification: Unclassified
Component: RPM Packages (show other bugs)
Version: Cauldron
Hardware: i586 Linux
Priority: Normal critical
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Mageia Bug Squad
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2013-04-12 15:26 CEST by Anne Wilson
Modified: 2013-06-12 16:25 CEST (History)
7 users (show)

See Also:
Source RPM:
CVE:
Status comment:


Attachments
Requested file from /root/drakx (160.58 KB, application/x-xz)
2013-04-12 15:28 CEST, Anne Wilson
Details
Output of lspcidrake -v (3.56 KB, text/plain)
2013-04-16 20:24 CEST, Anne Wilson
Details

Description Anne Wilson 2013-04-12 15:26:54 CEST
Description of problem:

System: Acer Aspire One netbook, Intel Atom processor N550

On 21 March I downloaded and installed Mageia 3 beta 3 DVD.  This went perfectly.  I then used MCC to add all sources and requested updates.  After the reboot there was no video.

From a long discussion on the dev mailing list I tried various ways to get a level 3 boot, all failing.  

I then downloaded the Mageia3-bet6a-boot-nonfree.iso and today installed from it.  Again it appeared to complete satisfactorily, but when told to reboot I found that the screen displayed a large grey patch which did not disappear. 

Rebooting brought up grub, the HDD activity led flashed vigorously, but the screen remained blank.

Using the Rescue System I have saved to USB drive the contents of /root/drakx.  As requested I append report.bug.xz.  Please ask if other files from /root/drakx are required.

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


How reproducible:

Constant.  I have tried several installs by various methods.  As soon as current packages are installed this problem surfaces.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install from beta DVD then upgrade OR
2. Install from boot CD
3. Reboot


Reproducible: 

Steps to Reproduce:
Comment 1 Anne Wilson 2013-04-12 15:28:49 CEST
Created attachment 3737 [details]
Requested file from /root/drakx
Manuel Hiebel 2013-04-13 19:31:29 CEST

CC: (none) => thierry.vignaud, tmb

claire robinson 2013-04-15 21:30:38 CEST

CC: (none) => eeeemail
Source RPM: (none) => tmb

claire robinson 2013-04-15 21:30:59 CEST

Source RPM: tmb => (none)

Comment 2 AL13N 2013-04-15 22:58:40 CEST
iinm /root/drakx is for the installation. and it appears the installation was ok, it was the first boot that was wrong?

i think the /var/log/xorg.log would be interesting:

"(EE) FBDEV(0): FBIOBLANK: Invalid argument" might be something related?

perhaps this argument is something wrong a bad modeline or an argument from some X config thing...

CC: (none) => alien

Comment 3 AL13N 2013-04-15 23:14:17 CEST
some threads say:


Option "ShadowFB" "off"

as workaround in xorg.conf
Comment 4 Anne Wilson 2013-04-16 13:41:18 CEST
The /root/drax that I provided was from the last install - this one from boot.iso.  Everything appeared fine until the reboot, after which there is no video.

So far I haven't managed to get /var/log/xorg.log onto a usb stick - it's a juggling act and I'm not very good at it.  Similarly editing xorg.conf while in this state.
Comment 5 claire robinson 2013-04-16 14:51:08 CEST
Could be similar to bug 6077

Can you reach a tty Anne? (ctrl-alt-f2)

If so, log in as root, plug in your usb stick and

# dmesg | grep removable

This will show the usb sticks in order of when-plugged-in-ness

It should give you the device, sdb, sdc or something similar.
You can then create a directory and manually mount it.
Assuming it is sdb..

# mkdir /mnt/usb
# mount /dev/sdb /mnt/usb
# cp /var/log/Xorg.0.log /mnt/usb/ (note the caps for Xorg)
# umount /mnt/usb

Then you can unplug the stick.
Comment 6 Peter D 2013-04-16 15:39:08 CEST
I might be seeing the same problem on an old nVidia card; grub comes up, half a dozen lines of text flash up (ending in something about initrd) followed by a blank screen and some flashing of the HDD LED.  

It fails before it gets to X, so there is nothing of interest in /var/log/Xorg*.  Prove it by reinstalling and unselecting, "start graphical interface by defalt", or whatever it is.  

You are seening grub, so try interupting it with the "F3" key.  Laptop users might need Alt+3, or something similar.  Select "Default".  Look for, "vga=".  Change it.  I like "vga=ask".  <Enter> and <Enter> again, when prompted.  Pick an option at random, and see what happens.

CC: (none) => 0123peter

Comment 7 Anne Wilson 2013-04-16 16:24:17 CEST
From the Rescue disk I can't get tty2.  Peter:  I tried using xdriver=vesa from the grub command but it still didn't give me video.

Claire - while in Rescue mode I can mount the usb stick (it's sdb1) but I don't see the same files while in or out of chroot.

 
1) Boot the rescue system
2) drvinst
3) mount your root as /mnt
4) do a "mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev  
Mount stick as described by Claire.
usb is mounted and can be listed.  No files are in /var/log.

5) do a "chroot /mnt"
6) do a "mount -t proc none /proc"
7) do a "mount -t sysfs none /sys" 
then
mount -t tmpfs none /run
systemd-tmpfiles --create
rm -f /run/nologin

ls /mnt shows usb and windows

ls n/mnt/usb shows the log files that I copied earlier (but the files that are genuinely on the usb stick are not listed).

Somewhere my copying is going wrong.

FWIW, Xorg.0.log dates from the beginning of the month, showing the attempt to load the Intel drivers.  There is another file, Xorg.9.log, which appears to be the relevant one.  These are the two files I wanted to upload.
Comment 8 Anne Wilson 2013-04-16 16:32:53 CEST
previous message - 

ls n/mnt/usb is typo, not as genuinely issued. (ls /mnt/usb/)
Comment 9 Frank Griffin 2013-04-16 16:53:33 CEST
Your stick is mounted at /mnt/usb in the rescue system, not /mnt/usb in your root partition.  Once you do the chroot, the rescue system /mnt/usb is no longer visible.

To just copy files from the root partition, you don't need a chroot.  But you can't follow the above script and mount the root partition as /mnt either, because doing that hides the /mnt/usb you created as a mount point for the stick.

Do something like this:

(boot rescue)
mkdir -p /mnt/disk
mkdir -p /mnt/usb
(mount the usb stick at /mnt/usb)
(mount the root partition at /mnt/disk)

Then copy the files you want using
    cp /mnt/disk/(...) /mnt/usb/(...)

You only need chroot and the /dev - /proc -/sys - /run stuff if you actually want to run code within your root partition as if it were a live system.

CC: (none) => ftg

Comment 10 Anne Wilson 2013-04-16 20:24:42 CEST
Created attachment 3754 [details]
Output of lspcidrake -v
Comment 11 Frank Griffin 2013-04-16 20:38:57 CEST
Can you try either adding "nokmsboot" to your /boot/grub/menu.lst "kernel" line or removing it if it is already there ?
Comment 12 Anne Wilson 2013-04-16 20:58:32 CEST
(In reply to Frank Griffin from comment #9)
> Your stick is mounted at /mnt/usb in the rescue system, not /mnt/usb in your
> root partition.  Once you do the chroot, the rescue system /mnt/usb is no
> longer visible.
> 
> To just copy files from the root partition, you don't need a chroot.  But
> you can't follow the above script and mount the root partition as /mnt
> either, because doing that hides the /mnt/usb you created as a mount point
> for the stick.
> 
> Do something like this:
> 
> (boot rescue)
> mkdir -p /mnt/disk
> mkdir -p /mnt/usb
> (mount the usb stick at /mnt/usb)
> (mount the root partition at /mnt/disk)
> 
> Then copy the files you want using
>     cp /mnt/disk/(...) /mnt/usb/(...)
> 
> You only need chroot and the /dev - /proc -/sys - /run stuff if you actually
> want to run code within your root partition as if it were a live system.

Thanks for the clarification - that will prove very useful.
Comment 13 Anne Wilson 2013-04-16 21:00:38 CEST
(In reply to Frank Griffin from comment #11)
> Can you try either adding "nokmsboot" to your /boot/grub/menu.lst "kernel"
> line or removing it if it is already there ?

For a moment I had hope.  I saw 

Screens of text
blank screen
more screens of text
blank screen
still more text

then, sadly, the lit black screen.  I never saw anything like that amount of output on the previous attempts, if that means anything.
Comment 14 Frank Griffin 2013-04-17 02:03:25 CEST
Excellent.

I googled "linux intel atom" and found several links indicating that a lot of video drivers don't support a new kernel feature called Kernel Mode Switching (KMS) which has the kernel taking over certain video mode-switching duties from drivers.  

What you saw indicates that with nokmsboot you should be able to boot to level 3.  I suspect the blank screens indicate attempts (unsuccessful) to start X, so now the problem is in the X court.  Hopefully, tty sessions are now OK.

Can you check this out using previous instructions for disabling graphical boot (i. e. booting to level 3) ?  If this works, then we have narrowed the problem to X drivers and/or firmware.

The next step would be to boot the now-working level 3 system, enable the nonfree media, and install any relevant firmware.  Then reboot, and try starting X from a tty command line with:
     systemctl start runlevel5.target
Comment 15 Peter D 2013-04-17 06:52:25 CEST
There is lots of mode switching that happens before X is started.  

"xdriver=VESA" is an X command, "vga=ask" is a pre-X command and comes into play even if you are only going to runlevel 3.  

My nVidia system starts now, with "nokms" added to the kernel parameters.
Comment 16 Anne Wilson 2013-04-17 16:44:19 CEST
I removed "splash quiet" and added nokmsboot, leaving the default vga setting (766, IIRC).  This boots to level 3 (though not to level 5).

Re-starting, I removed "splash quiet", added nokmsboot, and set vga=ask, choosing '9'.  However, I forgot to add the 3 - and to my amazement I got a graphical desktop!

To move on - how can I keep this vga setting, without having to 'ask' every time?
Do I need to install drivers, since kms isn't enabled?  I tried searching with urpmf, but don't know what I'm looking for. How do I find out what's needed?

I've edited menu.lst, but only after renaming the original, so if we still need tests I can use the original one.

I imagine there will have been some updates since this all started (2 weeks now) but I'll not do them until you signal ok to continue.
Comment 17 Frank Griffin 2013-04-17 19:46:14 CEST
(In reply to Anne Wilson from comment #16)
> I removed "splash quiet" and added nokmsboot, leaving the default vga
> setting (766, IIRC).  This boots to level 3 (though not to level 5).
> 
> Re-starting, I removed "splash quiet", added nokmsboot, and set vga=ask,
> choosing '9'.  However, I forgot to add the 3 - and to my amazement I got a
> graphical desktop!

OK, so basically "nokmsboot" has solved all the problems.  Apparently there is no firmware issue here.

Does anyone know whether we currently add nokmsboot, what the criteria for doing so are, and how to include this case ?

> 
> To move on - how can I keep this vga setting, without having to 'ask' every
> time?

I've not used vga=ask myself, but IIRC it's supposed to give you a list of the valid vga mode numbers.  Just take the one associated with the choice 9 and put it in as vga=xxx.

> Do I need to install drivers, since kms isn't enabled?  I tried searching
> with urpmf, but don't know what I'm looking for. How do I find out what's
> needed?

If you have a working graphical desktop, then I wouldn't think any other drivers are needed.  At one point you had configured X to use VESA; have you gone back to the actual card/driver that XFdrake chooses for you by default ?  Does it still work if you do ?

> 
> I've edited menu.lst, but only after renaming the original, so if we still
> need tests I can use the original one.
> 
> I imagine there will have been some updates since this all started (2 weeks
> now) but I'll not do them until you signal ok to continue.

I think the whole issue here was nokmsboot.  I would go ahead and update just to be sure no other problems await.  You can always reinstall from the beta ISO if current cauldron breaks it again, but I'd think that if the final release is going to fail on your box, you'd want to know that ASAP.
Comment 18 Peter D 2013-04-18 09:56:42 CEST
Is "nokms" the same as "nokmsboot"?  

This problem also affects nVidia NV11 [GeForce2 MX/MX 400].  

"vga=ask" is for diagnosis, rather than treatment, but it probably should be included with the "safe mode" option.  I believe that it shows video modes that the card knows about.  You are suppoed to select one that the card, the monitor, and the OS will be happy about.  Each entry has a menu lable (0-9, a-z) followed by a mode number in hex, the resolution in characters or pixels and the color depth in bits, all finished by whether it is a VGA, VESA or BIOS mode.  Not that it seems to be important.  

You can enter the single key lable or the HEX number after a scan, OR you can enter the DECEMAL number in the kernel parameter list with "vga=???".  Find your scientific calculator.
Comment 19 Anne Wilson 2013-04-18 12:18:22 CEST
> If you have a working graphical desktop, then I wouldn't think any
> other drivers are needed.  At one point you had configured X to use
> VESA; have you gone back to the actual card/driver that XFdrake
> chooses for you by default ? Does it still work if you do ?
> 
Xorg.conf was showing the Intel card, and I couldn't see anything in
dmesg about errors, so I think it was using the Intel setting.

> I think the whole issue here was nokmsboot.  I would go ahead and
> update

I did the updates with some trepidation since there were X11 packages
there, and rebooted: nada.  Reboot adding nokmsboot and vga=ask but it
refuses to boot to level 5.  It does boot to level 3 though.  I did
try "systemctl start runlevel5.target" but that goes back to the blank
screen.
Comment 20 Anne Wilson 2013-04-18 12:29:41 CEST
Update - for some reason my changes to menu.lst had been lost.  Operator error?  Possibly.  When changing the parameters from the grub menu I think I put nokmsboot too late, as well.  Having written the nokmsboot into the correct place in menu.lst and changed vga to =315, I now have a good boot again.
Comment 21 Thomas Backlund 2013-05-06 23:27:00 CEST
Can you test theese 2 kernels and see if any of them helps:


kernel-desktop-3.8.11-1.2.mga3:
http://tmb.mine.nu/Mageia/Cauldron/bugs/intel/test1/
http://tmb2.mine.nu/Mageia/Cauldron/bugs/intel/test1/

kernel-desktop-3.8.11-1.3.mga3:
http://tmb.mine.nu/Mageia/Cauldron/bugs/intel/test2/
http://tmb2.mine.nu/Mageia/Cauldron/bugs/intel/test2/
Comment 22 Anne Wilson 2013-05-07 15:59:46 CEST
I'm away from home on vacation, so I can't test these until next week.  Sorry, and thanks for the work.

CC: (none) => cannewilson

Comment 23 Anne Wilson 2013-05-15 12:09:13 CEST
Sorry for the delay.  I've just done a clean network install on the netbook.  I activated all the offered sources.  When I got to the reboot I left it to run without interference - not adding any parameters.  It booted into the desktop without any problems.  The kernel installed is 3.8.13-1.  It looks as though the problem is now resolved, thanks.
Comment 24 Frank Griffin 2013-06-12 16:25:22 CEST
Closing, then.

Status: NEW => RESOLVED
Resolution: (none) => FIXED


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