(Solved) intel graphics card i915 & nomodeset

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vectis
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(Solved) intel graphics card i915 & nomodeset

Post#1 by vectis » 01 Aug 2011, 19:03

Hi,

I have been a Slax user since around version 3.xx and recently purchased a brand new Acer aspire 5336 laptop which unfortunately slax doesn't fully support. Having read the thread for slax remix, I have now migrated to Porteus.

I have managed to get most of my laptops hardware going but the graphics card is causing some problems. unless I add the boot cheatcode "nomodeset" the display blanks when udev starts. Curiously the i915 intel driver was working on the last version of Slax, though there were a few "gliches". I have tried removing the currently installed Intel drivers and using earlier versions, but the problem is the same.

Can anyone offer some advise on this?

I have tried a few other live o/s's, and they all have the same problem so I guess it is not a bug in Porteus.

Using the Magic SysRq key combo (SysRq s u b) gives a brief flash of the desktop before it shuts down, so I wonder if there is some sort of bug that prevents this from working?

please help if you can!
Last edited by vectis on 02 Aug 2011, 18:16, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: intel graphics card i915 & nomodeset

Post#2 by Hamza » 01 Aug 2011, 19:08

@fanthom,
I think that it is a problem with blacklist in modprobe.d ??
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Re: intel graphics card i915 & nomodeset

Post#3 by francois » 01 Aug 2011, 20:39

Is it possible for you to boot in text mode only? Then in command line, login as root and:
bash-4.1# xrandr

Give us the output.
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Re: intel graphics card i915 & nomodeset

Post#4 by Hamza » 01 Aug 2011, 21:06

@francois,
I have not experience with xrandr, but as I know xrandr is for multi-screen - is it?
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Re: intel graphics card i915 & nomodeset

Post#5 by francois » 02 Aug 2011, 03:31

I have worked with xrandr a lot and I know quite well its possibilities. It could be also used to set unique screen specifically, see:
http://www.slax.org/forum.php?action=vi ... ght=xrandr

Solutions based on xrandr command (works for any cards):

.Simple procedure to fix the display when the size is too small or when one wants a dual display:
http://www.slax.org/forum.php?action=vi ... ostid49413
.A detailed example for fixing the size of a simple display:
http://www.slax.org/forum.php?action=vi ... ntID=37576
.Achieving dual display:
http://www.slax.org/forum.php?action=vi ... ostid30879
.Essentials for the xrandr command:
http://www.slax.org/forum.php?action=vi ... ostid30879

I worked more hard than I thought on the screen issues. :D

Posted after 52 minutes 9 seconds:
However, when it comes to intel 915, see:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/KernelModeSetting

Citation:
"...
KMS with Intel Graphics

Make sure you are booting the 2.6.30-2 kernel (or newer). Since kernel 2.6.30-10.12 KMS is enabled by default.
Make sure you are using:
The -intel driver 2.8.1-1ubuntu3 or later (note that UXA is enabled by default).

Or a newer -intel from the xorg-edgers PPA.
Turn on kms in your kernel modules

To turn it on for one boot, in grub add the kernel parameter, i915.modeset=1, and boot.

Or, to turn it on permanently, create (if necessary) /etc/modprobe.d/i915-kms.conf with this line:

options i915 modeset=1

and then reboot. If there are problems, you can turn it off via the kernel option nomodeset.
Alternatively, switch on KMS manually from the console via:

$ sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop
$ sudo rmmod i915
$ sudo modprobe i915 modeset=1
$ sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start
..."
Prendre son temps, profiter de celui qui passe.

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Re: intel graphics card i915 & nomodeset

Post#6 by fanthom » 02 Aug 2011, 08:48

@vectis
welcome on board :)

what's your GPU model - is it GMA 4500M?
i would try to get some log files first so please setup changes somewhere, boot into text mode with 'nomodeset' cheatcode and then try to reload i915 driver as advised by francois:

Code: Select all

modprobe -r i915
modprobe i915 modeset=1
now you should get a black screen so wait a while and use Magic SysRq key to reboot.
please show last 100 lines from /var/log/dmesg file saved in your changes folder/file.

good luck!

EDIT:\\
if you get blackscreen at very start even with 'nomodeset' cheatcode then add 'i915' driver to blacklist file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf (as advised by Hamza) so it wont get loaded during boot. modprobe it manually after logging to root account wit the same command as posted above.
Please add [Solved] to your thread title if the solution was found.

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Re: intel graphics card i915 & nomodeset

Post#7 by vectis » 02 Aug 2011, 09:52

Thanks for your help :)

my GPU model - is indeed GMA 4500M

and here is the output of dmesg:

Code: Select all

RAMDISK: xz image found at block 0
[    2.897060] VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) on device 1:0.
[    2.905778] Freeing unused kernel memory: 516k freed
[    2.906024] usb 2-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
[    3.259984] EXT3-fs: barriers not enabled
[    3.276468] kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
[    3.277434] EXT3-fs (sda1): using internal journal
[    3.277439] EXT3-fs (sda1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode
[    3.284021] scsi6 : usb-storage 2-5:1.0
[    3.386021] usb 5-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
[    3.454293] UDF-fs: No partition found (1)
[    3.501521] XFS mounting filesystem loop0
[    3.674172] Starting XFS recovery on filesystem: loop0 (logdev: internal)
[    3.931100] Ending XFS recovery on filesystem: loop0 (logdev: internal)
[    4.286907] scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Generic- Multi-Card       1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
[    4.293271] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
[    9.258605] sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
[    9.258723] sr 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 5
[    9.258839] sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[    9.495614] Linux agpgart interface v0.103
[    9.540883] wmi: Mapper loaded
[    9.629364] i801_smbus 0000:00:1f.3: PCI INT C -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 18
[    9.743176] ACPI: Deprecated procfs I/F for AC is loaded, please retry with CONFIG_ACPI_PROCFS_POWER cleared
[    9.743629] ACPI: AC Adapter [AC] (on-line)
[    9.744770] input: Power Button as /devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/PNP0A08:00/device:0c/PNP0C0C:00/input/input1
[    9.745296] ACPI: Power Button [PWRB]
[    9.745748] input: Lid Switch as /devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/PNP0A08:00/device:0c/PNP0C0D:00/input/input2
[    9.746506] ACPI: Lid Switch [LID0]
[    9.746574] input: Sleep Button as /devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/PNP0A08:00/device:0c/PNP0C0E:00/input/input3
[    9.746639] ACPI: Sleep Button [SLPB]
[    9.746716] input: Power Button as /devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXPWRBN:00/input/input4
[    9.746756] ACPI: Power Button [PWRF]
[    9.823216] cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain
[    9.971440] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.15
[    9.971713] NET: Registered protocol family 31
[    9.971716] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
[    9.971719] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
[   10.000496] Linux video capture interface: v2.00
[   10.161139] acer-wmi: Acer Laptop ACPI-WMI Extras
[   10.166282] acer-wmi: Unable to detect available WMID devices
[   10.261242] ACPI: Deprecated procfs I/F for battery is loaded, please retry with CONFIG_ACPI_PROCFS_POWER cleared
[   10.261257] ACPI: Battery Slot [BAT0] (battery absent)
[   10.264255] Bluetooth: Generic Bluetooth USB driver ver 0.6
[   10.270278] usbcore: registered new interface driver btusb
[   10.375372] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device 1.3M WebCam (0402:9665)
[   10.397278] input: 1.3M WebCam as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb2/2-4/2-4:1.0/input/input5
[   10.397373] usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
[   10.397375] USB Video Class driver (v1.0.0)
[   10.446315] agpgart-intel 0000:00:00.0: Intel GM45 Chipset
[   10.446432] agpgart-intel 0000:00:00.0: detected gtt size: 2097152K total, 262144K mappable
[   10.459896] agpgart-intel 0000:00:00.0: detected 65536K stolen memory
[   10.463874] agpgart-intel 0000:00:00.0: AGP aperture is 256M @ 0xc0000000
[   10.496235] tg3.c:v3.116 (December 3, 2010)
[   10.496255] tg3 0000:05:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 18
[   10.496266] tg3 0000:05:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
[   10.526264] rtc_cmos 00:03: RTC can wake from S4
[   10.529765] rtc_cmos 00:03: rtc core: registered rtc_cmos as rtc0
[   10.529804] rtc0: alarms up to one month, 242 bytes nvram, hpet irqs
[   10.640116] HDA Intel 0000:00:1b.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 22 (level, low) -> IRQ 22
[   10.640182] HDA Intel 0000:00:1b.0: irq 44 for MSI/MSI-X
[   10.640214] HDA Intel 0000:00:1b.0: setting latency timer to 64
[   10.660030] tg3 mdio bus: probed
[   10.677506] thermal LNXTHERM:00: registered as thermal_zone0
[   10.677509] ACPI: Thermal Zone [TZ01] (48 C)
[   10.679242] tg3 0000:05:00.0: eth0: Tigon3 [partno(BCM57780) rev 57780001] (PCI Express) MAC address 88:ae:1d:82:b2:6e
[   10.679246] tg3 0000:05:00.0: eth0: attached PHY driver [Broadcom BCM57780] (mii_bus:phy_addr=500:01)
[   10.679250] tg3 0000:05:00.0: eth0: RXcsums[1] LinkChgREG[0] MIirq[0] ASF[0] TSOcap[1]
[   10.679253] tg3 0000:05:00.0: eth0: dma_rwctrl[76180000] dma_mask[64-bit]
[   10.687523] brcm80211: module is from the staging directory, the quality is unknown, you have been warned.
[   10.698098] ACPI: acpi_idle registered with cpuidle
[   10.707224] Monitor-Mwait will be used to enter C-1 state
[   10.719012] Monitor-Mwait will be used to enter C-2 state
[   10.719025] Marking TSC unstable due to TSC halts in idle
[   10.722074] brcm80211 0000:04:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
[   10.722084] brcm80211 0000:04:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
[   10.725518] Switching to clocksource hpet
[   10.727268] Synaptics Touchpad, model: 1, fw: 7.2, id: 0x1c0b1, caps: 0xd04733/0xa40000/0xa0000
[   10.763780] hda_codec: ALC272X: BIOS auto-probing.
[   10.802677] [drm] Initialized drm 1.1.0 20060810
[   10.805393] input: SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad as /devices/platform/i8042/serio1/input/input6
[   10.810769] input: HDA Intel Mic as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input7
[   10.810910] input: HDA Intel Headphone as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input8
[   10.859761] mousedev: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
[   10.911640] brcm80211: fail to load firmware brcm/bcm43xx-0.fw
[   10.911644] brcm80211: Failed to find firmware usually in /lib/firmware/brcm
[   10.911687] brcm80211 0000:04:00.0: PCI INT A disabled
[   10.911704] brcm80211: wl_pci_probe: wl_attach failed!
[   10.934253] pci 0000:00:02.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
[   10.934259] pci 0000:00:02.0: setting latency timer to 64
[   10.937806] lib80211: common routines for IEEE802.11 drivers
[   10.937810] lib80211_crypt: registered algorithm 'NULL'
[   11.011043] pci 0000:00:02.0: irq 45 for MSI/MSI-X
[   11.011049] [drm] Supports vblank timestamp caching Rev 1 (10.10.2010).
[   11.011051] [drm] No driver support for vblank timestamp query.
[   11.094559] wl: module license 'MIXED/Proprietary' taints kernel.
[   11.094563] Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint
[   11.100603] wl 0000:04:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
[   11.100617] wl 0000:04:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
[   11.156493] lib80211_crypt: registered algorithm 'TKIP'
[   11.156700] eth1: Broadcom BCM4357 802.11 Hybrid Wireless Controller 5.100.82.38
[   11.311107] acpi device:07: registered as cooling_device2
[   11.311329] input: Video Bus as /devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/PNP0A08:00/LNXVIDEO:01/input/input9
[   11.311435] ACPI: Video Device [OVGA] (multi-head: yes  rom: no  post: no)
[   11.311664] [drm] Initialized i915 1.6.0 20080730 for 0000:00:02.0 on minor 0
[   11.754532] device-mapper: uevent: version 1.0.3
[   11.755298] device-mapper: ioctl: 4.19.1-ioctl (2011-01-07) initialised: dm-devel@redhat.com
The screen blanks during boot at the line:

triggering udev events /sbin/udevadm trigger -- action=add

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Re: intel graphics card i915 & nomodeset

Post#8 by fanthom » 02 Aug 2011, 12:04

The screen blanks during boot at the line:
triggering udev events /sbin/udevadm trigger -- action=add


this is very important information as it means that it could not necessarily be a GPU problem but also any other hardware in your laptop (even corrupted partition - had this problem 2 months ago with my second hd).

please boot with 'nohotplug' cheatcode (this cheatcode gonna disable udev during boot), then log into root account and run 'pcimodules' command. now you should see a list of pci drivers which supports your hardware so you can modprobe them manually till you get a hang (you could also run other distro and get list of kernel modules with 'lsmod' command). once you find a 'buggy' driver (and that driver wont be critically important for the laptop) you can add it to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf and try to boot Porteus normally.

Cheers
Please add [Solved] to your thread title if the solution was found.

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Re: intel graphics card i915 & nomodeset

Post#9 by vectis » 02 Aug 2011, 12:25

Thanks for your help.

I tried this some time ago and that is when I found it was the i915 driver that causes the screen to blank.

I have just tried it again, and the first driver I modprobed was i915.

Blank screen. :(

I have just tried a clean copy of Slax and found that the intel graphics are working without any problems. :oops:
I guess it must have been a module or something in /changes that caused the graphics problems.

The i915 driver gets loaded, screen size is 1366x768 and glxgears is running at 1005.109FPS (in Slax)

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Re: intel graphics card i915 & nomodeset

Post#10 by fanthom » 02 Aug 2011, 14:18

ok that's not good :(
the problem must lie in kernel i915 driver and rather not Xorg, etc...
did you try any distro with 3.0 kernel?
what's your Porteus version (32/64bit?)
beny prepared 2.6.39.2 kernel update for 64bits:
http://porteus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=650
may be worth trying.
i'm going to push out 3.0 update soon as it has slightly modified config and needs testing.
hopefully one of these updates gonna help you.... - that's all what i can do now, sorry about that.

EDIT:\\
as per this bug report:
https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31522
the issue is probably still in 3.0 kernel :(
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Re: intel graphics card i915 & nomodeset

Post#11 by vectis » 02 Aug 2011, 14:50

could you suggest a v3.0 kernel distro, I have only come across one so far but had no X

I have tried both 32 & 64-bit versions, both with the same result :(

I will give the 2.6.39.2 kernel update a try and report back.

Thanks so far.

Vectis.

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Re: intel graphics card i915 & nomodeset

Post#12 by fanthom » 02 Aug 2011, 16:39

Parted Magic should be ok (and has 3.0 kernel):
http://sourceforge.net/projects/partedm ... o/download
let me know if that worked for you :)

EDIT:\\
seems that i have found a temporary workaround:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=116471
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1744809

Code: Select all

solved by adding a /etc/rc.local
setpci -s 00:02.0 F4.B=00

To adjust the brightness to add to the kernel line:
acpi_osi=Linux
try that :)
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Re: intel graphics card i915 & nomodeset

Post#13 by francois » 02 Aug 2011, 17:48

Good for you.

Usually Intel components are readily accepted with the linux kernel .
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Re: intel graphics card i915 & nomodeset

Post#14 by Hamza » 02 Aug 2011, 17:53

I agree with francois
Normally, Intel hardwares works without problems with Linux Kernel.
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Re: intel graphics card i915 & nomodeset

Post#15 by vectis » 02 Aug 2011, 18:14

:Yahoo!:

Code: Select all

solved by adding a /etc/rc.local
setpci -s 00:02.0 F4.B=00

To adjust the brightness to add to the kernel line:
acpi_osi=Linux
That fixed it, thanks for your help Fanthom!

:Yahoo!:

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