XPRESS 200M 5A42 with DRI: x turns backlight off, freezes keyboard

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd

Today I upgraded my Toshiba Satellite M45 from an up to date Feisty to Gutsy. All appeared to go well. I let it drop the no longer supported packages that it suggested.

Upon reboot, splash screen and progress bar run, but when X server starts, the screen goes black. Not just dark, but black, so I presume the backlight is being shut off.

I tried blind switching to a virtual terminal and logging in to reboot (root is enabled on this box, so that's easier than might be), but with no effect.

I am able to ssh into the box, run ps, run emacs (which runs fine on the X display of the system I'm sshing from), issue sudo shutdown, etc. The X server appears to be running. When I try logging in on the consold keyboard by using, say, CTL-ALT-F2 to go to a virtual terminal (there is a suitable getty running) and log in blind as either myself or root, no extra bash shows up in ps alx, so I presume that the keyboard isn't working, or the X server is too wedged to let the virtual terminal switching work.

It has an ATI Radeon XPRESS 200M, which isn't mentioned in bug 132716, but I tried the device option "LVDSBiosNativeMode" "false" suggested in the last post there and in the release notes. This does NOT produce a workaround.

The laptop is now NOT USEFUL under Ubuntu (and we could argue as to whether it's useful under XP), so I'm hoping for some help finding a workaround.

Aditional:

X server consumes 99.9% CPU according to top.

radeontool light on
doesn't turn the light on.

Config file is attached. There is no change from what worked on Feisty's server
other than the workaround option line mentioned in the release notes.

And the log file from a fresh start is attached here.

I'm happy to try downgrading the server, etc. I'll need a certain amount of instruction
as to what versions to try, any required sources changes, command line command
(though I can probably run Synaptic remotely), since I'm no apt/deb expert.

And looking at the log, I'm not convinced that radeonhd is involved. I figure
that it's just the ati server (though I don't really know). Since I don't know
how to "retarget" this against just xserver-xorg-video-ati, I'm guessing that
adding that package is as close as I can come.

DRI is flaky on these chipsets, please try:
 Option "DRI" "off"

This eliminates the symptoms, so should I or should you update the status to "fixed"?

Also, is there anyone else I should tell so that this note can be added to appropriate
release notes?

And, I may down grede to the previous ubuntu anyway due to other problems, so if there
are other settings or changes that you would like me to try, it would be good to mention
them soon. There is a contact form at http://www.mv.com/ipusers/ke1g/ if marking the
bug as fixed means that this communication path will be closed to us.

Thanks much, Bill

No, the bug is not "fixed" as long as this is not working out-of-the-box, even if there's a known workaround. We'll probably have to blacklist DRI for your card model.

(Even if this bug is marked "fixed", posted comment will be mailed to the subscribed people.)

Many improvements have been made to the ati/radeon driver since your last report, and your issue might have been fixed. Can you please: 1. Test with the newest Ubuntu release (8.04.1) if you haven't already 2. Try the development version "intrepid" (8.10). You can use the live CD from the latest alpha release and update the ati/radeon drivers using "sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-ati" (afterwards, log out and in again to use the updated driver) 3. Additionally, try the last versions available on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/XorgOnTheEdge. Download the xserver-xorg-video-ati and xserver-xorg-video-radeon packages and install them using "sudo dpkg -i <packages>.deb".

If your issue is still present, we would be very grateful if you can report it to the upstream bug tracker on http://bugs.freedesktop.org (select Product=xorg, Component=Driver/Radeon), attaching all relevant information like your Xorg.0.log. We are of course happy to help you with this procedure.

Sorry, the bug is already known upstream, so no need to file a bug there.

ke1g, given that your problem occurs with DRI enabled, perhaps your AGPMode setting is incorrect. Can you try setting:

Section "Device"
   ...
   Option "AGPMode" "2"
EndSection

Also try values 1, 4, and 8 (4 is typically the default). If one of those settings fix it, we may be able to quirk your hardware to use that value instead of the default. In this case please provide the following info so we can quirk it:

  * AGPMode value(s) that work
  * Make/Model of laptop or motherboard
  * Output of lspci -vvnn
  * Is the system all factory hardware, or have any parts been replaced?
  * Is there an AGP Mode in the system BIOS?
    - If so, is it set to the factory default?

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!