Ubuntu
xserver-xorg-video-intel package

[Hardy beta] External screen goes suddenly blue with Intel 945GM

Bug #206999 reported by Juha Tiensyrjä on 2008-03-26

This bug report is a duplicate of: Bug #311895: [i945] spontaneous black screen (major pipe-A underrun). Edit Remove

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	xserver-xorg-video-intel (Ubuntu)	Incomplete	Low	Unassigned

Bug Description

I just experienced a blue screen (the screen went completely blue, no artefacts or such) on my external display (HP L1925) on my Lenovo Thinkpad X60s. When I switched the image to the internal display, it worked just fine. However, I was unable to get the external screen working again until I rebooted. This problem occurred for the second time while using Hardy - the first time was sometime in February, so this bug is a bit annoying but not very common.

The first time it happened I had rebooted a couple of hours earlier (no suspend/hibernate in between), this time I woke the computer from suspend and it happened some 20 minutes later.

Apparently my Xorg.0.log for the time this happened does not exist (it was overwritten when I tried to restart X to get the external screen working again), so I cannot attach it here. If I can reproduce the bug I'll be sure to save the log file.

I am using up-to-date Kubuntu Hardy beta, but this happened also during alpha phase (maybe with alpha 4 or 5). Attached is some information.

lspci -nn | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:27a2] (rev 03)

uname -a
Linux tele 2.6.24-12-generic #1 SMP Wed Mar 12 23:01:54 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

Revision history for this message

Juha Tiensyrjä (juha-tiensyrja) wrote on 2008-03-26:

xorg.conf Edit (3.5 KiB, text/plain)

Revision history for this message

Juha Tiensyrjä (juha-tiensyrja) wrote on 2008-03-26:

lspci --vvnn Edit (13.0 KiB, text/plain)

Revision history for this message

Bryce Harrington (bryce) wrote on 2008-03-27:

If it happens again, the previous Xorg.0.log is stored to /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old usually.

There have been several recent reports of issues with 945... perhaps when we get a fix for that, these issues will all go away.

It would be very helpful if you could re-test alpha4 and alpha 5 and see in which of them the issue first started; this would help narrow down which patch might have generated the problem.

Changed in xserver-xorg-video-intel:
status:	New → Incomplete

Revision history for this message

Juha Tiensyrjä (juha-tiensyrja) wrote on 2008-03-27:

Xorg.0.log.old Edit (40.0 KiB, application/x-trash)

OK, I found a Xorg.0.log.old that seems to have a modification time around the time the bug manifested.

I'm not quite sure if it's a good idea to revert back to alpha versions. So far this bug has manifested itself twice in about two months of Hardy use, and I'd rather not use the alpha versions that long.

Revision history for this message

Bryce Harrington (bryce) wrote on 2008-03-29:

Hmm, these "happens randomly and rarely" bugs are extremely hard to troubleshoot (as you can imagine).

Unfortunately the Xorg.0.log.old didn't have a backtrace, but thanks for digging it up.

Given how infrequently you see the issue, it's not unlikely that some other fix will resolve it before you see it again. However, if that doesn't come to pass, and you do run into the bug again, please take the opportunity to collect a backtrace. There are directions for doing this at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingXorg. For now, just make sure to have the debug versions of -intel and xserver installed, so when you collect the backtrace it'll have all the important info. With a good backtrace in hand, we can probably do some analysis to figure out why it crashed, and hopefully figure out a patch.

If I don't hear from you within a few months, we can assume things sorted themselves out and we can close the bug.

Changed in xserver-xorg-video-intel:
importance:	Undecided → Low

Revision history for this message

Juha Tiensyrjä (juha-tiensyrja) wrote on 2008-04-24:

This has happened quite frequently lately, but I haven't been able to reproduce it at will. The screen has been changing to black instead of blue, but the same symptoms appear.

This bug seems to be a duplicate of #217804, or at least the symptoms are extremely similar.

Revision history for this message

shinji (shinji-manga) wrote on 2008-04-28:

xorg.conf Edit (3.2 KiB, text/plain)

I have the same problem. When I connect external monitor to DVI output on my laptop, screen blinks in intervals of several minutes and after a while, screen suddenly change to one of this colors: black, white, blue or grey. The time after it goes out differs, it is between few minutes and few hours. Recently it occurs every time I connect external monitor. This bug makes external monitor practically useless, as to get it back, i have to restart computer. No play with xrandr can help. I did not have this bug on Gutsy (same laptop, same monitor).

Graphic chip: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:27a2] (rev 03)