intel graphics - X freezing frequently

Yamakuzure · Posted: Mon May 10, 2010 1:01 pm Post subject:

If it is a kernel problem, why is it perfectly stable on my laptop? With the same chipset another user reported to have the freezing issue?

Are you using acpi and apm? Are you letting powerdevil and laptop-mode-tools control cpu-freq and video-out? Do you have freezes in simple DEs like twm or fvwm, too?

My kernel config:

Gh0str1d3r · Guru Joined: 27 May 2008 Posts: 411

Iguana8649 · n00b Joined: 27 Jan 2005 Posts: 38

asturm · Developer Joined: 05 Apr 2007 Posts: 9280

So the conclusion is that it's a platform issue?

~amd64 here too were it is perfectly stable (didn't count dolphin tearing down the whole system).

Gh0str1d3r · Guru Joined: 27 May 2008 Posts: 411

Iguana8649 · n00b Joined: 27 Jan 2005 Posts: 38

Then what else can it be?
Same packages version, same arch, same kernel. One has problems, the other not. Weird,

Off-topic, why you're using Compiz with KDE?

Gh0str1d3r · Guru Joined: 27 May 2008 Posts: 411

thats why I ask those with a stable system to post their .config here, so all of us experiencing freezes can test that.

Iguana8649 · n00b Joined: 27 Jan 2005 Posts: 38

I'm using Ubuntu, though I've Gentoo on a chroot for someday to swap.
Want my .config ? Better than nothing, I suppose?

Pastebin link above expires in a month.

WARNING: I'm on x86.

rahulthewall · Veteran Joined: 01 Nov 2007 Posts: 1264 Location: Zürich

There is a lot of corruption in graphics as well - firefox goes awry, window decorations go haywire as well ... definitely something with xorg-server-1.8 and the ensuing updates ... too lazy to downgrade for now. Hoping xorg-server-1.8.1 fixes it. Should be out any day now.
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Gh0str1d3r · Guru Joined: 27 May 2008 Posts: 411

I don't have any graphic bugs, only freezes..

Yamakuzure · Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 3:23 pm Post subject:

asturm · Developer Joined: 05 Apr 2007 Posts: 9280

Well, updating to 1.8.1 certainly didn't correct the xrandr issues - X still resets when trying to change screen res.

Gh0str1d3r · Guru Joined: 27 May 2008 Posts: 411

thank you for posting your .configs, I compiled them and will report if they are stable for me as well.

Bakterie · n00b Joined: 10 Sep 2004 Posts: 12

I just want to add another data point to the discussion. I'm experiencing the exact same problem with freezes. The only solution has for me been to use a kernel < 2.6.32, currently 2.6.31-r10 works perfectly. I'm using intel driver 2.9.1 on an Intel 82G35. I had this problem on x86, but when my system drive recently died I installed amd64 instead, and the problem is the same, so at least for me x86 vs amd64 made no difference.

asturm · Developer Joined: 05 Apr 2007 Posts: 9280

The fun thing is, my experience with 2.6.31(+kms) was the exact opposite - I switched to 32 as soon as it got to rc2.

Gh0str1d3r · Guru Joined: 27 May 2008 Posts: 411

asturm · Developer Joined: 05 Apr 2007 Posts: 9280

so, what was the difference? could you run a diff over both configs?

hephooey · n00b Joined: 24 Feb 2003 Posts: 74

I am also having trouble with the latest kernel/intel driver, now I stick with kernel 2.6.31 and xf86-video-intel 2.9.1, which is very stable, I can run my laptop for weeks. with the lastest kms kernel and xf86-video-intel (I have not try rc kernels and xf86-video-intel-9999). The system will halt randomly in a few hours. Since it is a fairly annoying bug and I have an working alternative, I have not tried to find a relible way to reproduce it. I have trouble with sleep using 2.6.32 and 2.6.33 in my T61. After a few days it will fail to sleep and the only key working is the power key. I am using a x86 system and xorg-server 1.7.7. I cannot test xorg-server 1.8 with xf86-video-intel 2.9.1 since it cannot compile.

Gh0str1d3r · Guru Joined: 27 May 2008 Posts: 411

ok, here is the diff output:

http://pastebin.com/Ef8dfTiM

but its really a lot, no chance to test one-by-one what made it more stable. The new .config belongs to kernel-2.6.33-gentoo-r2, my old .config to kernel-2.6.33-gentoo-r1.

npc · n00b Joined: 22 Oct 2005 Posts: 32

Hey guys, i've been facing the same trouble on my eeepc 1000ha. Ever since i upgraded to new and testing drivers and xorg while keeping my 2.6.30 kernel i was getting an awful lot of screen corruptions and wierd colorful frags and crazy black squares all over the screen (Xdamage complaints and all). So an upgrade to gentoo-sources-2.6.33-r2 fixed most of those things, but i started facing wierd lockups and segfaults while running opengl stuff.
I narrowed it down to a few significant situations in which i get hardlocks or segmentation faults from Xorg. I think it's a xorg issue with KVM like you guys have mentioned. I tried disabling KVM on my kernel config, but I couldnt start X and i'm too lazy to hack around xorg to make it run, but since you guys have already tested KVM and non-KVM setups i don't think that would be of any help.

I've disabled the xscreensaver, because whenever it goes fullscreen after a few seconds it hardlocks. I preview any opengl screensaver on the small preview box, hitting the button to make it go fullscreen results in trouble.
Running a simple opengl game on fullscreen in any resolution but my native 1024x600 results in a segfault and xorg quits, but i can restart it normally and repeat the procedure and get another segfault.
Running the same game on fullscreen and full resolution results in a hardlock.

my intel hardware: "00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GME Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)"
xorg is 1.8.0
kernel is gentoo-sources-2.6.33-r2
xf86-video-intel is 2.11.0

So, I suppose the weak spot is mixing modesetting and 3d acceleration, if i keep off those things, the enviroment should be stable... i hope. I miss the jumping cow saver though.

I'm looking forward to testing xorg-server-1.8.1 or perhaps new xf86-video-intel drivers. Maybe that will fix those issues.
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albright · Posted: Sat May 15, 2010 11:59 pm Post subject:

FWIW, my lockups went away after downgrading xorg-server
1.8 to 1.7.7 - might be worth a try
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npc · n00b Joined: 22 Oct 2005 Posts: 32

Hey guys, it's worse than I thought. I used lxrandr to quickly change xorg screen resolution and do video out for presentations and such. Guess what, it results in hardlocks. This is a real problem since I use this eeepc for presentations at work.
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asturm · Developer Joined: 05 Apr 2007 Posts: 9280

Well yes, if you rely on a real stable Intel graphics system with all features turned on, you currently have to use xorg-server-1.7.7. Even with 1.8.1 there's no way of using xrandr reliably, regardless of X compositing enabled or not, same for hardware 3d acceleration.

For me there's no way back as I'm not going to re-migrate X to a pre-udev state. At least in case it doesn't get worse - running a plain office environment without doing any OpenGL stuff or using xrandr is possible right now without show-stoppers.

npc · n00b Joined: 22 Oct 2005 Posts: 32

Yup, genstorm, i see you. Thanks for the tip, albright.

I've downgraded to 1.7.7 and it seems to work fine. I can't afford to rely on unstable 1.8.x, but i must say that the new non-fdi-hal-hell setup is much more simple and makes much more sense. I had already migrated to new xorg.conf.d style and i was hoping a downgrade wouldnt be necesary, but bummer, at least there are no hardlocks anymore... i hope.

I'm still looking forward to a xrandr-stable future release, I even saved the .confs for later reuse, hope it doesn't take much longer.

Thanks again folks.

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rahulthewall · Veteran Joined: 01 Nov 2007 Posts: 1264 Location: Zürich

Well, I updated to the xorg-server-1.8.1 and am currently rebuilding my kernel. The config posted above didn't help me much - it is vastly different from mine and reconfiguring my kernel based on that would be too much of a bother.

Freezes - I don't know. They are very random and I will report if there is one. However, there is definite graphic corruption. Websites like http://www.cricinfo.com don't render properly with firefox - yet they are fine with both konqueror and chromium. Can anyone point out as to why this might be the case?
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