x hangs on start with ati-drivers-12.6

Timmer

I had this problem with the beta too, but chalked it up to a bug in the beta. Now that the final's out and I'm having the same issue, it's time to figure out how to fix it.

So first, the symptoms:
The computer boots as normal, switches to VT7, but then just hangs there at the blank console, instead of going into GUI mode. KDM doesn't even come up.

If I open the Xorg log, there are no errors. The last thing in the log is:

gorkypl · Guru Joined: 04 Oct 2010 Posts: 444 Location: Kraków, PL

Are there any signs of errors in dmesg? Also you may try to wgetpaste the whole Xorg.0.log in case you have just overlooked something important...
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Timmer · Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 12:07 pm Post subject:

Full Xorg log

BillWho · Veteran Joined: 03 Mar 2012 Posts: 1600 Location: US

Timmer,

Does this pertain to you https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-928006.html

If you're at kernel 3.4 that might also be a reason http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTExMTU

Good luck :wink:

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Good luck :wink:

Since installing gentoo, my life has become one long emerge

Timmer · Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 1:50 am Post subject:

I'm pretty sure the first one doesn't apply. I found that thread too, but since my card is a 5400, that should still be supported. IT's only <=4000 that's out.

I am on kernel 3.4, so I might give downgrading kernels a shot, but I was using 12.4 fine on a 3.4 kernel, so that seems unlikely to be the issue. I'll report back after trying it out though.

BillWho · Veteran Joined: 03 Mar 2012 Posts: 1600 Location: US

Timmer,

Check modules.alias and modules.dep

Timmer · Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2012 12:32 am Post subject:

Timmer · Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2012 4:19 am Post subject:

Okay, so I think I've had a break-through of sorts.

I downgraded back to the 12.4 driver, and it appears that I have 2 ATI cards on my laptop. This is actually evident in my first post.

But the important thing appears to be that I have been using the 4200 card all this time, but if I try to use the 5400 card, it doesn't work in any circumstances.

I'm too tired to think about it right now, but I'm thinking that if I can get the second card to work with the 12.4 driver, then I should be able to upgrade okay. So I'll search around tomorrow to figure out how to make two cards work together...

BillWho · Veteran Joined: 03 Mar 2012 Posts: 1600 Location: US

Timmer · Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2012 4:10 pm Post subject:

I was hoping it would be, but the busid is set to 2:0:0 and it's not working. I'm betting on the BIOS setting, except that I haven't succeeded in finding it yet...

BillWho · Veteran Joined: 03 Mar 2012 Posts: 1600 Location: US

Timmer,

I dual boot gentoo and arch and yesterday arch just crashed and burned on me after a catalyst update.

I happened upon this https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ATI#ATI_X1600_.28RV530_series.29_3D_application_show_black_windows during my migration to radeon. It references a problem using two or more ATI cards on the same PC.

I'm not sure if this is the same issue that you are experiencing, but perhaps it's worth a look :?:

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Good luck :wink:

Since installing gentoo, my life has become one long emerge

Goeland86 · Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2012 12:18 pm Post subject:

So I have the same setup as Timmer - 2 different ATI chips on the same laptop.

Turns out that it's called "PowerXpress", setup so the HD4000 series is an integrated chip with low power consumption, with the 5400 as a discrete chip to punch solid performance when you need it.

With 12.4 there's a switch in aticonfig that's usable to select one or the other: --px-igpu for the integrated chip (4000) and --px-dgpu for the dedicated one. I've tried and tried and tried, but even in 12.6 with --px-dgpu there's no way to make it work.

I'm sticking to 12.4 on my laptop, used a package.mask entry to block any upgrades onto it because I like being able to switch. With the 5400 I can use opencl when plugged on power, and when on the go I switch over to the 4000 for better battery life.

It's really annoying that AMD hasn't thought about those computers where there's a cross-generation gap and setup a failsafe so that we can at least use the discrete gpu with 12.6... But I guess it's typical of them to not spend too much time thinking about it and shafting us penguin lovers.

Timmer · Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 10:46 am Post subject:

From months of experimentation and research, it's not possible. And to make matters worse, the 12.4 drivers won't build with the 3.5 kernel.

If your OEM has decided to think that it's smarter than you (and HP did), the option to choose which chip to use is not available in the BIOS, so you can't enable the newer chip to switch to it.

I've switched back to the radeon drivers, with the hope that their power consumption will improve drastically - those drivers run so hot that you have to practically baby your computer to keep it running under 100C.