Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

alleluia20 · 2009-09-23 18:50:33

Hello,

I have always had this from time to time, but (I do not why) the frequency is increasing, and today I had four freezes (and counting). The X survival times were less than one hour today. I use testing, the packages are up to date, and I have no xorg.conf. I use KDE4 with desktop effects (but I also remember having freezes without desktop effects). Did you find any way to remove or minimize such freezes? Is using Windows (arrrggghhh!!!) the only solution for the time being? And I think the solution is not to use legacy drivers, because I found them as bad as (or worse than) the current one.

By the way, when I have a freeze, everything I can do is to switch the computer off with the hardware. Is this correct?

Thank you in advance.

absolutezero1287 · 2009-09-23 20:04:27

I have an intel card and I too feel your pain. Try adding noacpi acpi=off to the kernel line.

kjon · 2009-09-23 21:45:42

what is that for? That's too much for solving that problem. Post your card type and the xorg's log to see what can be done here.

Are you running your xorg server with or without a configuration? I'm using the xf86-intel-git drivers and I've no issues at all.

And a last thing. Are you *Absolutely* sure that is a video issue? A computer freeze might be caused by a kernel panicing silently on the background. I had very similar synthoms caused by my usb 3g modem and it took me more than a month to figure that out.

Last edited by kjon (2009-09-23 21:47:39)

absolutezero1287 · 2009-09-24 00:11:40

[satori ~]$ lspci | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)

post the output of that command like I did above. lspci | grep VGA

alleluia20 · 2009-09-24 00:15:49

Thank you for your reply.

Post your card type

VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])                                                                                                                                                           
        Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 0090                                                                                                       
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16                                                                                                    
        Memory at d0100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]                                                                                            
        I/O ports at 5088 [size=8]                                                                                                                           
        Memory at c0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]                                                                                                
        Memory at d0200000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256K]                                                                                            
        Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]                                                                                                             
        Capabilities: [90] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit-                                                                                           
        Capabilities: [d0] Power Management version 2

and the xorg's log

The last part of Xorg.0.log.old is:

(**) Option "xkb_rules" "evdev"
(**) Option "xkb_model" "evdev"
(**) Option "xkb_layout" "es"
(II) intel(0): EDID vendor "SEC", prod id 14405
(II) intel(0): Using EDID range info for horizontal sync
(II) intel(0): Using EDID range info for vertical refresh
(II) intel(0): Printing DDC gathered Modelines:
(II) intel(0): Modeline "1280x800"x0.0   68.94  1280 1296 1344 1408  800 801 804 816 -hsync -vsync (49.0 kHz)
(II) intel(0): EDID vendor "SEC", prod id 14405
(II) intel(0): EDID vendor "SEC", prod id 14405
(II) intel(0): Using hsync ranges from config file
(II) intel(0): Using vrefresh ranges from config file
(II) intel(0): Printing DDC gathered Modelines:
(II) intel(0): Modeline "1280x800"x0.0   68.94  1280 1296 1344 1408  800 801 804 816 -hsync -vsync (49.0 kHz)
(II) intel(0): EDID vendor "SEC", prod id 14405
(II) intel(0): EDID vendor "SEC", prod id 14405
(II) intel(0): Using hsync ranges from config file
(II) intel(0): Using vrefresh ranges from config file
(II) intel(0): Printing DDC gathered Modelines:
(II) intel(0): Modeline "1280x800"x0.0   68.94  1280 1296 1344 1408  800 801 804 816 -hsync -vsync (49.0 kHz)
(II) intel(0): EDID vendor "SEC", prod id 14405
(II) AT Translated Set 2 keyboard: Close
(II) UnloadModule: "evdev"
(II) Macintosh mouse button emulation: Close
(II) UnloadModule: "evdev"
(II) USB Optical Mouse: Close
(II) UnloadModule: "evdev"
(II) UnloadModule: "synaptics"
(II) USB2.0 Camera: Close
(II) UnloadModule: "evdev"
(II) Sleep Button: Close
(II) UnloadModule: "evdev"
(II) Power Button: Close
(II) UnloadModule: "evdev"
(II) Video Bus: Close
(II) UnloadModule: "evdev"
(II) Power Button: Close
(II) UnloadModule: "evdev"

Are you running your xorg server with or without a configuration?

No xorg.conf

I'm using the xf86-intel-git drivers and I've no issues at all

I use the one in Arch, xf86-video-intel (plus intel-dri). What is xf86-intel-git, how is it different from xf86-video-intel, and how do you get it?

And a last thing. Are you *Absolutely* sure that is a video issue? A computer freeze might be caused by a kernel panicing silently on the background.

Hum, but the freezes look random, and I did not plug or unplug any device. How can I check it anyway?

Thank you very much in advance.

Last edited by alleluia20 (2009-09-24 00:20:54)

slightlystoopid · 2009-09-24 01:21:13

alleluia20 wrote:

By the way, when I have a freeze, everything I can do is to switch the computer off with the hardware. Is this correct?

you can't drop back to the terminal?

maybe you'd get more info starting x manually doing something like this:

startx 2> ~/freeze.log

wait for it to happen again, then see what happened.

grey · 2009-09-24 13:38:10

alleluia20 wrote:
By the way, when I have a freeze, everything I can do is to switch the computer off with the hardware. Is this correct?

Almost. Ctrl+ALt+Bkspc or Ctrl+Alt+F{1-5} certainly didn't work for me. The magic sysrq keys sometimes worked (so at least my partitions were unmounted cleanly). What also usually worked was to ssh in and then kill and restart X remotely. If you're able to do that you can also monitor the output of startx and (hopefully) catch the error message before the crash.

kjon · 2009-09-24 20:11:05

You card looks pretty old to me. I strongly recommend you to install the xf86-video-intel-legacy package to get a more responsive and stable operation.

grey · 2009-09-25 00:38:18

This chipset has the GMA950 graphics processor, which was basically the standard on middle-of-the-road boards with intel graphics until about 2 years ago. So I really wouldn't call it old.

kjon · 2009-09-25 00:53:36

grey wrote:

This chipset has the GMA950 graphics processor, which was basically the standard on middle-of-the-road boards with intel graphics until about 2 years ago. So I really wouldn't call it old.

Yes, you're right. I misread the above. Anyway I still recommend xf86-video-intel-legacy if the card is presenting a weird behavior.

rahim · 2009-09-25 12:41:36

I have this card

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)

I have installed LXDE and when i start X with 'startx' with an xorg.conf the desktop loads but without window borders and the mouse them is a big "X" rather than the arrow. If i open a window (file manager) the whole Desktop freezes and I have to hard-boot. Ctrl+Alt+Backspace or F1-9 doesnt work. The whole screen hangs. I use xf86-video-intel driver.

firecat53 · 2009-09-25 14:29:13

I also have the 82845G/GL on one of our machines, and I've pretty much had to stop using it because of the freezing problem. Using the legacy driver only boots up to a black screen. Booting with the noacpi acpi=off does stop the freezes, but then the power management goes away, and since this computer is old, loud and in the family room, it needs suspend to work -- which doesn't with no acpi. I also would love a solution to these random freezes. I can't even find any errors in *any* of the logs in /var/log!! It's definitely an X problem because I can still SSH into the machine when it's frozen, and if I don't run X (boot to console) it never freezes. It also doesn't matter what programs are running when it locks up.

Scott

grey · 2009-09-25 14:39:12

I had no problems running with the xorg / intel driver packages downgraded to just before the instabilities were introduced (xorg-server 1.4.2, November 2008) and an otherwise up to date system (e.g. latest kernel, DE etc). If all else fails this should be a fairly reliable fallback solution.

Last edited by grey (2009-09-25 14:59:19)

firecat53 · 2009-10-03 01:58:55

It's been several hours so far, so I can't say solved for absolute sure, but it's looking pretty good!

Try the intel-video-newest and libdrm-newest from AUR. Enable KMS per the wiki. Enjoy no freezing!

Good luck!
Scott

pluckypigeon · 2009-10-25 18:28:25

firecat53 wrote:

It's been several hours so far, so I can't say solved for absolute sure, but it's looking pretty good!
Try the intel-video-newest and libdrm-newest from AUR. Enable KMS per the wiki. Enjoy no freezing!
Good luck!
Scott

It's still freezing for me.

Has it frozen for you firecat53 since you last posted?

Last edited by pluckypigeon (2009-10-25 18:35:23)

grey · 2009-10-26 11:23:39

Which board are you having, and which drivers are you using? If you're using the AUR packages that Scott recommends, then now != when Scott posted, b/c drm-newest got an update.
Also, if you are having stability issues, then updating to the bleeding edge has a lower chance of success than downgrading to a know good version. Of course there are cases where it will work, but I would only do it if I have good reason to think that the latest version is actually more stable than the current one.

apophis · 2009-10-26 11:28:42

I had a similar problem, i use an intel card too.
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=78041

Installing the latest xf86-intel driver from AUR solved it for me!

yaourt -S xf86-video-intel-newest

pluckypigeon · 2009-10-26 11:29:57

grey wrote:

Which board are you having, and which drivers are you using? If you're using the AUR packages that Scott recommends, then now != when Scott posted, b/c drm-newest got an update.
Also, if you are having stability issues, then updating to the bleeding edge has a lower chance of success than downgrading to a know good version. Of course there are cases where it will work, but I would only do it if I have good reason to think that the latest version is actually more stable than the current one.

I have an i845g.

All of the intel drivers make my pc freeze, including stable. Intel-legacy doesn't freeze but it makes my pc use an extra 100mb of ram.

grey · 2009-10-26 13:10:32

With that chipset you could try the xf86-video-i810 driver (since it's a 82945G, which has the i810 graphics system if I understand wikipedia correctly).
BTW 100 mb of ram seems a lot. I've also seen legacy (and older xorg-server packages) use more memory, but not that much more. On an i686 the whole OS, including X and a light DE, usually clocks in at around 100 mb. Which desktop environment are you using?

pluckypigeon · 2009-10-26 14:52:07

grey wrote:

With that chipset you could try the xf86-video-i810 driver (since it's a 82945G, which has the i810 graphics system if I understand wikipedia correctly).
BTW 100 mb of ram seems a lot. I've also seen legacy (and older xorg-server packages) use more memory, but not that much more. On an i686 the whole OS, including X and a light DE, usually clocks in at around 100 mb. Which desktop environment are you using?

Thank you for your comment.

I believe that the xf86-video-i810 driver was merged in to xf86-video-intel a few years ago.. I've had never-ending problems with this pc since the merge.

I have 512mb with a bit of ram going to the chip. At the moment I am using IceWm, which with legacy, and no apps running, uses about 150mb. When using the newer drivers it only uses about 50mb.... I had roughly the same sort of thing with openbox as well except openbox used about 10mb more.

I've had never ending problems with this pc since the merge.

Last edited by pluckypigeon (2009-10-26 14:54:06)

grey · 2009-10-27 10:31:42

You're right - the i810 driver doesn't exist as a package anymore. It's still listed in the Beginner's Guide, so I thought it is still kept around.
Did you also have problems before the current round of 'heavy delvelopment' in xorg / video-intel started about a year ago? I'm asking because I could run xorg-sever 1.4.2 / video-intel 2.3.2 together with an otherwise updated system. So if your problems started a year ago, you go try to downgrade. If they started with the merge of i810 into video-intel (start of 2007), that's probably not an option.

Edit: I just tried the legacy driver on my machine, and it froze.

Last edited by grey (2009-10-27 10:43:22)

pluckypigeon · 2009-10-27 11:14:50

grey wrote:

You're right - the i810 driver doesn't exist as a package anymore. It's still listed in the Beginner's Guide, so I thought it is still kept around.
Did you also have problems before the current round of 'heavy delvelopment' in xorg / video-intel started about a year ago? I'm asking because I could run xorg-sever 1.4.2 / video-intel 2.3.2 together with an otherwise updated system. So if your problems started a year ago, you go try to downgrade. If they started with the merge of i810 into video-intel (start of 2007), that's probably not an option.
Edit: I just tried the legacy driver on my machine, and it froze.

I believe I've always had different problems since the merge, although I'm not 100% sure, they started on the release of Ubuntu8.10.

I've had freezes, garbled text, X not starting, screensaver freezing X, apps running slow, I had compiz freeze X and probably a load of other stuff. Most of that stuff has been fixed now but X still freezes now and again.

BTW, I'm running xorg-server-1.6.3 with xf86-video-intel-legacy 2.3.2-3. This causes me the least problems except for the extra ram my system seems to be using.

firecat53 · 2009-10-27 12:39:55

Sorry I didn't post back sooner, but I've had to completely go back to XP on this machine (it's the kids computer) because of the 82845 problems. Either it freezes up, or there are problems with suspending and switching virtual terminals. I'm not willing at this point to rollback everything a year. I'll try back in another few months and see if anything is better. I'd like to get a new computer to replace this one and make this one my server instead

Scott

grey · 2009-10-27 13:02:53

Ubuntu 8.10 uses xorg-server 1.5, 8.04 uses 1.4.
You don't need to roll everything back a year, only the xorg related packages. It's worth a try, because ARM makes it relatively easy. To get the last version of xorg-server 1.4, add

[extra::2008-11-28]
Server = http://arm.kh.nu/$repo/os/i686

to /etc/pacman.conf, then update

pacman -Sy xorg-server xorg-server-utils xorg-utils xorg-xfs xf86-video-intel xf86-video-vesa xf86-input-evdev xf86-input-keyboard xf86-input-mouse mesa libgl intel-dri dri2proto libxkbui

pluckypigeon · 2009-11-02 16:42:24

The new update forces you to remove intel-legacy now. The freezes still occur with the newer drivers.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-09-23 18:50:33

Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#2 2009-09-23 20:04:27

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#3 2009-09-23 21:45:42

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#4 2009-09-24 00:11:40

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#5 2009-09-24 00:15:49

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#6 2009-09-24 01:21:13

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#7 2009-09-24 13:38:10

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#8 2009-09-24 20:11:05

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#9 2009-09-25 00:38:18

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#10 2009-09-25 00:53:36

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#11 2009-09-25 12:41:36

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#12 2009-09-25 14:29:13

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#13 2009-09-25 14:39:12

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#14 2009-10-03 01:58:55

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#15 2009-10-25 18:28:25

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#16 2009-10-26 11:23:39

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#17 2009-10-26 11:28:42

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#18 2009-10-26 11:29:57

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#19 2009-10-26 13:10:32

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#20 2009-10-26 14:52:07

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#21 2009-10-27 10:31:42

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#22 2009-10-27 11:14:50

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#23 2009-10-27 12:39:55

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#24 2009-10-27 13:02:53

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

#25 2009-11-02 16:42:24

Re: Desperate about X freezes with intel card. Help

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