Arch Linux

muh3

Member

Registered: 2013-10-20

Posts: 8

nouveau makes screen flickering

Hi,

I have a very old PC

It is a Athlon XP 2500+ on a nforce2 board. I use the Geforce 4MX IGP.
My screen is a CRT-TV connected to the s-video port.

I used the PC in 2012 and everything was working fine. Nouveau worked, TV-Out worked, ...

In 2013 i never used this old PC...until now.

I want to reactivate it and do a fresh installation, but there seems to be a problem with nouveau.

I booted the Arch CD 2013.10.01 and everything worked. I installed it and after a reboot my TV starts flickering. I don't know how to explain it...it is just not usable.

The TV and the Cable are definitly not broken, because bios and grub looking fine.

summary:
old installation: no problems
live media: no problems
installed system: no problems showing the BIOS, no problems showing GRUB...after loading the nouveau driver (right after the message: initial ramdisk loading)...screen is "flickering" in console and X

live media information:

uname -a
Linux archiso 3.11.2-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Sep 27 08:03:21 CEST 2013 i686 GNU/Linux

dmesg | grep nouveau
[    5.060055] nouveau  [  DEVICE][0000:01:00.0] BOOT0  : 0x01f000a5
[    5.060065] nouveau  [  DEVICE][0000:01:00.0] Chipset: nForce2 (NV1F)
[    5.060069] nouveau  [  DEVICE][0000:01:00.0] Family : NV10
[    5.061759] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] checking PRAMIN for image...
[    5.105401] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] ... checksum invalid
[    5.105410] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] checking PROM for image...
[    5.105428] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] ... signature not found
[    5.105432] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] checking ACPI for image...
[    5.105436] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] ... signature not found
[    5.105440] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] checking PCIROM for image...
[    5.106320] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] ... appears to be valid
[    5.106327] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] using image from PCIROM
[    5.106333] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] BMP version 5.28
[    5.106552] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] version 04.1f.20.02.00
[    5.106567] nouveau W[   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] unknown i2c type 3
[    5.106572] nouveau W[   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] unknown i2c type 3
[    5.106957] nouveau W[  PTIMER][0000:01:00.0] unknown input clock freq
[    5.106973] nouveau  [     PFB][0000:01:00.0] RAM type: stolen system memory
[    5.106978] nouveau  [     PFB][0000:01:00.0] RAM size: 128 MiB
[    5.106981] nouveau  [     PFB][0000:01:00.0]    ZCOMP: 0 tags
[    5.112801] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: putting AGP V2 device into 4x mode
[    5.112961] nouveau  [     DRM] VRAM: 127 MiB
[    5.112965] nouveau  [     DRM] GART: 64 MiB
[    5.112971] nouveau  [     DRM] BMP version 5.40
[    5.112977] nouveau  [     DRM] DCB version 2.2
[    5.112983] nouveau  [     DRM] DCB outp 00: 01000100 00007530
[    5.112988] nouveau  [     DRM] DCB outp 01: 02010331 00000703
[    5.113894] nouveau  [     DRM] Saving VGA fonts
[    5.181161] nouveau  [     DRM] 0 available performance level(s)
[    5.181169] nouveau  [     DRM] c: core 225MHz memory 167045M
[    5.183224] nouveau  [     DRM] MM: using M2MF for buffer copies
[    5.183245] nouveau  [     DRM] Setting dpms mode 3 on TV encoder (output 1)
[    5.233363] nouveau  [     DRM] Load detected on output B
[    5.233790] nouveau  [     DRM] allocated 720x576 fb: 0x9000, bo f19c9e00
[    5.234280] fbcon: nouveaufb (fb0) is primary device
[    5.346410] nouveau  [     DRM] Setting dpms mode 0 on TV encoder (output 1)
[    5.346419] nouveau  [     DRM] Output TV-1 is running on CRTC 0 using output B
[    5.348263] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: fb0: nouveaufb frame buffer device
[    5.348267] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: registered panic notifier
[    5.348275] [drm] Initialized nouveau 1.1.1 20120801 for 0000:01:00.0 on minor 0

installed system information:

uname -a
Linux htpc 3.11.6-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Oct 19 00:29:46 CEST 2013 i686 GNU/Linux

dmesg | grep nouveau
[    5.897807] fb: conflicting fb hw usage nouveaufb vs EFI VGA - removing generic driver
[    5.899619] nouveau  [  DEVICE][0000:01:00.0] BOOT0  : 0x01f000a5
[    5.899625] nouveau  [  DEVICE][0000:01:00.0] Chipset: nForce2 (NV1F)
[    5.899629] nouveau  [  DEVICE][0000:01:00.0] Family : NV10
[    5.902023] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] checking PRAMIN for image...
[    5.959645] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] ... checksum invalid
[    5.959659] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] checking PROM for image...
[    5.959679] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] ... signature not found
[    5.959683] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] checking ACPI for image...
[    5.959688] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] ... signature not found
[    5.959692] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] checking PCIROM for image...
[    5.961183] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] ... appears to be valid
[    5.961192] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] using image from PCIROM
[    5.961198] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] BMP version 5.28
[    5.961417] nouveau  [   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] version 04.1f.20.02.00
[    5.961434] nouveau W[   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] unknown i2c type 3
[    5.961439] nouveau W[   VBIOS][0000:01:00.0] unknown i2c type 3
[    5.961858] nouveau W[  PTIMER][0000:01:00.0] unknown input clock freq
[    5.961874] nouveau  [     PFB][0000:01:00.0] RAM type: stolen system memory
[    5.961879] nouveau  [     PFB][0000:01:00.0] RAM size: 128 MiB
[    5.961883] nouveau  [     PFB][0000:01:00.0]    ZCOMP: 0 tags
[    5.968302] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: putting AGP V2 device into 4x mode
[    5.968461] nouveau  [     DRM] VRAM: 127 MiB
[    5.968465] nouveau  [     DRM] GART: 64 MiB
[    5.968471] nouveau  [     DRM] BMP version 5.40
[    5.968476] nouveau  [     DRM] DCB version 2.2
[    5.968482] nouveau  [     DRM] DCB outp 00: 01000100 00007530
[    5.968487] nouveau  [     DRM] DCB outp 01: 02010331 00000703
[    5.993525] nouveau  [     DRM] 0 available performance level(s)
[    5.993538] nouveau  [     DRM] c: core 225MHz memory 167045M
[    5.995663] nouveau  [     DRM] MM: using M2MF for buffer copies
[    5.995684] nouveau  [     DRM] Setting dpms mode 3 on TV encoder (output 1)
[    6.046700] nouveau  [     DRM] Load detected on output B
[    6.047325] nouveau  [     DRM] allocated 720x576 fb: 0x9000, bo f5789200
[    6.047797] fbcon: nouveaufb (fb0) is primary device
[    6.159275] nouveau  [     DRM] Setting dpms mode 0 on TV encoder (output 1)
[    6.159294] nouveau  [     DRM] Output TV-1 is running on CRTC 0 using output B
[    6.160275] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: fb0: nouveaufb frame buffer device
[    6.160280] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: registered panic notifier
[    6.160288] [drm] Initialized nouveau 1.1.1 20120801 for 0000:01:00.0 on minor 0

so...it seems there happend something to nouveau between kernel 3.11.2 and 3.11.6 which breaks my setup

this guy seems to have the same problem on debian: http://www.mail-archive.com/debian-bugs … 65756.html

can anyone help me?

need more logs?

is the "installed" nouveau driver loaded with different configs then the "live" driver?

thx for your help!

straykat

Member

From: Queensland, Australia

Registered: 2009-12-06

Posts: 60

Re: nouveau makes screen flickering

muh3,
          First up can you please fix up your console readouts using BBCode: https://bbs.archlinux.org/help.php#bbcode

From experience, I find running Arch Linux on older hardware will cause heartache & a lot of needless admin. I liken the experience to trying to keep an old wooden boat afloat when the only materials available are composites!

IMHO using an "older" "enterprise" OS such as Scientific Linux https://www.scientificlinux.org/
or CentOS http://www.centos.org/ will give you a better experience on older hardware.