[Solved/Broken DPM] Hang at boot when switching modes with radeon

jmad980 · 2014-07-27 13:00:32

When I tried to boot into Arch about a week ago after cleaning some dust out of my case I was met with a nasty surprise, it wouldn't boot properly! Once my system got to the point where it would usually change resolutions (KMS kicks in) my displays (1 DVI, 1 DVI -> VGA) would just shut off (presumably not getting any signal from my GPU a Radeon 5770) and either my keyboards lights (caps/scroll/num) would either be stuck on or be able to be toggled but I don't believe anything was happening in the boot process.

Now me being the inquisitive kind of guy I decided I would be right on the case and ignore Arch until I got bored. I tried out an old Ubuntu 12.04 based distro and everything worked fine, but that's no way to live so I decided to install Debian testing. The install went fine, everything was happy, and I even made it to a tty! But during the boot I noticed a message saying I didn't have the non-free firmware I'd need for my GPU, so I installed that and rebooted.

Much to my pleasure the same issue didn't happen! Instead of only (presumably) locking up my GPU fans were going very fast and loud blowing a bit of extra dust out of my case for me. How convenient! At this point I decided the problem was probably the fault of the firmware, but why did it just start happening now? Perhaps I updated my system before I opened it up; I don't remember if that is the case or not however.

Anyways, Debian testing was a bust so I decided I'd reinstall Arch, so I booted up my trusty flash drive and.... the same thing happened. While I considered the possibility of hardware failure, Windows works the same as it always has and the old distro didn't have any issues aside from generally being old and terrible and my computer is yet to catch on fire. I also ran a small memory test to make sure everything seemed normal enough.

tl;dr Boot fails when KMS initiates (?) / Hardware seems fine / Maybe a problem with new kernel or firmware

Anyone else have issues or a solution?

EDIT: Disabling DPM fixed my issues, but of course I don't have dpm now

Last edited by jmad980 (2014-07-28 10:07:25)

R00KIE · 2014-07-27 14:13:22

Try using early KMS if you are using late KMS now, or vice versa. Check the wiki for more info:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ke … de_setting

jmad980 · 2014-07-27 14:26:47

Not sure how to mess with KMS for the install ISO, but I tried that (via chroot from a working distro) and it only delayed the same result.

emeres · 2014-07-27 14:27:23

You could try booting with the monitor/adapter disconnected at first (possible EDID issue).

jmad980 · 2014-07-27 14:44:42

The GPU fan spins down as normal (when dpm would kick in) but the keyboard lights stay frozen on and nothing happens when I plug a monitor back in after a bit.

Last edited by jmad980 (2014-07-27 14:45:02)

emeres · 2014-07-27 15:04:41

It might be worth to try the catalyst driver after disabling kms (nomodeset kernel boot parameter) or compiling a kernel, since you presumably use the stock one.

jmad980 · 2014-07-27 15:10:31

Yeah I'll probably play around with catalyst tonight, might need to get an older arch iso which works for me though (the current one doesn't seem to)

jmad980 · 2014-07-27 15:14:21

I can get into the installer (well live session, but you get it) if I use nomodeset, so I'm pretty sure it has something either to do with KMS or the radeon driver/firmware. On capped internet so I probably wont install arch yet, but I'm hopeful that it's fixed after I update packages, if not I'll play with catalyst

R00KIE · 2014-07-27 19:47:59

If you have arch's live media you can do a base install and try early/late kms, the needed firmware is included in the live image.

Perry3D · 2014-07-28 07:51:06

Power management is not really stable at the moment. Maybe you try appending "radeon.dpm=0" to the kernel parameters.

jmad980 · 2014-07-28 09:02:53

Got catalyst working, but I'd rather not use it so I might try uninstalling it and turning dpm off to see if that solves my issues. (although my GPU fans would be louder)

jmad980 · 2014-07-28 09:55:47

DPM Seems to be the problem, everything seems to work with it disabled which is a shame because I like it when it works.

Any bug reports I can keep track of?

Perry3D · 2014-07-28 10:18:02

You can try building the kernel from git. There is an AUR package.
Or try the drm-fixes-3.16 branch from git://people.freedesktop.org/~agd5f/linux (http://cgit.freedesktop.org/~agd5f/linux/)
For me (HD6870) it fixes the power management. But i had other symptoms: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=68571

Arch Linux

#1 2014-07-27 13:00:32

[Solved/Broken DPM] Hang at boot when switching modes with radeon

#2 2014-07-27 14:13:22

Re: [Solved/Broken DPM] Hang at boot when switching modes with radeon

#3 2014-07-27 14:26:47

Re: [Solved/Broken DPM] Hang at boot when switching modes with radeon

#4 2014-07-27 14:27:23

Re: [Solved/Broken DPM] Hang at boot when switching modes with radeon

#5 2014-07-27 14:44:42

Re: [Solved/Broken DPM] Hang at boot when switching modes with radeon

#6 2014-07-27 15:04:41

Re: [Solved/Broken DPM] Hang at boot when switching modes with radeon

#7 2014-07-27 15:10:31

Re: [Solved/Broken DPM] Hang at boot when switching modes with radeon

#8 2014-07-27 15:14:21

Re: [Solved/Broken DPM] Hang at boot when switching modes with radeon

#9 2014-07-27 19:47:59

Re: [Solved/Broken DPM] Hang at boot when switching modes with radeon

#10 2014-07-28 07:51:06

Re: [Solved/Broken DPM] Hang at boot when switching modes with radeon

#11 2014-07-28 09:02:53

Re: [Solved/Broken DPM] Hang at boot when switching modes with radeon

#12 2014-07-28 09:55:47

Re: [Solved/Broken DPM] Hang at boot when switching modes with radeon

#13 2014-07-28 10:18:02

Re: [Solved/Broken DPM] Hang at boot when switching modes with radeon

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