Arch Linux

Leye

Member

From: Heidelberg, Germany

Registered: 2008-09-03

Posts: 96

Screen turns black suddenly, then re-emerges within a second

Hi,

here's a new strange issue with my new Asus Eee PC: Recently, and perhaps it's because some updated packages, the screen turns black totally without warning, and shows up again as if nothing has happened. That is, no matter what I currently do, at any time the screen turns completely black (not even dark or something like that) for just a second, and appears again simply. Nothing strange can be noticed, my session just continues as if this didn't happen.

I haven't had any success finding the triggers for that behaviour, it seems so accidentally ... be it browsing the web, right after session startup and everything else. What I've noticed though is that it happens only a single time within a session and both on battery and on power.

Graphic chip is an Intel Mobile 945 GME, and I'll add my xorg.conf as soon as I can. Strangely, there is no note in Xorg.0.log either.

What I'm currently doing now is checking whether this also happens in a GNOME session. Sounds strange, but the first time I've noticed this behaviour is with Openbox, and the last days I was using only Openbox. Still I don't know whether Openbox might cause this problem.

I'd be very glad if someone could give me some hints on tracking down this issue. Perhaps this also happens at someone else's machine.

Gratefully,

Leye

EDIT
Alright, here's my xorg.conf:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "X.org Configured"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"
    ModulePath   "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/misc"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/TTF"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load  "record"
    Load  "dri2"
    Load  "glx"
    Load  "dbe"
    Load  "extmod"
    Load  "dri"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Keyboard0"
    Driver      "kbd"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Mouse0"
    Driver      "mouse"
    Option        "Protocol" "auto"
    Option        "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option        "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier   "Monitor0"
    VendorName   "Monitor Vendor"
    ModelName    "Monitor Model"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        ### Available Driver options are:-
        ### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
        ### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
        ### [arg]: arg optional
        #Option     "NoAccel"                # [<bool>]
        #Option     "SWcursor"               # [<bool>]
        #Option     "ColorKey"               # <i>
        #Option     "CacheLines"             # <i>
        #Option     "Dac6Bit"                # [<bool>]
        #Option     "DRI"                    # [<bool>]
        #Option     "NoDDC"                  # [<bool>]
        #Option     "ShowCache"              # [<bool>]
        #Option     "XvMCSurfaces"           # <i>
        #Option     "PageFlip"               # [<bool>]
    Option    "AccelMethod" "exa"
    Option    "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
    Option    "DRI"    "True"
    Option    "NoDDC"    "True"
    Option    "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps"    "True"
    Option    "EnablePageFlip"    "True"
    Option    "RenderAccel"    "True"
    Identifier  "Card0"
    Driver      "intel"
    VendorName  "Intel Corporation"
    BoardName   "Mobile 945GME Express Integrated Graphics Controller"
    BusID       "PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen0"
    Device     "Card0"
    Monitor    "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth 24
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     1
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     4
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     8
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     15
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     16
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     24
        Modes "1024x600
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
    Option    "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

Last edited by Leye (2009-06-16 14:31:52)

Painless

Member

Registered: 2006-02-06

Posts: 233

Re: Screen turns black suddenly, then re-emerges within a second

I used to get this as well.  I think mine was related to issues with the latest gnome-power-manager.  I've since downgraded to 2.24.4.  Do you use gnome-power-manager in Openbox?

Leye

Member

From: Heidelberg, Germany

Registered: 2008-09-03

Posts: 96

Re: Screen turns black suddenly, then re-emerges within a second

Hi,

that's right! And I've noticed a second ago, that the screen stays black as long as I don't move the mouse (or input something, probably). So perhaps the screensaver or something related to that might cause this? I'll try downgrading to 2.24 too, thanks for your hint, Painless.

jordz

Member

Registered: 2006-02-01

Posts: 248

Re: Screen turns black suddenly, then re-emerges within a second

I have the same problem with gnome (again, it used to happen before but the problem went away after a  few updates)

Last edited by jordz (2009-06-16 16:40:09)

Leye

Member

From: Heidelberg, Germany

Registered: 2008-09-03

Posts: 96

Re: Screen turns black suddenly, then re-emerges within a second

Good to know that there are other people with the same issue as well. As long as I use Openbox, I've deactivated gnome-power-manager, though I hope this will go away with new updates. In the meantime, deactivating gnome-power-manager is o.k.

I don't know though what you should do if you rely on the whole GNOME desktop.

foutrelis

Developer

From: Athens, Greece

Registered: 2008-07-28

Posts: 705

Website

Re: Screen turns black suddenly, then re-emerges within a second

I'm having the same problem on a netbook with intel graphics and on a desktop which has an nvidia card. I do use Gnome on both machines, and I was lucky enough to come across this thread so that I can stop blaming X.

Thanks for the gnome-power-manager hint.