Problem with Intel GMA 4500MHD + KDE - Freeze + Screenbrightness bug

erija952 · 2010-03-10 08:19:38

Hello!
I'm a quite happy Arch Linux user since a couple of months now, and I'm running it on a ASUS UL30A-QX165V laptop. I've however got one problem I havn't been able to solve, and that probably got to do with my graphics drivers. So here is the deal:

The UL30A is running on a Intel GMA 4500MHD chipset. I had no troubles installing Arch Linux, but I got two strange bugs.

1.) Every now and then (sometimes every minute, sometimes every half an hour) parts of my screen pixelates for a brief moment. Sometimes it's just a line across the screen in some weird color, and sometimes it's half the screen. Even if it isn't frequent, it's very annoying.

2.) The screen brightness functions really isn't working. First of all the screen brightness of Arch is way higher than in BIOS, or in Windows (dualbooting). Secondly, when adjusting the screen brightness using the Power Managment, the screen brightness isn't the lowest when it's turned to minimum. In other words, if I raise the screen brightness from the lowest, it's getting darker the first couple of steps. After a few steps, it's all brighter again. Hard to explain. Thridly the screen brightness bounces back after a few minutes of idle. Say that I'm lowering the screen brightness and watching a movie. After a random amount of time the screen brightness suddenly get's way much brighter and I have to lower it using the shortcut keys or the Power Managment tools. This all counts with xbacklight set to minimum. It's still to bright for my personal taste, not even talking about battery consumption.

These two things make me think that I have a problem with my graphics drivers, however, I havn't found anything about it on the forums (maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places) and I have no clue on how to check what's wrong with my current driver. Where can I find the right driver if this isn't the right one?

Listing LSPCI I get

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
...

I'm happy to provide more information. And of course, I'm very grateful for any help solving this problem.
/Erik

Roline · 2010-03-10 10:12:08

Try downgrading the intel video driver and disabeling KMS. I have the same chipset and exactly the same problems with xfce4-power-manager.

"I downgraded xf86-video-intel (2.10.0-1 -> 2.9.1-1) (+ disable KMS) and now everything works fine."

erija952 · 2010-03-10 13:25:06

Roline wrote:

Try downgrading the intel video driver and disabeling KMS. I have the same chipset and exactly the same problems with xfce4-power-manager.
"I downgraded xf86-video-intel (2.10.0-1 -> 2.9.1-1) (+ disable KMS) and now everything works fine."

Thanks for the help! I've tried what you said above and disabled KMS as explained on http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Intel. Disabling KMS didn't work with 2.10.0-1, but it did with 2.9.1.1.

I havn't been able to test wheter or not this solves the problems yet. It seams to me that the screen brightness is lower now, and that's good. However, for the screen-flickering problem I'm not sure if it's gone or not yet, and as for the the weirdness of the Power Management it is still there (it is still increasing the brightness lowers the brightness instead). However, that's a minor problem compared to the brightness changing itself all the time.

Last edited by erija952 (2010-03-10 13:27:02)

erija952 · 2010-03-10 21:38:30

No, the above didnt help. It's still overriding my commands to lower screen brightness and get's lighter after random intervals.

Any other suggestions?

Gnurou · 2010-03-17 21:33:02

I started having these problems from kernel 2.6.32. AFAIK 2.6.31 versions worked fine.

In addition to your problems I also have my screen getting sometimes filled with a single color and not changing anymore after that - clearly something not acceptable. I'm desperately trying to find an old 2.6.31 package to test, I'll get back to say whether that solved the problem or not.

Gnurou · 2010-03-18 00:01:43

Got 2.6.31 packages there:

http://arm.konnichi.com/core/os/x86_64/

It indeed seems that the glitch and blank screen problems are solved by downgrading. It's just too bad that this problem seems to be around on 2.6.32 AND 2.6.33.

KlavKalashj · 2010-06-16 18:39:06

The brightness issue is solved for me on same laptop and multiple distributions by adding the parameter "acpi_backlight=vendor" to grub.

Off-topic question, since you have the exact same setup as me... Are you using hdmi? Can you tell me how you do with your sound? Becouse I have huge problems with that atm.

toketin · 2010-11-11 21:40:00

@erija952 sorry if I up an old thread but I've found it by accident and I want only to warn that I've your same first problem (Every now and then (sometimes every minute, sometimes every half an hour) parts of my screen pixelates for a brief moment. Sometimes it's just a line across the screen in some weird color, and sometimes it's half the screen. Even if it isn't frequent, it's very annoying.) Due to this i choose to come back to xfce4 on my notebook (i have an intel card gma 4500m)

Arch Linux

#1 2010-03-10 08:19:38

Problem with Intel GMA 4500MHD + KDE - Freeze + Screenbrightness bug

#2 2010-03-10 10:12:08

Re: Problem with Intel GMA 4500MHD + KDE - Freeze + Screenbrightness bug

#3 2010-03-10 13:25:06

Re: Problem with Intel GMA 4500MHD + KDE - Freeze + Screenbrightness bug

#4 2010-03-10 21:38:30

Re: Problem with Intel GMA 4500MHD + KDE - Freeze + Screenbrightness bug

#5 2010-03-17 21:33:02

Re: Problem with Intel GMA 4500MHD + KDE - Freeze + Screenbrightness bug

#6 2010-03-18 00:01:43

Re: Problem with Intel GMA 4500MHD + KDE - Freeze + Screenbrightness bug

#7 2010-06-16 18:39:06

Re: Problem with Intel GMA 4500MHD + KDE - Freeze + Screenbrightness bug

#8 2010-11-11 21:40:00

Re: Problem with Intel GMA 4500MHD + KDE - Freeze + Screenbrightness bug

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