Arch Linux

Rhiadratech

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2011-05-20

Posts: 32

Intel 900GMA Keeps freezing in X nothing in logs. No Sysreq keys.

I know this is a troublesome GPU, and I'm hoping someone here can help me get this laptop working in Arch again.

I've had these issues in other distros before, and its meant walking away, until I found Arch, which used to work fine.

After some time out of action due to it needing a new power port connector, i tried to just upgrade the system once I got it functional again.... Udev was replaced with systemd and this broke everything.... colour me unimpressed - I thought the Arch Way was in place upgrades, not needing to reinstall after a while....

Anyway, fresh install.... A little crashy, but i worked through the wiki, added the i915 modules to kernel, inserted stuff into xorg.conf as per the wiki on intel gpus, also adding the kernel commands for i915 modeset and rc6. Its stable in runlevel3, but as soon as I try X.... not so much.

I can cause an insta-lockup just by loading firefox and loading a webpage. Or I can not go online and it will lockup at a random point in time which is not so reproducable. Magic sysreq keys do nothing. Lockup is not a kernel panic, its just a nothing responds, not even mouse cursor.

Please, can someone help me reconfigure arch for my thinkpad. She's a lovely machine and I can't afford to replace her. Lack of cash is why it took so long to get the power port fixed.... so imagine how long i'll be lappyless...

Last edited by Rhiadratech (2012-09-04 00:23:42)

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,605

Re: Intel 900GMA Keeps freezing in X nothing in logs. No Sysreq keys.

900GMA doesn't exist, so please be more precise about which graphics chip exactly you have. Then, rc6 is a feature of Sandy Bridge and above, it doesn't have any effect on older stuff. Finally, what xorg.conf? It's not needed for intel. Except if you want so switch to SNA, is that what you did?

Oh, one more thing, you've omitted a very, very important piece of info - which driver version?

Ok, yet another thing, a semi-rant: udev wasn't replaced with systemd (which is a total impossibility, they're still two distinct things despite now being part of the same package). And unless you've manually switched to systemd, nothing changes, you continue to boot with initscripts as always. systemd will be default sometime not far into the future, but for now initscripts are still how Arch boots, and changing that requires manual intervention. So I don't see how this "broke everything" and how it required a reinstall.

Last edited by Gusar (2012-09-04 00:36:13)

Rhiadratech

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2011-05-20

Posts: 32

Re: Intel 900GMA Keeps freezing in X nothing in logs. No Sysreq keys.

Ok so rc6 wont be useful, fine I'll remove it, thanks for that useful bit of info.

The upgrade said it was removing udev as it was a conflict with systemd, and then the system wouldnt boot because udev did not exist. It therefore replaced it, and broke everything. I can only tell you guys what I observed here. And I observed a system that was completely trashed.

GPU is a GMA900, and beyond that I can only tell you it pops up on lspci as Intel 915GM/GMS/910GML which is the generic term for any card using i915. If this doesn't exist, then maybe thats the issue Though im pretty sure that it does as I'm actually getting visual output.

Driver is the latest xf86-video-intel out of core (2.20.5-1). Nothing from AUR installed yet. And yes, the wiki told me to use SNA. I'm all for following the Wiki...

UXA is still a solid option, if experiencing trouble with SNA. Add this to /etc/X11/xorg.conf or create /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf :
Section "Device"
   Identifier  "Intel Graphics"
   Driver      "intel"
   Option      "AccelMethod"  "sna"
   #Option      "AccelMethod"  "uxa"
   #Option      "AccelMethod"  "xaa"
EndSection

Last edited by Rhiadratech (2012-09-04 00:51:48)

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,605

Re: Intel 900GMA Keeps freezing in X nothing in logs. No Sysreq keys.

The upgrade said it was removing udev as it was a conflict with systemd, and then the system wouldnt boot because udev did not exist. It therefore replaced it, and broke everything.

Nope, that's not what happened. What happened is that the package "udev" was replaced with the package "systemd", which contains both of them. So udev very much *did* still exist.

I can only tell you guys what I observed here. And I observed a system that was completely trashed.

I'm sure that if you paid closer attention, we'd know what actually happened.

GPU is a GMA900, and beyond that I can only tell you it pops up on lspci as Intel 915GM/GMS/910GML which is the generic term for any card using i915.

It's not a generic term. It's very precise - 915 or 910, that is what you have.

Driver is the latest xf86-video-intel out of core (2.20.5-1).

And another "nope". That's not the latest. It's a very, very buggy one, though I think it's only buggy for Sandy Bridge and above. But it could also be buggy for other stuff. So update again. And possibly switch mirrors to one that isn't outdated.

And yes, the wiki told me to use SNA. I'm all for following the Wiki...

The wiki also told you that there's a possibility of trouble with SNA. Should work fine in theory though (works fine here on a 945, which is the same generation as yours - gen3) , your issue could be due to the buggy version of the driver. Could also be due to SNA.

Last edited by Gusar (2012-09-04 01:11:52)

Rhiadratech

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2011-05-20

Posts: 32

Re: Intel 900GMA Keeps freezing in X nothing in logs. No Sysreq keys.

http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/gma900/ Funny. Intel says it exists, and this is what Lenovo says is in my Thinkpad....

Ok, so what is the not-buggy graphics driver, and how do I install it when asking pacman to install xf86-video-intel just gets me 2.20.5-1 again? I only installed this yesterday, so according to the repo, this is the current one.

Its 2am here, i'll check back tomorrow, when i'm less likely to be snapping at you.

Last edited by Rhiadratech (2012-09-04 01:13:46)

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,605

Re: Intel 900GMA Keeps freezing in X nothing in logs. No Sysreq keys.

http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/gma900/ Funny. Intel says it exists, and this is what Lenovo says is in my Thinkpad....

Bah, stupid Intel naming. Nowhere else is there talk of a gma900, not in this presentation for example (slide 9 in particular): http://dodonov.net/blog/2011/11/18/inte … on-brazil/, not in the driver source: http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/g … 0b;hb=HEAD

Ok, so what is the not-buggy graphics driver, and how do I install it when asking pacman to install xf86-video-intel just gets me 2.20.5-1 again? I only installed this yesterday, so according to the repo, this is the current one.

Switch mirrors. 2.20.5 is not the latest: http://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra … deo-intel/

Last edited by Gusar (2012-09-04 01:34:24)

Rhiadratech

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2011-05-20

Posts: 32

Re: Intel 900GMA Keeps freezing in X nothing in logs. No Sysreq keys.

Ok, its not the driver, or not just the driver. It didnt instacrash on loading firefox after updating the driver but it did eventually freeze.

Any idea how I can troubleshoot from here when the logs literally show nothing but bootup and the wifi card doing it's thing and then bootup again after a freeze?