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#1 2012-09-02 06:59:45

minder
Member
Registered: 2010-07-25
Posts: 9

Dell Latitude XT (Radeon X1250) issue

Hello
I recently bought used Latitude XT and now I know I should have rather bought XT2 :-\
After recent upgrade (kernel switched to 3.5.x) I get tons of visual artifacts from the opensource driver - mainly garbage fonts but also pictures are displayed horribly. This makes my system pretty unusable. I tried to install Catalyst drivers from AUR but my card (radeon Xpress 1250) is not supported and I couldn't find any legacy drivers that would compile against 3.5 kernel. What should I do to make this bastard working properly? Please, at least point me to some helpful webpages.

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#2 2012-09-03 22:22:00

C64
Member
Registered: 2011-03-10
Posts: 3

Re: Dell Latitude XT (Radeon X1250) issue

I have the exact same notebook and the same problem you describe. So far i have only tried to revert back to older packages, but that didnt fix it. Will keep you updated if I find a solution.


"Unix is simple, but it takes a genius to understand the simplicity." - Dennis Ritchie

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#3 2012-09-04 08:16:03

minder
Member
Registered: 2010-07-25
Posts: 9

Re: Dell Latitude XT (Radeon X1250) issue

As I see now the issue is far more complicated. After another update I made couple of days ago everything just snapped and worked perfect. The joy! Yesterday I updated some more packages, turned off the PC and after starting it in the morning artifacts appeared again. I was really mad. I turned the PC off and started it again after several seconds. Everything was back to normal. Now I'm afraid to turn it off again. I have never experienced such nondeterministic behavior before.

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#4 2012-09-04 13:20:42

C64
Member
Registered: 2011-03-10
Posts: 3

Re: Dell Latitude XT (Radeon X1250) issue

I managed to fix the problem for now by disabling KMS.

vi /boot/grub/menu.lst

Add adeon.modeset=0 as a kernel option.

I'll have to search a bit more for what caused this problem, but at least im able to use my notebook again.


"Unix is simple, but it takes a genius to understand the simplicity." - Dennis Ritchie

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#5 2012-09-04 21:21:28

minder
Member
Registered: 2010-07-25
Posts: 9

Re: Dell Latitude XT (Radeon X1250) issue

I'll try it as soon as discover reproducible conditions that cause the artifacts to appear. Right now I can say that KMS has no effect on my laptop. I may remember wrong but prior to installing Catalyst I turned off KMS (as stated in wiki) and yet artifacts appeared. After I learned that Catalyst cannot be used I turned KMS back on with no effect. And then after an update of some packages it just snapped to artifacts-free desktop. o_O

Another issue is that after upgrading the firmware for touchscreen (via Windows) I can't use the touchscreen the same way as before the upgrade. Touching the screen with my finger has a strange effect of disabling right mouse button in XFCE's system tray (in all other apps RMB works OK) plus strange mouse behavior in other applications like constant text selecting in PyCharm. o_O Now I can't rely on autodetection anymore.

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#6 2012-09-05 13:56:54

C64
Member
Registered: 2011-03-10
Posts: 3

Re: Dell Latitude XT (Radeon X1250) issue

With KMS turned on, at first everything looked fine, just as it did for you, no errors in the Xorg log.
After a few reboots, things looked screwed up again, Xorg log showed the following errors:

[   116.608] (EE) AIGLX error: r300 does not export required DRI extension
[   116.608] (EE) AIGLX: reverting to software rendering

That's all i have been able to reproduce so far, so this is gonna be my starting point.


"Unix is simple, but it takes a genius to understand the simplicity." - Dennis Ritchie

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#7 2012-09-08 15:45:50

XT
Member
Registered: 2012-05-21
Posts: 14

Re: Dell Latitude XT (Radeon X1250) issue

Same here... Wether the artifacts show up or not changes "randomly" every boot, even if I don't change any packages.
Just restored a backup and things are fine again.

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#8 2012-09-11 18:02:47

XT
Member
Registered: 2012-05-21
Posts: 14

Re: Dell Latitude XT (Radeon X1250) issue

After updating the backup image the issue does not seem to reappear, it might be a package I installed after making the backup though... Doesn't seem to be the kernel.

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#9 2012-09-16 16:40:36

canurabus
Member
Registered: 2012-02-12
Posts: 10

Re: Dell Latitude XT (Radeon X1250) issue

Bumping because I ran into the same thing after upgrading today (and I was worried about systemd screwing up instead, heh). Unlike you guys though, I was never able to get the issue to go away or be intermittent; the corruption happened all 5-6 times I tried rebooting. The only way I can use the system is if I disable KMS (but this makes it too slow to really be of any use)...

XT -- since the problem seems to have disappeared for you, could you post your package versions for:
xf86-video-ati,
xorg-server,
mesa,
ati-dri

I want to see if we're running the same package versions. I wonder if this problem has anything to do with https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/23215.

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#10 2012-09-17 15:47:52

minder
Member
Registered: 2010-07-25
Posts: 9

Re: Dell Latitude XT (Radeon X1250) issue

My way of getting rid of artifacts is to turn power off, wiat 5 secs and then start again. I need to repeat 3 times tops to get clear graphics.

Besides that I experience other strange behavior:

1. After using finger to touch the screen, I can't right click on taskbar in xfce and mouse pointer seems to be pressed in *some* applications (mostly Java ones)
2. After suspending the system to RAM and waking it up again, the screen flickers during HDD access - the heavier the usage, the worser the filcker. o_O

This gets more interesting the more I use it tongue

@canurabus: #23215 may be the case, I have:
xf86-video-ati 6.14.6-1
xorg-server 1.12.4-1
xorg-server-common 1.12.4-1
xorg-server-utils 7.6-3

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#11 2012-09-19 00:45:26

canurabus
Member
Registered: 2012-02-12
Posts: 10

Re: Dell Latitude XT (Radeon X1250) issue

It seems like the Linux world hates this laptop and this video card in particular... I feel like this probably won't be fixed in the near future

I ran into a similar problem with the touch screen as well.

It might be that the touch screen isn't registering when your finger 'releases'... you can check what's going on with
xinput list to get the N trig device name
xinput --query-state "N-trig DeviceName"

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#12 2012-09-21 13:39:38

XT
Member
Registered: 2012-05-21
Posts: 14

Re: Dell Latitude XT (Radeon X1250) issue

I just booted to get the list for you and now the artifacts are back...
_Seems_ solved (4 boots) by downgrading linux from 3.5.3-1 to 3.2.1-1
Currently the versions are as follows but I'm going to upgrade (ignoring linux):
ati-dri 8.0.4-3
linux 3.2.1-1
mesa 8.0.4-3
xf86-video-ati 1:6.14.6-1
xorg-server 1.12.4-1
xorg-server-common 1.12.4-1

EDIT
About the screen flickering: While the laptop is powered (no matter wether the screen is on or off) it seems like the screen is reset (flickers) for a short moment occasionally - do you guys have this behaviour too?
The upgrade didn't change any of the listed packages (ignoring linux)

Last edited by XT (2012-09-21 13:55:34)

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#13 2012-09-25 02:18:46

canurabus
Member
Registered: 2012-02-12
Posts: 10

Re: Dell Latitude XT (Radeon X1250) issue

I don't have the screen flickering behavior.

Reinstalling Arch using pacman pinned ARM with 3.4.7-1 seems to be working right now. I guess its 3.5x that breaks stuff.

// stable for me right now
3.7.4.1-ARCH
ati-dri/mesa 8.0.4-2
xf86-video-ati 1:6.14.6-1
xorg-server 1.12.3-1
xorg-server-common 1.12.3-1

As an aside has anyone got multitouch working with this laptop? lsinput shows the device:

/dev/input/event2
   bustype : BUS_USB
   vendor  : 0x1b96
   product : 0x1
   version : 272
   name    : "N-Trig MultiTouch"
   phys    : "usb-0000:00:13.1-2/input1"
   uniq    : ""
   bits ev : EV_SYN EV_KEY EV_ABS EV_MSC


And evtest gives me a bunch of output:
sudo evtest /dev/input/event2

But no apps I've tried that use multitouch actually work. I don't think the right x events are being generated.

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