[SOLVED] Intel HD 4000 problems on an Acer Aspire S3

tfla · 2013-10-10 20:50:39

Hey there.

I've got an Acer Aspire S3-391 which runs Arch beautifully. There's just one small issue.
My Intel HD4000 (lspci output below) seems to be misbehaving. At first when I booted I only got to a black screen, which was easily remedied by using nomodeset when booting.
However, xrandr doesn't detect my resolutions and outputs correctly. It lists LVDS1 as "default" and the only available resolutions are 1368x768 and 1366x768. I need HDMI1 to be recognized since I use this computer for presentations and sometimes output video to an external monitor.

I did try setting KMS in my initramfs as described by the Wiki, and also tried the boot option i915.modeset=1, but those only led to the black-screen issue I experienced at first boot.

For what it's worth, I'm running i3 as my WM.

Any pointers are greatly appreciated.

lspci -nnk output:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0166] (rev 09)
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:073a]
	Kernel modules: i915

xrandr -q output:

xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 1366 x 768, current 1366 x 768, maximum 1368 x 768
default connected 1366x768+0+0 0mm x 0mm
   1366x768        0.0* 
   1368x768        0.0

Last edited by tfla (2013-10-22 10:18:29)

Lax Lexis · 2013-10-10 22:23:26

Which Kernel do you did install? 3.10 - 3.11 are buggy with i915.

See more here: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=167518

WonderWoofy · 2013-10-11 00:22:57

How are you using xrandr at all? If you booted with nomodeset, this would disable... well, modesetting or KMS. the xf86-video-intel Xorg module requires KMS in order to function. So if that is the case, and you are now looking at i3wm, I would say that you likely went ahead and installed the whole gang of xf86-video-* drivers and are not booted with something like vesa. It has been a loooong long time since I've used vesa, but I would venture to guess (if this is indeed how you are managing to see X) that this might be art of the problem.

tfla · 2013-10-11 09:11:39

Thanks for the replies.

Lax Lexis: Cool, I must've somehow missed that thread when I searched the forums. I'm currently compiling a kernel with that patch to see if it works.

WonderWoofy: Well yes, I had to install xf86-video-vesa to be able to use Xorg at all. I planned on removing it when (or if) the problems are resolved. Can you elaborate on how that might be part of the problem though?
And yes, of course I alternate between using nomodeset and trying KSM.

tfla · 2013-10-11 12:29:55

That solution didn't seem to work either. Still a blank screen when booting.

So let me just get this straight: Is the process for enabling KMS and disabling nomodeset this?

1. Edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf to make sure i915 is on the MODULES line.
2. Then edit /etc/default/grub to make sure nomodeset is gone from the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT
3. Run the following commands:

sudo mkinitcpio -p linux
sudo grub-mkconfig /boot/grub/grub.cfg

And in the case of the kernel I just compiled the mkinitcpio command was a bit different,

sudo mkinitcpio -k 3.11.4-ARCH -c /etc/mkinitcpio.conf -g /boot/initramfs-linux-patched.img

Just to make sure I'm not doing any stupid mistakes here...

EDIT: s/gnome/gone

Last edited by tfla (2013-10-11 12:30:32)

WonderWoofy · 2013-10-11 16:32:22

That is typically how you would enable early KMS. Some machines get a bit picky though and require that you also put i915.modeset=1 on the kernel command line as well.

The reason why I suspect that using vesa might be the issue is because the Xorg intel module works directly with the card and i915 module. While the vesa driver is actually working atop the framebuffer. So then (I suspect) the vesa driver knows only about the framebuffer and what it is offering, while the intel driver will know about the card and its features, including additional outputs. But again, it has been ages since I have used vesa, and a while since I have used anythign but KMS. So I'm not sure how correct those assumptions are.

Basically, you are going to have to figure out the KMS issue in order to get the full features of your card. That much I know for sure.

BTW, why are you compiling your own kernel? And why didn't you mention this before? It could be that you have made some kind of a silly change to the kernel's config (whether intentioanlly or inadvertantly) that is screwing with your ability to properly use KMS. I think you should try to debug against the proper Arch kernel. If you have a need to go back to a customized kernel, that is fine, but asking for assistance while using something other than the supported kernel is not a wise thing, in my opinion, and will only muddy the waters in your quest for a solution.

tfla · 2013-10-11 21:36:04

Hey there WonderWoody, thanks for staying with me.

Yeah, I tried i915.modeset=1. Not sure on wether I did it in addition to KMS though. Maybe something to try?
I get that I'll need KMS to utilize the full potential of the card, and I've never really had any issues with KMS on intel machines before. But then again, I've never installed Arch on this machine before.

Also, in regards to the compiling my own kernel thing... I only did that because that was a recommended solution in the thread that Lax Lexis linked to. Before that I used the regular Arch kernel (and I still have it installed).

EDIT:
i915.modeset=1 + KMS didn't work on either of the kernels (i.e Arch default and my custom compiled one), both of them gave me the same blank screen as before. Both boot as regular with nomodeset though (but still have issues with xrandr etc. because of vesa). Do you think I need to uninstall vesa before rebooting? I mean that would sort of make sense, but I still hade those problems before I installed vesa too, so I don't think it's the cause of my problems.

Last edited by tfla (2013-10-11 21:44:40)

WonderWoofy · 2013-10-12 00:23:10

Things should be set up so that Xorg will look for vendor specific drivers first before falling back to things like vesa. Are you experiencing the black screen before or after Xorg? What I mean by that, is if you set up early KMS, are you then booting to a desktop manager (ie. slim, gdm, kdm, lightdm, etc.) or are you booting to the multi-user.target? Because the first step in the process of debugging KMS would be to ensure that it will take you the the TTY (getty@tty1.service), where you will find a login prompt. If that works, then you go through the process of making sure Xorg works on top of that.

You should go through your journal to see if there are any clues as to what is occurring when you boot with KMS. Does it seem to indicate that thinks it is reaching a normal booted state, or does it report errors? Whether or not you have issues, setting up the video drivers in the initramfs is a wise thing to do anyway (as things in /etc/vconsole.conf require the machine to have established itself into kernel mode).

tfla · 2013-10-12 10:24:48

The black screen occurs right after GRUB, i.e. I see a message with "loading initial RAM system" or something (writing form memory, so might be a bit erroneous). I am booting to console mode however, and I don't get anywhere near a TTY when trying to boot with KMS (and switching between TTYs doesn't do anything either).

Gusar · 2013-10-12 11:29:50

Have you tried the LTS kernel? That's the easiest thing to try if the current kernel has modesetting issues. Also, is the screen off, or is just the backlight at its lowest level?

tfla · 2013-10-12 12:49:26

Yeah gusar, maybe I forgot mentioning it, but I tried the linux-lts package too. So here's a list of kernels I've tried.

linux
linux-lts
linux-lts34
linux-3.11.4 (custom compile)

With both KMS and nomodeset (and i915.modeset=1).

It seems to me that the screen is off, because it goes "darker" than what is displayed between GRUB and up to the console login.

tfla · 2013-10-15 19:33:09

I've gotten a few helful pointers in this thread (thanks a bunch everyone), but am beginning to think that it's more suited for the subforum Kernel & Hardware. Could a mod please move it there? Being unfamiliar with this forum I don't know the proper way of doing this, but at least I assume it's considered rude to just create a new thread there with a link to this one?

ewaller · 2013-10-15 21:17:51

tfla wrote:

I've gotten a few helful pointers in this thread (thanks a bunch everyone), but am beginning to think that it's more suited for the subforum Kernel & Hardware. Could a mod please move it there? Being unfamiliar with this forum I don't know the proper way of doing this, but at least I assume it's considered rude to just create a new thread there with a link to this one?

Will do. The best way to ask is to use the 'report' link and leave the moderators a note with your request. We see the reports instantly rather than having to stumble upon requests in threads.

tfla · 2013-10-22 10:18:09

D'oh... I solved the issue now by adding 'acpi_backlight=vendor' to my kernel boot options, so I guess Gusar might have been right regarding the backlight issue.

Once again, thanks everybody for the guidance.

Arch Linux

#1 2013-10-10 20:50:39

[SOLVED] Intel HD 4000 problems on an Acer Aspire S3

#2 2013-10-10 22:23:26

Re: [SOLVED] Intel HD 4000 problems on an Acer Aspire S3

#3 2013-10-11 00:22:57

Re: [SOLVED] Intel HD 4000 problems on an Acer Aspire S3

#4 2013-10-11 09:11:39

Re: [SOLVED] Intel HD 4000 problems on an Acer Aspire S3

#5 2013-10-11 12:29:55

Re: [SOLVED] Intel HD 4000 problems on an Acer Aspire S3

#6 2013-10-11 16:32:22

Re: [SOLVED] Intel HD 4000 problems on an Acer Aspire S3

#7 2013-10-11 21:36:04

Re: [SOLVED] Intel HD 4000 problems on an Acer Aspire S3

#8 2013-10-12 00:23:10

Re: [SOLVED] Intel HD 4000 problems on an Acer Aspire S3

#9 2013-10-12 10:24:48

Re: [SOLVED] Intel HD 4000 problems on an Acer Aspire S3

#10 2013-10-12 11:29:50

Re: [SOLVED] Intel HD 4000 problems on an Acer Aspire S3

#11 2013-10-12 12:49:26

Re: [SOLVED] Intel HD 4000 problems on an Acer Aspire S3

#12 2013-10-15 19:33:09

Re: [SOLVED] Intel HD 4000 problems on an Acer Aspire S3

#13 2013-10-15 21:17:51

Re: [SOLVED] Intel HD 4000 problems on an Acer Aspire S3

#14 2013-10-22 10:18:09

Re: [SOLVED] Intel HD 4000 problems on an Acer Aspire S3

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