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#1 2014-04-05 20:02:21

Bengi
Member
Registered: 2005-10-25
Posts: 21

Problem with Dell M4800 and blank ttys after starting X

Hi,

I am having a problem with Arch on a Dell M4800 laptop. It has a QHD+ screen and also a Quadro K2100m gpu so I am using the nvidia driver. On this laptop, because of the way the QHD+ display is wired to the motherboard, the Intel integrated graphics are disabled, so I can use the nvidia gpu directly in X without optimus. The problem is that when I boot the machine I can see the text on the screen, but after I start X (kde) and go to switch to a virtual terminal with ctrl alt f1 etc, the display is blank. It appears to be backlit, but I cannot see the text. I can type blindly into the terminal and the commands are executed and I can also switch back to X with ctrl alt f7. Initially I was just using text mode for the virtual terminals, but I have also tried using uvesafb and the same problem occurs. One thing I notice with uvesafb, is that when I switch to a virtual terminal the following error is displayed in the log:

Apr 05 19:16:53 pegasus kernel: uvesafb: mode switch failed (eax=0x14f, err=0)
Apr 05 19:16:53 pegasus kernel: detected fb_set_par error, error code: -22

When I installed the system and booted from the arch iso, no text was displayed on the screen then either, but I got around this by using the nomodeset kernel argument.

Here is some information about my system:

uname -a:

Linux pegasus 3.13.8-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Apr 1 12:19:51 CEST 2014 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Nvidia driver version:

nvidia 334.21-2

I have tried adding the following to my 20-nvidia.conf:

Option "RegistryDwords" "UseVBios=0"

But it seems to have no effect and the following output seems to indicate this:

ben@pegasus ~ % cat /proc/driver/nvidia/registry 
Binary: ""

I have found a post by a user on the German archlinux forum (listed below) describing the exact same problem, but as yet there does not seem to be any further information on it.

https://bbs.archlinux.de/viewtopic.php?id=25728

One other thing that the user on the German forum also points out is that when the screen is turned off for power saving in X, it does not get turned back on by any mouse movement or by pressing any keys. It is possible to get the display back though by changing to a (blank) virtual terminal by pressing ctrl alt f1 and then changing back to X with ctrl alt f7, however I don't know whether or not this is related to the blank ttys.

Any help or further information about this would be greatly appreaciated.

Thanks

Last edited by Bengi (2014-04-05 20:19:36)

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#2 2014-04-06 07:50:14

ConnorBehan
Package Maintainer (PM)
From: Long Island NY
Registered: 2007-07-05
Posts: 1,359
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Re: Problem with Dell M4800 and blank ttys after starting X

Is the KMS console from which you start X, provided by intel or nvidia?


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#3 2014-04-06 08:04:16

byte
Member
From: Düsseldorf (DE)
Registered: 2006-05-01
Posts: 2,046

Re: Problem with Dell M4800 and blank ttys after starting X

ConnorBehan wrote:

Is the KMS console from which you start X, provided by intel or nvidia?

Neither.
He already wrote "Intel integrated graphics are disabled" and "I was just using text mode for the virtual terminals, but I have also tried using uvesafb and the same problem occurs".
If X is coming up ok, the nvidia kernel module gets loaded, without problems from conflicting framebuffer drivers (intel/nouveau/uvesafb) ... then it's probably not a simple configuration issue, I'm afraid.

No errors or hints whatsoever in dmesg or Xorg.0.log?


1000

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#4 2014-04-06 10:48:12

Bengi
Member
Registered: 2005-10-25
Posts: 21

Re: Problem with Dell M4800 and blank ttys after starting X

Here are copies of my dmesg and Xorg.0.log:

dmesg in text mode:
http://bpaste.net/show/198273/

dmesg in uvesafb mode:
http://bpaste.net/show/198275/

Xorg.0.log in text mode:
http://bpaste.net/show/198276/

Xorg.0.log in uvesafb mode:
http://bpaste.net/show/198277/


The only things that I could see that immediatly stand out are that in the Xorg.0.log, when I switch back to X from a tty the following is displayed, but I think this is pretty normal:

[    78.297] (II) Open ACPI successful (/var/run/acpid.socket)
[    78.554] (II) NVIDIA(0): Setting mode "DFP-4:nvidia-auto-select"
[    78.721] (--) synaptics: AlpsPS/2 ALPS DualPoint TouchPad: touchpad found

The other things are that in the dmesg output in uvesafb mode the following is displayed upon switching to a virtual terminal. This is also printed in the journal when running in uvesafb mode which I mentioned before:

[   77.603430] uvesafb: mode switch failed (eax=0x14f, err=0)
[   77.603431] detected fb_set_par error, error code: -22

Also the following ACPI warnings are printed in the dmesg output at boot:

[   13.181319] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: irq 48 for MSI/MSI-X
[   13.187057] ACPI Warning: \_SB_.PCI0.PEG0.PEGP._DSM: Argument #4 type mismatch - Found [Buffer], ACPI requires [Package] (20131115/nsarguments-95)
[   13.187127] ACPI Warning: \_SB_.PCI0.PEG0.PEGP._DSM: Argument #4 type mismatch - Found [Buffer], ACPI requires [Package] (20131115/nsarguments-95)
[   13.187175] ACPI Warning: \_SB_.PCI0.PEG0.PEGP._DSM: Argument #4 type mismatch - Found [Buffer], ACPI requires [Package] (20131115/nsarguments-95)
[   13.187316] ACPI Warning: \_SB_.PCI0.PEG0.PEGP._DSM: Argument #4 type mismatch - Found [Buffer], ACPI requires [Package] (20131115/nsarguments-95)
[   13.187363] ACPI Warning: \_SB_.PCI0.PEG0.PEGP._DSM: Argument #4 type mismatch - Found [Buffer], ACPI requires [Package] (20131115/nsarguments-95)
[   13.211102] ACPI Warning: \_SB_.PCI0.PEG0.PEGP._DSM: Argument #4 type mismatch - Found [Buffer], ACPI requires [Package] (20131115/nsarguments-95)
[   13.211259] ACPI Warning: \_SB_.PCI0.PEG0.PEGP._DSM: Argument #4 type mismatch - Found [Buffer], ACPI requires [Package] (20131115/nsarguments-95)
[   13.211307] ACPI Warning: \_SB_.PCI0.PEG0.PEGP._DSM: Argument #4 type mismatch - Found [Buffer], ACPI requires [Package] (20131115/nsarguments-95)
[   13.211356] ACPI Warning: \_SB_.PCI0.PEG0.PEGP._DSM: Argument #4 type mismatch - Found [Buffer], ACPI requires [Package] (20131115/nsarguments-95)

You will see that they mention the word Buffer and are preceeded by a line mentioning nvidia. I see there are a few pages in the net where people mention this ACPI warning, one on the archlinux forums is here:

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=177525

But this thread seems to be related to optimus which I do not have. The last poster asks the op if he could identify which kernel version broke his configuration. Unfortunately I cannot for my system as it is a fresh install with the most up to date packages.

Last edited by Bengi (2014-04-06 11:15:13)

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#5 2014-05-27 23:39:46

Bengi
Member
Registered: 2005-10-25
Posts: 21

Re: Problem with Dell M4800 and blank ttys after starting X

Just seen that this appears to be a bug in the nvidia driver. There is a post on the nvidia developer forums about it here:

https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topi … hd-k2100m/

As it says there is a bug filed (1512547) with nvidia. Accoding to one of the linked articles from the thread this is already fixed with the nouveau driver, so hopefully it won't be too long before nvidia fix it in their driver as well.

Last edited by Bengi (2014-05-27 23:42:26)

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