Arch Linux

amish

Member

Registered: 2014-05-10

Posts: 513

Screen "almost" goes off randomly

Ok so I have this peculiar problem which has been happening from about 2-3 weeks. So I can not tell for sure if there was specific package that caused this issue

When working on my laptop, the screen "almost" goes off any random moment.

By "almost" what I mean is - its almost completely black but I can see it very very very faintly by going very close to screen. (but u can not read / work)

Brightness level is way way less than brightness at ZERO percentage!

Earlier simply switching to terminal (ctrl-alt-f2) and switching back to graphic (ctrl-alt-f7) would solve the problem. i.e. everything will be back to normal.

Now from last 1 week or less, switching to terminal does not work.

But if I close laptop lid and re-open it - then it works.

I dont know if its hardware problem OR kernel problem OR driver problem. (We already had display related bug recently for intel graphics which was solved but it was not a complete fix - could this be related to it?)

If LED screen (hardware) was bad then it should not turn on when closing and opening lid, right?

Anyone else facing the issue?

Logs show nothing related to display when screen goes off.

Thanks in advance.

erno

Member

Registered: 2009-08-24

Posts: 83

Re: Screen "almost" goes off randomly

What does dmesg say? Is it a radeon? I'm having similar issues with my r9 270 and xf86-video-ati.

a snippet from my dmesg output:

[54134.959129] radeon 0000:01:00.0: ring 5 stalled for more than 10000msec
[54134.959144] radeon 0000:01:00.0: GPU lockup (waiting for 0x000000000000000a last fence id 0x0000000000000004 on ring 5)
[54134.959152] [drm:uvd_v1_0_ib_test] *ERROR* radeon: fence wait failed (-35).
[54134.959162] [drm:radeon_ib_ring_tests] *ERROR* radeon: failed testing IB on ring 5 (-35).

First the mouse stops moving, then a 25s blank screen with backlight on, backlight goes off for 2 seconds and then everything is back to normal. Has happened 3-4 times today.

amish

Member

Registered: 2014-05-10

Posts: 513

Re: Screen "almost" goes off randomly

No its this

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)

Also I had not checked dmesg. I thought same thing appears in journalctl as well. Will check that the next time issue appears.

Recently (3 weeks back) there were lots of changes to mesa. I guess my problem also seems to have started after that. (Just a guess not at all sure)

PS:
Your problem is seems different from mine! Also since I knew that fix was to close lid and open it again, I never waited to see what happens after 25 seconds.

amish

Member

Registered: 2014-05-10

Posts: 513

Re: Screen "almost" goes off randomly

Ok issue happened again

dmesg and journalctl does not show anything happening just before screen goes off.

But they both show following after I close and open the Lid.

Oct 28 09:23:12 localhost systemd-logind[392]: Lid closed.
Oct 28 09:23:12 localhost kernel: i915 0000:00:02.0: BAR 6: [??? 0x00000000 flags 0x2] has bogus alignment
Oct 28 09:23:12 localhost kernel: pci 0000:00:1e.0: PCI bridge to [bus 45]
Oct 28 09:23:12 localhost kernel: pci 0000:00:1e.0:   bridge window [mem 0xd0500000-0xd05fffff]
Oct 28 09:23:14 localhost systemd-logind[392]: Lid opened.
Oct 28 09:23:14 localhost kernel: i915 0000:00:02.0: BAR 6: [??? 0x00000000 flags 0x2] has bogus alignment
Oct 28 09:23:14 localhost kernel: pci 0000:00:1e.0: PCI bridge to [bus 45]
Oct 28 09:23:14 localhost kernel: pci 0000:00:1e.0:   bridge window [mem 0xd0500000-0xd05fffff]

Also waiting for 25 seconds did nothing as reported above by erno

Last edited by amish (2014-10-28 03:58:37)