[Resolved] Laptop Screen Turns Off During Boot

Heavy Lobster · 2015-10-30 20:22:57

Fairly new to Arch and after my last "sudo pacman -Syu" a couple days ago my laptop screen turns off just before boot finishes and doesn't come back on.

Everything runs nicely up to the "Welcome to Arch" message and it runs with output for a while longer, but at some point in the boot messages, around the time it should be setting the screen resolution, the laptop screen turns off and doesn't come back on.

I have an Arch live CD and I can chroot into the installation, but I don't even know where to begin checking for logs. Completely reinstalled Arch last night, so xorg shouldn't be a problem.

Could it have something to do with updating the kernel?

Last edited by Heavy Lobster (2015-10-31 16:14:18)

jasonwryan · 2015-10-30 20:30:43

Let me guess (and note, I shouldn't have to, this sort of information belongs in your post): GDM/Gnome.

If not, look at your journal to see what service is failing...

Please read How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

Heavy Lobster · 2015-10-31 04:40:40

jasonwryan wrote:

Let me guess (and note, I shouldn't have to, this sort of information belongs in your post): GDM/Gnome.

Heavy Lobster wrote:

Completely reinstalled Arch last night, so xorg shouldn't be a problem.

Pretty sure GDM depends on xorg and the day Gnome is included in base is the day I switch to ArchBang.

jasonwryan wrote:

If not, look at your journal to see what service is failing...

Full journal here.

The only highlighted errors are "ASPM: Could not configure common clock" and "nsc-ircc, Wrong chip version ff", both of which have been appearing for weeks and which come before the screen turn off.

Also of note: "Reached target Graphical Interface. / Startup finished in 5.554s (kernel) + 6.904s (userspace) = 12.459s."

jasonwryan · 2015-10-31 08:42:07

Heavy Lobster wrote:

jasonwryan wrote:
Let me guess (and note, I shouldn't have to, this sort of information belongs in your post): GDM/Gnome.
Heavy Lobster wrote:
Completely reinstalled Arch last night, so xorg shouldn't be a problem.
Pretty sure GDM depends on xorg and the day Gnome is included in base is the day I switch to ArchBang.

So Xorg isn't a problem because it isn't installed? So you are only trying to boot into a TTY?

Heavy Lobster · 2015-10-31 08:56:45

Yup.

Long answer: before all this started I had a decent graphical setup with Xorg, LXDM, and i3. Then this whole thing started so naturally I blamed Xorg. First thing I did was chroot in from the Live CD and disable LXDM on startup, but no dice. So I thought I screwed up systemd somehow and thought it was still trying to get an X server up somewhere in the boot process, which led to a complete reinstallation (except /home which I put on a separate partition for this eventuality). After the fresh installation it's still doing that and journald isn't being helpful at all. I'm at a loss and considering testing ArchBang or FreeBSD just to try slightly different kernels.

Last edited by Heavy Lobster (2015-10-31 08:57:30)

jasonwryan · 2015-10-31 09:10:27

See: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/KMS

Is it just the backlight? Can you SSH in?

Heavy Lobster · 2015-10-31 10:34:33

Adding "nomodeset" as a kernel parameter did the trick. The screen flickers, but no longer just stays blank. Now I eventually get to a login prompt.

Console resolution is no longer being set at boot, but now I can try to fix that from the Arch system instead of from a chroot environment.

Last questions before I mark this resolved: will the "nomodeset" parameter interfere with Xorg in any way and is fixing the console resolution worth the effort if I only spend minimal time outside X?

Never mind, found a satisfactory answer.

Thanks, jasonwryan.

Edit: Journal logs for those interested.

Last edited by Heavy Lobster (2015-10-31 16:13:58)

Arch Linux

#1 2015-10-30 20:22:57

[Resolved] Laptop Screen Turns Off During Boot

#2 2015-10-30 20:30:43

Re: [Resolved] Laptop Screen Turns Off During Boot

#3 2015-10-31 04:40:40

Re: [Resolved] Laptop Screen Turns Off During Boot

#4 2015-10-31 08:42:07

Re: [Resolved] Laptop Screen Turns Off During Boot

#5 2015-10-31 08:56:45

Re: [Resolved] Laptop Screen Turns Off During Boot

#6 2015-10-31 09:10:27

Re: [Resolved] Laptop Screen Turns Off During Boot

#7 2015-10-31 10:34:33

Re: [Resolved] Laptop Screen Turns Off During Boot

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