[SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

tanis · 2008-10-12 08:09:51

Hi.

My friend just got Lenovo T400 laptop, and he has a problem with Arch that I couldn't help him solve
The problem is in the integrated video card - Intel's 4500MHD.
Whenever we try to run it with vesa driver, it displays garbage. When xorg.conf is set to use intel driver (from xf86-video-intel),
starting X makes the whole system hang. Even magic kernel sysrq keys don't work.
However, when I downloaded kubuntu 8.10 live CD it worked with intel driver fine, in both i386 and amd64 versions.
It has the same version of xorg-server, and slightly older version of xf86-video-intel (I have tried also exactly the same version of this driver with Arch, but it didn't change anything).
I tried different xorg.conf combinations, I also used the one from kubuntu that didn't have any driver specified (so I guess it's autodetected) and it also caused the system to hang.
He has Arch64 installed, but since both 32 and 64 bit versions of kubuntu worked fine, it's rather not the source of problems.
I have seen people reporting that this chipset is working and I haven't found reports of anything that looks like that, so maybe I am just doing something really stupid
How can I find a reason of such behaviour, or how to check what's so different in kubuntu that makes that problem go away?
The Arch is 64bit version, with [testing] repo, updated.

Any hints. Tips. Anything?

Thanks!

Last edited by tanis (2008-10-18 19:48:29)

thho · 2008-10-12 11:16:45

Hi Tanis

I have a T400 too and I just managed to get Archliunx working, but not yet fully functional. I'm using the 2.6.27 kernel. For Xorg I installed the vesa driver (pacman -S xf86-video-vesa) and I used the default config-file

Xorg -configure
cp /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf

That only worked when I did not have any other drivers installed. So try removing them first (pacman -R xf86-video-ati xf86-video-intel) and then reconfigure X.

As I said, it is working, but not more. Acctualy we should have to possibility to switch the graphics card. Does anybody have a better configuration?

It's nice to hear, that we are sitting in the same boat. I'd like to exchange some experience.

Thomas

tanis · 2008-10-12 18:48:58

I have read that switching graphics doesn't really work. Someone reported that he was able to use one or the other card by using different server layouts.
But most people advice to disable card switching in bios, and select only one card to be active, so the system doesn't see the other one.
What was happening when you had other drivers installed? Did you experience any system freezes?

thho · 2008-10-12 22:38:34

tanis wrote:

What was happening when you had other drivers installed? Did you experience any system freezes?

Yes I did have system freezes, as you had. I reckon it's best what you say: just activating one graphic card.

I still have some problems:

1)
I've tried to use thinkfinger but the device is not found. Is there another driver which works?

tf-tools --acquire 
Initializing...USB device not found.

2)
Suspend and hibernate don't work. I've installed acpid and pm-utils. If I log in as root and issue 'pm-suspend' the laptop does power down. But suspending from gnome doesn't work. The lid gets dark but after a sec the login screen appears. I'm using gdm and gnome's power-manager.

3)
Some of the Fn-Fx are not working. Working is Fn-F2, Fn-F3, Fn-Home/End, Fn-PgUp. Not working is Fn-F4,5,7,8,9,12.

Can you give me any tips?

Thomas

tanis · 2008-10-13 01:12:17

I tried with only one driver installed. Still no luck - with vesa system doesn't freeze, but on the screen there is just garbage (but I can kill X, or switch to text console).
With xf86-video-intel driver (without any other drivers) I get system freeze when I start X. When I run 'startx' command (from both root or local user, starting kdm3 doesn't work either), the screen looks like switching, graphic modes 2-3 times, then it changes to just black and nothing more happens. System is frozen at this point

I haven't tried hibernate/suspend yet, so I can't tell if it works or not.
I think have read somewhere, that T400 uses new fingerprint reader chipset that is not yet supported by linux (unfortunately I can't find that webpage now )

I tried some hints from people having working intel driver on T400, and followed their steps - basically just installing xf86-video-intel, running X -configure and using the xorg.conf produced.
I still get system hang ups I have disabled all system services, except for syslog-ng, hoping that maybe some of them cause the problem - still no luck.
MODULES in rc.conf is empty. We have even removed half the RAM from the laptop (it has 4GB in 2 modules) thinking that it might be a reason.
I have no idea what else I could do, or how to track the problem Maybe some acpi-related entries in grub?
At this point I would suspect that there is something wrong with the hardware. But kubuntu live works fine

Any hints? I'm getting desperate

Last edited by tanis (2008-10-13 01:12:38)

tanis · 2008-10-13 01:44:50

Hm, one more question - do you have [testing] repository enabled?

Ok, few mroe questions - do you have any special grub parameters (like acpi=off, noacpi, etc.)?
Do you have framebuffer enabled?

tanis · 2008-10-13 04:47:28

And another one - I got vesa driver working. But it only works with xorg-server 1.4.2 (intel driver doesn't work with 1.4.2 either)
Do you use 1.4.2, or the new one from testing repo?

tanis · 2008-10-13 05:29:30

Solved. All the problems disappeared when "graphics bootup device" (or sth like that) was changed from LCD to analog VGA

However, kubuntu managed to deal with LCD setting...

Last edited by tanis (2008-10-13 05:46:02)

tanis · 2008-10-13 17:06:57

Ok, not solved. The problem is back, no matter what bios settings we use

tanis · 2008-10-14 00:26:27

We solved the problem by overwriting /usr/lib/xorg/modules/driver/intel_drv.so file with one from Kubuntu 8.10.
And the problem went away. I have no idea why though.
When I have built the xf86-video-intel package with patches from Ubuntu and used that intel_drv.so, it also caused freezes.
Any ideas?

Searinox · 2008-10-14 19:15:59

Hello!
I recently got a Lenovo T400 as well, and experienced the same problem.
It's good to see there is a workaround (At the moment I'm simply using the other graphics card with the proprietary ati drivers).
Have you tried recompiling the xf86-video-intel package from abs yet?
I haven't tried it, but probably will tomorrow.

tanis · 2008-10-14 20:06:27

I have recompiled the xf86-video-intel driver, in 2.4.1 and 2.4.2 version, with and without Kubuntu's patches and it didn't help.
Once I had it working with the intel_drv.so file from kubuntu I tried recompiling it with kubuntu default CFLAGS. And it looked like
it helped. I tried to find the flag "responsible" for the correct behaviour, and I removed one after another recompiling and testing the driver
(actually "testing" involves shutting the machine down, since, for some reason, once I use working driver, and I change the driver without powering down
the machine, the wrong driver works as well - until next reboot). But I ended up removing all the flags, and it still was working fine (even after power downs).
So now the problem has solved itself - I just use default Arch driver and it works. I have no idea why. And for how long.

thho · 2008-10-15 11:46:43

I was using the intel driver without any problems when I was reading your forum-posts. I hadn't used any ubuntu-files nor any hacks or tricks. So I was kind of surprised why you guys had problems and were suffering. So I tried to reproduce my working way to provide you some help. I deinstalled the driver and started to configure the system again; I failed! I don't know why. I tried different settings and nothing worked. Finally I got the system working again, but I'm not sure why and how. There are to possibilities, which were working at some point:

with the vesa driver:
graphic device: switchable graphics
OS detection: enabled

with the intel driver:
graphic device: integrated graphics
OS detection: disabled

I'm using the intel driver now. It works fine. I guess the trick is, to remove all other drivers but the needed, to reboot the system and to let "xorg -configure" do the work. Sometimes it works. Good luck!

Searinox:
Are you using catalyst? I have some conflicts with libgl when I install catalyst. Are you not using any application which uses libgl?

Searinox · 2008-10-15 13:55:34

thho:
Yes, after trying to use the intel driver and failing, I installed catalyst 8.9 with a patch for 2.6.27 (Sorry, I forget where I got the patch from...)
and a custom PKGBUILD. As for the libgl problem, I simply forced the installation (I know, not the cleanest approach, but it works).
I'm going to try xorg -configure. Honestly, I didn't know that switch existed , always used xorgconfig to get a xorg.conf.

tanis · 2008-10-15 14:02:19

My friend was using ATI card for a while, with xf86-video-ati driver since catalyst didn't work with xorg-server 1.5. But he couldn't get xv working.
After finally switching to intel's card and driver he has xv and way longer battery life

thho · 2008-10-16 17:00:10

Hi Searinox

Your E-mail did not work, so I'm posting her:

Here is my xorg.conf. It does work on my t400. Since the 2.6.27 kernel
is in the archlinux repository I don't use the self-compiled kernel anymore. I
just use the default packages and I had not to patch anything at all. So you
should be able to get it working. But there must be a cryptic trick, which we
haven't figured out. Try the xorg.conf. If it still doesn't work, write back or
post in the forum.

Thomas

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "X.org Configured"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"
    RgbPath      "/usr/share/X11/rgb"
    ModulePath   "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/misc"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/TTF"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load  "dri"
    Load  "extmod"
    Load  "record"
    Load  "dbe"
    Load  "glx"
    Load  "GLcore"
    Load  "xtrap"
    Load  "freetype"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Keyboard0"
    Driver      "kbd"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Mouse0"
    Driver      "mouse"
    Option        "Protocol" "auto"
    Option        "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option        "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    #DisplaySize      300   190    # mm
    Identifier   "Monitor0"
    VendorName   "LEN"
    ModelName    "4036"
    Option        "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        ### Available Driver options are:-
        ### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
        ### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
        ### [arg]: arg optional
        #Option     "NoAccel"                # [<bool>]
        #Option     "SWcursor"               # [<bool>]
        #Option     "ColorKey"               # <i>
        #Option     "CacheLines"             # <i>
        #Option     "Dac6Bit"                # [<bool>]
        #Option     "DRI"                    # [<bool>]
        #Option     "NoDDC"                  # [<bool>]
        #Option     "ShowCache"              # [<bool>]
        #Option     "XvMCSurfaces"           # <i>
        #Option     "PageFlip"               # [<bool>]
    Identifier  "Card0"
    Driver      "intel"
    VendorName  "Intel Corporation"
    BoardName   "Mobile Integrated Graphics Controller"
    BusID       "PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen0"
    Device     "Card0"
    Monitor    "Monitor0"
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     1
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     4
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     8
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     15
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     16
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Searinox · 2008-10-16 17:15:07

Hi thho,
I'm sorry about my mail, no idea why it didn't work.
I tried your xorg conf with the arch intel driver - no luck.
It works flawlessly with the same driver from Ubunti 8.10 as suggested earlier.
For the time being, this seems to be the only way to get the card working.
I noticed that Arch's and Ubuntu's intel_drv.so have different file sizes, so there must be some difference.

Thanks for your help!

magisu · 2008-10-16 18:18:29

Searinox wrote:

Hi thho,
I'm sorry about my mail, no idea why it didn't work.
I tried your xorg conf with the arch intel driver - no luck.
It works flawlessly with the same driver from Ubunti 8.10 as suggested earlier.
For the time being, this seems to be the only way to get the card working.
I noticed that Arch's and Ubuntu's intel_drv.so have different file sizes, so there must be some difference.
Thanks for your help!

Yes, this is what I have noticed. I think Ubuntu has patched it.

Searinox · 2008-10-16 19:14:02

I think I tracked the problem down now.
The following patch cures the problem completely for me:
http://gitweb.freedesktop.org/?p=xorg/d … 7869e13d1d

I made a new pkgbuild that uses the patch:
http://www.phoboid.net/files/xf86-video-intel.tar.gz

The patch is in the official xorg repository, so we should see
it in the next official driver.

Thanks again for all your help!

tanis · 2008-10-18 19:48:17

It looks like this patch resolved all the problems, thanks for sharing!

BetterButterBuddha · 2008-11-09 17:20:11

Hey there --

So, I'm having this exact same problem. Running a T400, using only the 4500mhd chipset. Arch is completely up to date, and then some.

But, I can't get a working X server. Every time I run an Xorg -configure, and then test my system, it just locks up completely. Under some settings I would see a cursor, and under others I wouldn't, but either way, my system would freeze completely - not even recognizing capslock.

I have tried the stable version of xf86-video-intel, the testing verstion, and I have tried the compiling from the 2.5.0 tarball. None of these work.

Also, I have tried using the PKGBUILD with the patch you mention above, but it will not build for me - it says

i810.h:73:20: error: xf86mm.h No such file or directory

And it all goes downhill from there.

Please help!!! I'm at my wits end here, and ubuntu is beginning to look tempting. I am writing this from links...

tanis · 2008-11-09 17:58:22

You mean you are having problems running Xorg -configure using xf86-video-intel from Arch's repo?
If not, what if you use the xorg.conf provided above? Does it help?

But without the patched driver - yes, expect problems. You need to start with building the patched version of the driver...

tanis · 2008-11-09 18:04:48

Hm, it looks that xf86-video-intel needs specific version of libdrm.
So, before running makepkg on PKGBUILD provided here, run this:
pacman -S extra/libdrm
- it will install libdrm in version 2.3.1.
You can update it to the newest one once the driver is built.

dakor · 2008-11-25 22:21:59

Is this patch still needed? If not which pkg version was the patch included in?

Also, Rognon has started a WIKI page for the T400. It may be of use to some people.
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Len … nkPad_T400

Last edited by dakor (2008-11-25 22:24:47)

Arch Linux

#1 2008-10-12 08:09:51

[SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#2 2008-10-12 11:16:45

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#3 2008-10-12 18:48:58

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#4 2008-10-12 22:38:34

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#5 2008-10-13 01:12:17

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#6 2008-10-13 01:44:50

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#7 2008-10-13 04:47:28

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#8 2008-10-13 05:29:30

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#9 2008-10-13 17:06:57

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#10 2008-10-14 00:26:27

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#11 2008-10-14 19:15:59

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#12 2008-10-14 20:06:27

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#13 2008-10-15 11:46:43

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#14 2008-10-15 13:55:34

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#15 2008-10-15 14:02:19

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#16 2008-10-16 17:00:10

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#17 2008-10-16 17:15:07

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#18 2008-10-16 18:18:29

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#19 2008-10-16 19:14:02

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#20 2008-10-18 19:48:17

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#21 2008-11-09 17:20:11

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#22 2008-11-09 17:58:22

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#23 2008-11-09 18:04:48

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

#24 2008-11-25 22:21:59

Re: [SOLVED] Lenovo T400 intel's 4500MHD problem

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