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#1 2009-01-12 17:11:27

userlander
Member
Registered: 2008-08-23
Posts: 413

Xorg: Screen randomly going black

Is anyone else getting this? It just started for me today. I'll be in X, and the screen will just go blank for a second or two. I checked all my hardware connections and power cord, and everything is snug. There's nothing in the log or dmesg. The only recent upgrades for me have been libwebkit, pycairo, abiword, and libmysqlclient/mysql-clients. I did upgrade to the new hal/hal-info yesterday, but that broke CD/DVD writing again, so I downgraded back to the earlier version I have installed. There it goes again -- weird. Seemingly at random.

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#2 2009-01-12 19:03:13

dunc
Member
From: Glasgow, UK
Registered: 2007-06-18
Posts: 559

Re: Xorg: Screen randomly going black

Yep, very occasionally: three or four times over the last six months or so. Again, I'm fairly certain it isn't hardware. You're obviously getting it more than me though, so it might be a different issue.


0 Ok, 0:1

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#3 2009-01-12 21:05:21

userlander
Member
Registered: 2008-08-23
Posts: 413

Re: Xorg: Screen randomly going black

Okay, thanks for the confirmation. It seems to have stopped for the time being. The last time it happened was during the original post, in fact. If it keeps happening I'll see if I can detect a pattern.

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#4 2009-01-13 19:34:08

dunc
Member
From: Glasgow, UK
Registered: 2007-06-18
Posts: 559

Re: Xorg: Screen randomly going black

Good luck. I faintly suspect heavy system load (ie., both memory and CPU) but it's so rare it's very hard to figure out any pattern at all.


0 Ok, 0:1

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#5 2009-01-14 08:34:56

my64
Member
From: France
Registered: 2007-12-30
Posts: 88

Re: Xorg: Screen randomly going black

Yes, I have a similar problem. Randomly I get a black screen under Xorg.
It hapens since October-November time frame. Most of the time but not every time, it happens when I an browsing under firefox and opening some pdf files...

I tried to reverse back to an an old Xorg version (1.4.x):still problem
I tried to reverse back to old nvidia graphics: still problem
No idea how to solve this, I even don't know what file  to check to get  more details about the error.
Olivier

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#6 2009-01-14 16:20:02

userlander
Member
Registered: 2008-08-23
Posts: 413

Re: Xorg: Screen randomly going black

my64 wrote:

Yes, I have a similar problem. Randomly I get a black screen under Xorg.
It hapens since October-November time frame. Most of the time but not every time, it happens when I an browsing under firefox and opening some pdf files...

I tried to reverse back to an an old Xorg version (1.4.x):still problem
I tried to reverse back to old nvidia graphics: still problem
No idea how to solve this, I even don't know what file  to check to get  more details about the error.
Olivier

kernel.log would be my best guess, but I'm not seeing anything there, so maybe not.

I had 3 or 4 of them yesterday. I suspected firefox too, but I shut it down and it still happened. other suspects include conky, mythfrontend, mpd/sonata (unlikely, but i just began using those recently when this started), Xorg, kernel bug, bad memory, or something in xfce4.

I have a k8 via chipset, I'm also starting to suspect that, for no other reason than I think via chipsets probably suck in general. Basically it's just shooting in the dark (literally) with it happening so randomly and nothing in the log files. I'll post if there's anything I find out. thanks for the confim.

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#7 2009-01-14 17:15:16

my64
Member
From: France
Registered: 2007-12-30
Posts: 88

Re: Xorg: Screen randomly going black

My PC has Nvidia nForce chipset, AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core, and graphic card is Leadtek WinFast PX8600 GT.
I know that there is a bug in X currently related to the load of the system. If I can find more details, I will post here.

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#8 2009-01-14 20:16:03

azleifel
Member
Registered: 2007-10-28
Posts: 486

Re: Xorg: Screen randomly going black

This is an old problem for me, starting several years ago when I was using Debian.  X doesn't seem to consider typing to be an activity and will blank the monitor after the default 10 minutes has elapsed with no mouse movement.  The problem went away after I added the following to the ServerFlags section of xorg.conf to disable blanking etc.:

        Option          "BlankTime" "0"
        Option          "StandbyTime" "0"
        Option          "SuspendTime" "0"
        Option          "OffTime" "0"

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#9 2009-01-14 21:06:55

dunc
Member
From: Glasgow, UK
Registered: 2007-06-18
Posts: 559

Re: Xorg: Screen randomly going black

azleifel wrote:

This is an old problem for me, starting several years ago when I was using Debian.  X doesn't seem to consider typing to be an activity and will blank the monitor after the default 10 minutes has elapsed with no mouse movement.

Interesting, although I'm fairly sure at least one of mine occurred while I was moving the mouse. I'll definitely bear that in mind to watch out for though.


0 Ok, 0:1

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#10 2009-01-14 23:18:28

my64
Member
From: France
Registered: 2007-12-30
Posts: 88

Re: Xorg: Screen randomly going black

azleifel wrote:

This is an old problem for me, starting several years ago when I was using Debian.  X doesn't seem to consider typing to be an activity and will blank the monitor after the default 10 minutes has elapsed with no mouse movement.

Well, this is not the same case. In my case, the "screen goes black" because X has exit (or coredump or whatever) and  I am back to the command line from where i did the initial "xstart". X completely falls down.

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#11 2009-01-14 23:35:53

MoonSwan
Member
From: Great White North
Registered: 2008-01-23
Posts: 881

Re: Xorg: Screen randomly going black

I've got the same issue as the OP, starting 6 months ago or so.  It happens most often when I start up fluxbox, it blanks right after fluxbox loads then returns.  It does not happen as frequently when I use KDE4 (if ever) but did when I had KDE3.5 and doesn't occur when I'm using just a prompt.  Very odd and very random in some respects, apart from what I noted above.

Incidentally, my entire setup is Intel (Northbridge), Asus (mobo, has both Sata & Pata ports + Promise HD Raid controller which is unused) & Nvidia (video) parts.  I don't recall this happening with an ATI card at all so can't comment on that bit.

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#12 2009-01-14 23:37:53

userlander
Member
Registered: 2008-08-23
Posts: 413

Re: Xorg: Screen randomly going black

my64: if you are getting booted totally out of X, that is different than what's happening to me. In my case, the screen resumes back to normal after the 1 second or so blanking. It did seem to happen during mouse movement for me, too, and a few times it also happened two or three times in a row, before 10 minutes had elapsed for screen blanking.

The problem seems to have been around for a while, though, as this user on Fedora describes the exact same thing almost a year ago:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=443292

Too early to tell, but fwiw I had 'Load "v4l"' in my xorg options for testing something, and the screen hasn't blanked since I commented that out (and restarted X). But the problem is so random, it's possible it just hasn't happened yet again. But that is one thing I remember changing recently (trying to get flash video to stop being choppy), right around the time this started. Still waiting to see if it happens again with v4l commented...

Last edited by userlander (2009-01-14 23:42:38)

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#13 2009-02-05 23:02:04

jordz
Member
Registered: 2006-02-01
Posts: 248

Re: Xorg: Screen randomly going black

I have had the same problem. Did a reinstall a few weeks ago and installed the nvidia driver set it fixed @ 60 hz (for lcd). I haven't had any issues anymore. I used the nvidia-config gtk2 tool to create the fixed hz.

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "9600GT"
    Driver      "nvidia"
    VendorName  "All"
    BoardName   "All"
    Option      "UseEdidDpi" "false"
    Option      "DPI" "96 x 96"

EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "9600GT"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "TwinView" "0"
    Option         "metamodes" "1920x1200_60 +0+0; 1024x768 +0+0; 800x600 +0+0; 640x480 +0+0"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Last edited by jordz (2009-02-05 23:02:30)

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#14 2009-02-05 23:31:59

userlander
Member
Registered: 2008-08-23
Posts: 413

Re: Xorg: Screen randomly going black

jordz wrote:

I have had the same problem. Did a reinstall a few weeks ago and installed the nvidia driver set it fixed @ 60 hz (for lcd). I haven't had any issues anymore. I used the nvidia-config gtk2 tool to create the fixed hz.

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "9600GT"
    Driver      "nvidia"
    VendorName  "All"
    BoardName   "All"
    Option      "UseEdidDpi" "false"
    Option      "DPI" "96 x 96"

EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "9600GT"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "TwinView" "0"
    Option         "metamodes" "1920x1200_60 +0+0; 1024x768 +0+0; 800x600 +0+0; 640x480 +0+0"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

I just switched to nvidia, and all my graphics problems went away faster than I could type pacman -S nvidia. big_smile

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