Arch Linux

perchy22

Member

From: San Francisco

Registered: 2011-03-29

Posts: 5

Screen pauses/stops refreshing

I have a problem with my screen not refreshing after an (seemingly random) amount of time with no input. Video playback also seems to keep the screen refreshing, even if it is flash on a non-active tab in Firefox. This wouldn't be a big deal, except that it generally takes less than 10 seconds to happen (sometimes it will happen right when input stops), and that I have Conky and a clock that I would like to be able to monitor without constantly moving my mouse.

This happens in both my Openbox Arch Linux install but not live booting Archbang on my desktop. My desktop's graphics card is a Radeon HD 4670. I haven't touched any X configuration (besides minimal .X{resources,defaults} and xinitrc). Also, I start out in terminal, then start X, without changing runlevel (ie stay on 3).

Let me know what other info is needed, and/or if I should be going somewhere else with this or if it is already solved. Thank you!

eldragon

Member

From: Buenos Aires

Registered: 2008-11-18

Posts: 1,029

Re: Screen pauses/stops refreshing

do you need to reboot the system to get this working again?

smells like the gpu is hanging.

check what dmesg has to say

did this happen with a new kernel? or with new userspace drivers / xorg?

perchy22

Member

From: San Francisco

Registered: 2011-03-29

Posts: 5

Re: Screen pauses/stops refreshing

It is a temporary thing: I move my mouse/type, it goes away, I stop, it comes back.

I know the gpu is most likely not hanging since it does not happen in Archbang or the old Ubuntu based Crunchbang. dmesg also shows a clean seeming initialization and then says nothing more of the gpu.

Its also a fresh install. I'm using the vanilla .37-ARCH kernel, and basic setup of the radeon/xf86-video-ati module. Its been always happening with this install.

Is it possibly because I don't have a screen saver app?? Just thinking out loud.

Lastly, /var/log/Xorg.0.log and the messages printed in the tty I start X in, says that it failed to load fbdev. The former also states that this is before radeon is loaded.

Thanks

Last edited by perchy22 (2011-03-31 05:04:46)