Arch Linux

kaitan

Member

Registered: 2011-09-13

Posts: 3

(G45, i915) blank screen with Xorg

Whenever I try to run Xorg, I get a blank screen on my laptop.  I've checked both http://bbs.archbang.org/viewtopic.php?id=160 and https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=116471 and followed the instructions, but that didn't help.  The card is listed as

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)

The kernel is
3.0-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Aug 30 07:32:23 UTC 2011 i686

My mkinitcpio has
MODULES="intel_agp i915"
and the graphics is switched on immediately at booting.

The grub is configured to work in text mode.

I did try to use the command
setpci -s 00:02.0 F4.B=00
as suggested in one of the linked forum discussions, but it didn't solve anything.

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: (G45, i915) blank screen with Xorg

Any errors in the logs?
/var/log/Xorg.0.log
/var/log/kernel.log

Are you using any DE / WM? Are you using .xinitrc? xorg.conf? slim?
Post the output of 'pacman -Q linux xf86-video-intel'.

Last edited by karol (2011-09-13 15:45:08)

kaitan

Member

Registered: 2011-09-13

Posts: 3

Re: (G45, i915) blank screen with Xorg

There are no errors in the logs (I grepped for EE and also inspected the logs; if it's useful at all, I could post them somewhere).  I haven't configured the use of any WM; I simply typed X (which points to Xorg), expecting to see a cursor in the shape of bold cross upon a black-and white or simply black pattern.

# pacman -Q linux xf86-video-intel
linux 3.0.4-1
xf86-video-intel 2.15.0-2

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: (G45, i915) blank screen with Xorg

Try to configure some WM in .xinitrc - twm, dwm - whatever. 'X' gives me a black screen too.

Edit: typo.

Last edited by karol (2011-09-20 00:24:55)

kaitan

Member

Registered: 2011-09-13

Posts: 3

Re: (G45, i915) blank screen with Xorg

Thank you. This resolved the problem. It is curious to note that the cursor (the cross on the root window) becomes visible only after interacting with some other window. Never had such behavior in the previous release of Xorg.

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: (G45, i915) blank screen with Xorg

When I run just 'X' I get a black window too, but running 'startx' w/o .xinitrc gives me a black cross with white border - so it's always visible.

Please remember to mark the thread as solved.