[arch-general] Linux-3.7.3-1-i686 blank screen

[Federico Cinelli]

On Sun, 10 Feb 2013 00:15:50 +0000
Mauro Santos <registo.mailling at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 09-02-2013 23:59, Whiskers wrote:
> > On Tue, 22 Jan 2013 16:20:47 -0600 Leonid Isaev <lisaev at umail.iu.edu>
> > wrote:
> > 
> >> On Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:07:56 +0000
> >> Whiskers <catwheezel at operamail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Tue, 22 Jan 2013 19:25:45 +0100 Karol Babioch <karol at babioch.de>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Hi,
> >>>>
> >>>> Am 22.01.2013 18:34, schrieb Whiskers:
> > 
> > [...]
> > 
> >>> I'm using the Nouveau video driver with an old laptop.  As
> >>> Linux-3.6.11-1 seems to be stable for me, I'll wait for the next kernel
> >>> version to reach the core repository.  
> >>
> >> If you're talking about 3.7.4, then it's unlikely to fix your issue,
> >> because there are only radeon fixes in the changelog
> >> http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.0/ChangeLog-3.7.4.
> >>
> >>>
> >>> I'll also try to work out how to have the previous kernel still
> >>> available to Grub-legacy after the next kernel upgrade.
> >>>
> >>> For the record, this is what my video hardware says it is:
> >>>
> >>> $ lspci | grep VGA
> >>> 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation NV31M [GeForce FX
> >>> Go5600] (rev a1)
> > 
> > I'm now up to Linux 3.7.6-1, and still the video card is going blank when
> > booting.  It happens reliably whenever I boot with a kernel later than 
> > linux-3.6.11-1-i686.pkg.tar.xz and happens at the point in the boot
> > sequence where the print on the screen shrinks to a small size - I think
> > that's when the 'frame buffer' is started.
> > 
> > I can log in 'blind' and issue console commands (eg shutdown -r now) but
> > startx does nothing.  
> > 
> > If I edit the 3.7.* boot entry in Grub-legacy to include nomodeset then I
> > do get to a visible login prompt, but of course no X.
> > 
> > For now, I'm booting into linux-lts-3.0.60-1-i686.pkg.tar.xz which works
> > fine, but may not be a long-term solution.
> > 
> > I don't know enough to interpret all the log entries, but I have found
> > that when booting from a kernel that successfully starts the
> > graphics, /var/log/kernel.log has a line such as this:
> > 
> > Feb  9 18:29:00 tavy kernel: [   18.124619] [drm] Initialized nouveau
> > 0.0.16 20090420 for 0000:01:00.0 on minor 0
> > 
> > whereas using a kernel that doesn't get the graphics working, the
> > corresponding log entry is like this:
> > 
> > Feb  9 18:23:33 tavy kernel: [   16.068483] [drm] Initialized nouveau
> > 1.1.0 20120801 for 0000:01:00.0 on minor 0
> > 
> 
> It seems you are using late KMS, try adding nouveau to the MODULES array
> in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and see if you still have problems.
> 
> I've had a problem similar to this quite a long time ago when kms stated
> to be supported by the radeon driver, adding the module to the initramfs
> solved the problem reliably.
> 
> > Both entries are confusing, given that the current nouveau packages
> > installed are nouveau-dri 9.0.2-1 and xf86-video-nouveau 1.0.6-1.  Would I
> > be right in guessing that xf86-video-nouveau 1.0.6-1 can handle the kernel
> > initialising nouveau 0.0.16 but not 1.1.0?
> > 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Mauro Santos

Have you tried the xf86-video-nv driver from [extra]. Also, if preloading the module in mkinitcpio.conf does not work. I would try appending both pci=nommconf and idle=poll to the kernel line of your boot loader..

-- 
Federico Cinelli <cinelli.federico at gmail.com>
"Stay true."