Video problems running Fedora 15

[heyboy]

I decided it was time to move from Windows XP and installed Fedora 15 on my Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop. However, I am now getting a blank screen on 'switch on' which can be resolved after a hard reset and the computer hangs if left untouched for longer than 1hour.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

[jayd512]

Hello and Welcome!

Open a terminal window, and use the following command:

/sbin/lspci -knn

Copy/paste the output here.

[Mudgen]

Looks like that has an ATI Mobility Radeon. The Dells with those are notorious for failing to turn the backlight back on a suspend/resume, which I suspect is what's happening with your hang: it's actually suspending on inactivity, and when it resumes the screen stays black so you think it's hung. Likewise the "switch on" may actually be a hibernate/resume and having the same problem. Not sure about that one: IIRC my old Latitude D600 would hibernate/resume without any hacks, it was S3 suspend/resume that had a problem.

There are suspend/resume quirk hooks that can be used to correct this, but require radeontool and vbetool to be present, and those kept disappearing/reappearing from FC6 to F12. I don't see either package in the F15 repos, either core or RPMFusion.

[heyboy]

Thanks for getting back - this is the output of /sbin/lspci -knn

00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM/GMS/910GML Express Processor to DRAM Controller [8086:2590] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0188]
00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM Express PCI Express Root Port [8086:2591] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1d.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1 [8086:2658] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0188]
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2 [8086:2659] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0188]
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.2 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3 [8086:265a] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0188]
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.3 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #4 [8086:265b] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0188]
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller [8086:265c] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0188]
Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd
00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge [8086:2448] (rev d3)
00:1e.2 Multimedia audio controller [0401]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller [8086:266e] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop [1028:0188]
Kernel driver in use: snd_intel8x0
Kernel modules: snd-intel8x0
00:1e.3 Modem [0703]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Modem Controller [8086:266d] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Conexant Systems, Inc. Device [14f1:5423]
Kernel driver in use: snd_intel8x0m
Kernel modules: snd-intel8x0m
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) LPC Interface Bridge [8086:2641] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0188]
Kernel modules: iTCO_wdt, intel-rng
00:1f.2 IDE interface [0101]: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) SATA Controller [8086:2653] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0188]
Kernel driver in use: ata_piix
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc M22 [Mobility Radeon X300] [1002:5460]
Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:2003]
Kernel driver in use: radeon
Kernel modules: radeon, radeonfb
03:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX [14e4:170c] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop [1028:0188]
Kernel driver in use: b44
Kernel modules: b44
03:01.0 CardBus bridge [0607]: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II [1180:0476] (rev b3)
Subsystem: Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop [1028:0188]
Kernel driver in use: yenta_cardbus
Kernel modules: yenta_socket
03:01.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394) [0c00]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C552 IEEE 1394 Controller [1180:0552] (rev 0
Subsystem: Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop [1028:0188]
Kernel driver in use: firewire_ohci
Kernel modules: firewire-ohci
03:01.2 SD Host controller [0805]: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter [1180:0822] (rev 17)
Subsystem: Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop [1028:0188]
Kernel driver in use: sdhci-pci
Kernel modules: sdhci-pci
03:03.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection [8086:4220] (rev 05)
Subsystem: Intel Corporation Dell Latitude D600 [8086:2722]
Kernel driver in use: ipw2200
Kernel modules: ipw2200

[jayd512]

I second what Mudgen said.
As far as the packages, radeontool & vbetool, I'm unable to find them, either.

[atreyu]

Hi,

I see radeontool and vbetool in the Fedora 15 repo:

Index of /pub/fedora/linux/releases/15/Everything/i386/os/Packages

I also see an updated ATI driver (xorg-x11-drv-ati) in the Fedora 15 Updates repo:

Index of /pub/fedora/linux/updates/15/i386

[jayd512]

Hi,

I see radeontool and vbetool in the Fedora 15 repo:

Index of /pub/fedora/linux/releases/15/Everything/i386/os/Packages

I also see an updated ATI driver (xorg-x11-drv-ati) in the Fedora 15 Updates repo:

Index of /pub/fedora/linux/updates/15/i386

jeez... my eyes skipped right over both of them.
Good catch!

[atreyu]

yeah, sometimes I miss packages near the end of the alphabet (like vbetool) when I'm looking at the Fedora Everything repo page b/c it is so friggin' long and it takes forever to load!

[heyboy]

So to clarify - do you reckon updating my ATI driver (xorg-x11-drv-ati) should solve this problem??
NB: Not 100% sure how to go about this, but am happy that I can figure it out.

[atreyu]

Hey, I don't know if it will solve your problem, but it is certainly worth a shot.

You just need to make sure the Fedora updates repo is configured and enabled (and I assume the Fedora box has an internet connection).

Do this to confirm that you can see the Fedora updates repo:

yum repolist

You should see updates listed or something like that.

If you don't see it, try:

yum --enablerepo=updates repolist

Then to install the update:

yum update xorg-x11-drv-ati

You may need to add the --enablerepo=updates flag. If the updates repo needs to be permanently enabled, you can edit /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates.repo and set enabled=1 under the [updates] stanza in it.

Then reboot to test.

To install the other two packages, you can do:

yum install vbetool radeontool

Although I'm not sure what you need to do once those are installed.