Freeze when starting any graphics

[jmerkin]

Hi all,

I've been through a number of installs before. I am now trying to install (k)ubuntu on a toshiba satellite L500. It will either stall before progressing to the installation or when it reboots after finishing if I use the test installer. I tried 9.10 and 10.4beta and it's the same thing. It will either stall with a blank screen (but somewhat responsive: ctrl+alt+prtsc+R,E,I,U,B,S will reboot it), or a text listing similar to dmesg output:

Code:

[0.91034] [<ffffffffff8124382>] (text)

repeated over and over where (text) is some stuff about acpi, kernel_init, schedule_tail, or child_rip. I'm really unsure of how to approach this.

It has the Intel HM55 wireless integrated chipset. [SOLVED] blank screen during install on Toshiba laptop - Intel graphics - Page 2 - Ubuntu Forums suggests that it is not that compatible with linux, but they had success with the current kernel. I unfortunately, have not. Any ideas?

[devils casper]

Have you used Alternate Installation CD? It has text based installer and it work fine with most of Graphics Cards.
Try to burn .iso image at lowest possible speed supported by your CD/DVD Burner.

[jmerkin]

hello devil's casper

thanks for the reply. the alternate installs are th only ones i can really get to work. they'll install and work fine, provided i want to do nothing involving X.

some more googling got me to this email chain [Ubuntu-x-swat] [Bug 518938] Re: black screen on Intel HM55 - during boo

and ultimately this supposed solution Using the Intel Arrandale (Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD) with Ubuntu 9.10 [Linux Wiki Guides]. i'll be trying it tomorrow and will update.

[jmerkin]

no dice. i have a choice between stalling on the dmesg-like output or just the bsod (blank screen of death). alternately, i can boot up in single user mode and drop to a prompt.

i've switched back and forth between 9.10 and 10.04. 9.10 gave me a weak gui in safe mode, but not much else functioned. 10.04 gave me networking, but no x.

i'm writing this off and will wait a few months before attempting again unless anybody else has some ideas.

[devils casper]

Could you post the contents of /etc/X11/xorg.conf file here?

[jmerkin]

hi devil's casper

i'm not entirely certain that it's using the xorg.conf. rather, there's a file xorg.conf.failsafe that seems to be used more. initially there was just the failsafe file. i copied it over to a new file xorg.conf. failsafe is as follows:

Section "Device"
Identifier "configured Video Device"
Driver "vesa"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

i was playing around with xorg edgers, which was supposed to have HM55 support, but still no luck. after installing the newest version of x, i switched the driver to "intel" from vesa and it didn't change anything.

i think it's that x is actually crashing. sometimes when i start the computer, it will start up the gui, but after like a tenth of a second it crashes.

[devils casper]

Create a new xorg.conf file :

Section "Device"
       Identifier "Configured Video Device"
       Option "RenderAccel" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
         Identifier "Configured Monitor"
         HorizSync 31.5 - 50.0
         VertRefresh 40-90
         Option "UseEdidFreqs" "1"
         Option "ReducedBlanking"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "Default Screen"
        Monitor "Configured Monitor"
        Device "Configured Video Device"
        DefaultDepth 24
        Subsection "Display"
             Depth 24
             Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        EndSubsection
EndSection

Save file and reboot machine.

This configuration works fine in most of machies having X Server problems.

[jmerkin]

Hi devil's casper

Tried making that the xorg.conf, both with and without the "driver 'intel'" line and still blank screen when the splash screen should pop up. Do you have any other ideas?

Thanks for your help with this.

[devils casper]

Boot up in command line mode and post the contents of /var/log/xorg.0.log file here.

[jmerkin]

both Xorg.0.log and Xorg.0.log.old are empty. Xorg.failsafe.log and Xorg.failsafe.log.old look the same and are described below. the usb and wireless aren't quite working (it'll be quite a project by the time i'm done...) so i can't get the log off the computer. however, they have not been modified since March24th, so i'm not sure how much of this information is useful.

it would seem that it is still using the vesa driver and is unable to 'estimate virtual size'. it says something about not using the built-in mode and not having valid modes. then it says something about not using builtin modes 800x600 or 640x480, setting the virtual size to 1024x768 and using that builtin mode.

i think the issue that it's still using vesa. from what i've read, there are do you agree?