I have a custom PC on Sandy Bridge, intel i3-2000 chip with integrated graphics and 4 gig ram. Squeeze runs OK with minor problems. Wheezy installs but after running for a period the display crashes. It is visible in the background with parallel oblongs over it. The keyboard is dead and I can only exit by switching off the power. There is no Xorg configuration file and Xorg -configure produces output on the terminal but no .conf file. The last line on the terminal says that more screens have been found than devices and the wiki.x.org says this is a fatal error and will prevent generation of a configuration file. I have checked the installation disk and it passes.

The last re-install worked for three days but when I installed recommended updates the screen disintegrated at once. They all related to graphics. Previously the system continued running but with nothing accessible. Now when the screen collapses, after a few minutes the whole system goes down.

Is this fixable or is the hardware incompatible with the OS?

Hi:

Try installing a driver for your graphics card.
To find out what graphics card you have run this command:-
If that command doesn't work run lspci read through the output and you should be able to find what card you have.
If your not sure post the output in code tags for use to read and find out what card you have.

I don't recommend using a proprietary driver unless there is no other choice.
I have had issue's with AMD and buggy drivers--

Is this a desktop or laptop pc? An Asus, HP or Dell?

# apt-get install firmware-linux-free firmware-linux-nonfree

Not sure if that'll help, but it got my radeon working in something other than vesa on testing. And I think wheezy before I upgraded due to glibc being version 2.13 in wheezy where java games require 2.14+ for open gl acceleration.

I had already used lspci It shows an integrated graphics card on Sandybridge and a VGA compatible driver also on Sandybridge ending with (rev 09).
I have a desktop. It is custom built. I had an Acer in a small case and inevitably it melted down, the motherboard, not the chip. The technician built a new machine in a nice large case on Sandybridge and an i3-2100 quad chip. Most of the peripherals still worked. The monitor is a Dell I think 2009. Squeeze does not recognize it and uses a generic driver. Wheezy does recognize it and shows resolution 1280 x 1024 refresh Ohz rotation normal and /usr/lib/xorg I don't know enough to follow up in xorg I would try a generic driver if I knew where to find it and how and where to install it.

I have gone back to Squeeze but would still like to upgrade if possible.

Output from lspci and lspci -n would help ID the hardware.

$ lspci
$ lspci -n

But the result is the same for "other" drivers like vesa, the generic one. Or fbdev.

# apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-all

or substitute all with vesa. You might have to apt-get remove the one that fails on you, but options that are available. You can check /var/log/Xorg.0.log for details of what might be happening.

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Sandy Bridge DRAM Controller (rev 09)

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Sandy Bridge Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)

This is the output

00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Cougar Point HECI Controller #1 (rev 04)

00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation Cougar Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 05)

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Cougar Point High Definition Audio Controller (rev 05)

00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cougar Point PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev b5)

00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cougar Point PCI Express Root Port 5 (rev b5)

00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation Cougar Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 05)

00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev a5)

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Cougar Point LPC Controller (rev 05)

00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation Cougar Point 4 port SATA IDE Controller (rev 05)

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation Cougar Point SMBus Controller (rev 05)

00:1f.5 IDE interface: Intel Corporation Cougar Point 2 port SATA IDE Controller (rev 05)

02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 06)

alaric@localhost:~$ ^C

alaric@localhost:~$



lspci -n

00:00.0 0600: 8086:0100 (rev 09)

00:02.0 0300: 8086:0102 (rev 09)

00:16.0 0780: 8086:1c3a (rev 04)

00:1a.0 0c03: 8086:1c2d (rev 05)

00:1b.0 0403: 8086:1c20 (rev 05)

00:1c.0 0604: 8086:1c10 (rev b5)

00:1c.4 0604: 8086:1c18 (rev b5)

00:1d.0 0c03: 8086:1c26 (rev 05)

00:1e.0 0604: 8086:244e (rev a5)

00:1f.0 0601: 8086:1c5c (rev 05)

00:1f.2 0101: 8086:1c00 (rev 05)

00:1f.3 0c05: 8086:1c22 (rev 05)

00:1f.5 0101: 8086:1c08 (rev 05)

02:00.0 0200: 10ec:8168 (rev 06)


The last entry in the log is normal. The log simply stops when the crash occurs. There is no output. I will try to re-install Wheezy and try the suggestions. Last time I had some problems with the install.

There's a bug report for your issue. So you're not alone. It appears to be a kernel issue with the i915 video driver and the 3.2.x kernel. Which is the default kernel for wheezy. You could try other kernels, but you wouldn't get them from the wheezy repository.

Other kernels are here on this page.
https://www.kernel.org/

Thanks for all the help. I suspected it was a kernel problem as it occurs with other distros using the latest kernel I will have to stick with Squeeze until someone fixes the bug though how I will know if it is fixed I don't know. I am not savvy enough to install a different kernel. Suse worked (I think) but I had other problems with it. Mageia showed the same problem. Fedora is really for someone more expert than I am. All the Debian variants have the same problem.

I am very gratedul for all the help.

Alaric

Your Welcome-

Fedora isn't that hard to run once you get to know the system and learn how to use the commandline utility "yum"-

Don't forget to mark your thread SOLVED-