Slackware64 -current video problem with ATI HD5570
 

Hey guys! I just built a machine for a friend and he has a HIS Radeon HD5570. I successfully installed slack64 current (as of today nov. 20) and upon first attempt to enter the desktop, I experienced a problem. Basically, I log in, type startx to start the X server and then I see the KDE loading bar, and boom! black screen, the monitor goes to sleep. It happens with all monitors so far... Should I suspect a hardware problem? Please note I did not install any drivers so far.. Only Slackware...

How can I fix this? What do you need in order to help me?

If useful, I pasted my Xorg.0.log at pastbin

http://pastebin.com/XYfFnx39

Thanks as always!

Oop, seg. fault, X-server aborted.

Poor thing. Looks like it tried really hard ie loaded then unloaded copius amounts of drivers including vesa BTW I don't think vesa and radeon can coexist.

You need to enable kms. you also need the next file.

I ran xorgsetup (I think) which gave me an xorg.conf file.

I'm now running 2.6.35.8 and my HD 5450 radeon kms video is even better now than it was with 2.6.35.7

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post4117004

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post4130065

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post4117015

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...5/#post4133185

--
Alan.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post4117100

<grin><grin><grin><grin><grin>

Are we having fun yet?

*Yes*!!! Silly late hardware anyways. Go Slackware!!!!

Slackware rocks.

It's Slackware *equals* "Do what you want"

I do what I want ie virtual machines all over the place.

Serving desktop across lan and across internet be next on my agenda in my Slackware travels.

--
Alan.

I had the same problem with my HD5850. It has to do with the new mesa pkg.

After doing this I got to the desktop. But obviously composite doesn't work. I just removed the disable-composite.conf again and installed fglrx. Now it's working fine.

I just went through a similar experience with an HD4200:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post4166070

Follow the link to Eric's post and see if the mesa-7.9 to mesa-7.8.2 change helps.

I am sooooooooooooooo confused! reminds me of the days I was trying to install my FireGL card on mandrake.... hahaha the good ol' days!

now with this issue, I started off by trying what JackHair suggested. i.e. adding
to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/disable-composite.conf

And I could boot to the desktop. Then I continued with Jack's suggestion (removing the disabled-composite.conf file) and install the fglrx driver. To do so, I followed the instructions on the ATI's wiki for slackware64... That means I downloaded the installer.run , converted into 2 tgz packages and installed both of them using installpkg.

I ran aticonfig --initial and so far so good. I verified the content of xorg.conf as suggested on ATI's wiki but noticed a few problems such as the section module should be populated but it is not (empty).

I ran fglrxinfo but got a segmentation fault.

I think this is going to be complicated. Would reverting to the latest stable release of slack64 help? If not, I will need some major step by step assistance because I never really played with drivers and Xorg before....

thanks to all!

OK, let's try and focus on getting fglrx working, rather than using the mesa drivers.

Can you show us the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file you have while using fglrx?

Adam

thanks adam75k for replying!

just before I got your reply, I took the initiative to uninstall current and install the last stable release of slack64. I noticed that I could log in the desktop withourt problems but I experienced the "monitor going to sleep" upon clicking logout in KDE...

I then installed the fglrx driver following the same procedure as above and now xorg.conf contains:

section module is still empty but fglrxinfo now gives :
instead of a segmentation fault...

now to the Xorg.0.log as you requested, please look at http://pastebin.com/pfM30R8u

The log contains tons of fglrx lines so I think its good sign?!

Yes, according to everything you just posted, your drivers are working fine now.

Adam

Adam, if you dont mind I would have one more question... I tried to hook up the computer to the LCD tv via HDMI and noticed something funny. The resolution reported by the catalyst driver is 1920x1080 and that correspond to the native resolution of the tv we try to work with. So normally, the bottom of the desktop (the taskbar) and all other edges should be right on the edges of the tv display.... Right now, the image is somehow scaled up (like if the resolution was set higher than the TV can handle, and all 4 edges of the desktop are hidding.

DO you know how to fix this? I tried to play around with the catalist driver but no success.

UPDATE: I just tried to change the settings in the Tv and set the picture to scale to fit instead of 16:9.. Is that normal?

To me it sounds like the driver is overscanning or underscanning your display. Most new HDMI displays have an option to underscan or overscan. If yours does not, catalyst might, but I've never had to deal with it before so I wouldn't even know where to look.

Adam

Just as good as your guess was, I the overscanning was responsible for the problem... In the catalyst driver applet, I found the option to adjust the overscan and I lowered the slide bar to roughly 90% of what It was and now I have a perect match with the hdtv. We're happy with that!

Now I need to find out why I have no sound. Only KDE sounds (login, logout, and all sound events) work but playing flash videos from the web or even local media wont work. However MP3's work like a charm!

That mean that the sound is carried through HDMI but not for videos...

If you have another sound card it is very likely that those applications are trying to use it instead of the HDMI output. For video applications you should be able to specify the device (or set them to use KDE4's sound server instead of ALSA directly), but I really am not sure how to get Flash to behave other than setting your HDMI output as the default sound device (either through ~/.asoundrc or by setting it as card 0 in /etc/modprobe.d/sound.conf).

Run firefox from a terminal and start up a flash video. See what errors firefox displays.

Adam

Try this out, it should work good

http://www.shcherbyna.com/?p=866

I tried to start firefox froma terminal typing firefox URL but it simply opens the URL in a new firefox window, no errors in the terminal, I am simply dumped to the user@htpc:~$ prompt...

I just installed pulseaudio from sources using the slackbuild but I just realized that the instructions at the page you sent me are asking to move pulseaudio within the list to the top as the prefered sound server.... Does it mean that I will lose the sound over hdmi capability?

SHould it be in slackware by default?

Make sure firefox isn't already running.

Adam

I tried that and there is no output... Like if there was no errors..

I also tried the pulse audio thing.. It did not work. I ended up with losing all my sound devices and I had to remove pulseaudio to re-enable them. I was told by KDE that the devices were no longer required and it was recommended to remove them. I then removed pulseaudio and deleted the /etc/asound.conf file and rebooted and I got where I was at the beginning. See attached a screenshot of what I have in sound devices.

thanks!

You should *not* have to install pulseaudio for flash (technically it can be a solution alongside libflashsupport, but I would not recommend it). Flash outputs to the default sound device via ALSA directly (unless you use the hacky pulseaudio solution). If you want *all* sound to go through HDMI then you should set that sound card as the default sound device (index 0). See this page for setting the sound card priority globally or this page for routing audio to a default sound device via a ~/.asoundrc file.

T3slider, I got confused by this alsa stuff... this is the first time I play around that and I need more info...

aplay -l will give:

So if I understand correctly, I got 3 sound devices in this machine: HDA ATI SB VT1708S Analog, HDA ATI SB VT1708S Digital, and HD Audio generic ATI HDMI...

The one I want to use is the HDMI that goes to the HDTV via a HDMI cable (until I get a nice set of speakers). Because I have audio through HDMI in both KDE and amarok, I assume these programs, for some reasons, use device 1,3 (HDMI Audio) instead of the others. Speaker-test will try to run the test via the default audio device and I hear nothing..

So where in alsa.conf do I need to change the devices addresses for the whole system to output to HDMI?

It looks like both of your sound devices use the snd-hda-intel module (though I could be wrong here -- the output of `lspci -vv` as root would say for sure), so ordering them is going to be a fun exercise. The hard (but most correct) way would be to add a udev rule for each of your sound cards, following this page. You can get information about your sound devices with the following command (as root):
However, you need to know a bit about udev to do this, and it's quite a learning curve.

If you don't want to fight with that, the easy way is to just route all of your audio to hw:1,3 via a ~/.asoundrc file for each user (or globally via /etc/asound.conf -- note that /etc/asound.conf exists in a full Slackware installation but just contains bluetooth stuff. You would have to append to this file). The following is untested but might work:
You may or may not need to specify the device explicitly...if the above doesn't work you can try
I wish you good luck with this -- it can be done, but because both cards use the same kernel module it is unfortunately more difficult for you.

That describe my Linux adventures! What doesnt kill you makes you stronger! Tomorrow I will try all that stuff and post back!

thanks!

I really dont understand linux.... without changing anything and not even trying to, all sound now goes through hdmi like I wanted! The only thing now that does not work is the volume control (kmix). When I play around with it, it does not change the volume level that my hdtv output. kmix report only HDA ATI SB & HD audio generic which is my hdmi output according to the multimedia page in the system config (screenshot I posted in one of my posts above).

UPDATE: If anyone is reading this, I'd like some feedback... I previously said that the sound over hdmi came alive by "itself" (how thats possible) but I forgot to add that the sound is intermittent, that is, it plays and every 30sec or so, cuts off dfor a second and comes back. I noticed this only while watching movies (XBMC, VLC, MPlayer, etc). Using amarok to listen to my music collection does not do this. Could it be linked to the ATI HD5570 driver?

I recently discovered possible hardware malfunction with this ATI hd5570 card and I'm considering to close this thread because I replaced the card and seems to be OK now (no more sound problems). I replaced by an Nvidia GT430.

If need be, I might be opening a new thread in the future to solve the sound card ordering thing with udev, I never had a chance to try this.

Anyways thanks for all the help!