[SOLVED] Stuck w/ vesa on GMA 4500MHD

Philosopher · 07-28-2011, 10:07 AM

Hi all,

I just bought a new Laptop, Acer TravelMate 5735Z with an Intel GMA 4500MHD Graphics Chip. Problems started right at the installation (Fedora 15 x86_64). When I chose default installation the screen went blank, although I could hear it was working. So I had to use the option 'basic video support' and Fedora installed smoothly, although with with vesa and incorrect display resolution.

Now I tried to change the graphics driver from 'vesa' to 'intel', which is afaik know the correct driver. But when I do so in the xorg.conf then X refuses to start. I also tried 'i915' and 'xf86-video-intel' but none worked.

The package 'Xorg X11 Intel video driver' is installed, however kernel log says module does not exist.

Idea anybody?

macemoneta · 07-29-2011, 10:58 AM

Apply updates, then remove the xorg.conf and reboot. If that doesn't work, post the contents of /var/log/Xorg.0.log in an attachment.

Philosopher · 07-29-2011, 06:26 PM

Thanks for your reply. In the meantime there is a little progress. Driver and extensions are being loaded, but now it cant find any screens.

When I delete the xorg.conf, it boots with no difference, means vesa and wrong display resolution. So I assume the problem lies within my xorg.conf:

Code:

Section "ServerFlags"
    Option "DontZap" "False" # disable <Ctrl><Alt><BS> (server abort)            
    #DontZoom # disable <Ctrl><Alt><KP_+>/<KP_-> (resolution switching)               
    AllowMouseOpenFail # allows the server to start up even if the mouse does not work
   # Option "AutoAddDevices" False"                               
EndSection

Section "Files"
    ModulePath "/usr/lib64/xorg/modules"
    ModulePath "/usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers"
    ModulePath "/usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load "v4l" # Video for Linux                                                                              
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "monitor1"
    VendorName "Generic"
    ModelName "Flat Panel 1366x768"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier "device1"
    VendorName "Intel Corporation"
    BoardName "Intel 810 and later"
    Driver "intel"
#   Driver "vesa"
    Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "screen1"
    Device "device1"
    Monitor "monitor1"
    DefaultColorDepth 24

    Subsection "Display"
        Depth 24
        Modes "1366x768"
    EndSubsection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier "layout1"
    Screen "screen1"
EndSection

macemoneta · 07-29-2011, 06:44 PM

The 4500 should be autodetected and configured. In your log, you had an xorg.conf which invalidates it for problem determination. Make sure you are current on maintenance, remove the xorg.conf, and reboot, then save/post the xorg.0.log.

Philosopher · 07-30-2011, 04:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by macemoneta

The 4500 should be autodetected and configured.

Yep, that's what I thought, too. And it was one of the reasons why I bought it, because I'm tired of reconfigureing my nvidia/ radeon driver with every kernel update or when I just want to take advantage of the latest driver release.

This is now the log when there is no xorg.conf.

What I find strange, is that it finds three autoconfigured drivers (intel, vesa, fbdev), loads them, but then can't find the framebuffer device and chooses vesa. It even figures out the right modeline which unfortunately can't be handled by vesa

macemoneta · 07-30-2011, 10:03 AM

Remove the 'nomodeset' option from your kernel boot line, and reboot. I you still have a problem, post the updated Xorg.0.log.

Philosopher · 07-31-2011, 05:02 PM

It's working!!! Removing the nomodeset option did it. Thanks a lot!!

However, that wasn't the only problem. When I tried it first, the screen went blank again, just like when I tried installing it first time. Xorg.0.log didn't give me any further hint. So I sat down again and tried setting up an extra modeline in xorg.conf and played around with that in combination with and without giving that nomodeset option to grub.

After roundabout 20 reboots the computer started once again without 'nomodeset' while I got myself a coffee. When I came back and took a look at the screen, it was black - as usual. But then - I was just about pressing the power button again - I noticed a scheme, hardly to see. And if it wasn't already dark outside I definately wouldn't have! I took a closer look and voila: Definately the gdm login screen! And this is the moment, when coincedence and luck came together.
When I first logged in with vesa driven display I noticed that it wasnt possible to regulate brightness of the laptop display. So I asked the internet search engine of my choice and found a hint, that I should add the option acpi_os=linux to grub commandline. It didn't really seem to work though, but I kept it anyway - lucky me! Because when I saw that dark scheme of the gdm login, I hit the brightness key on my keyboard and just like turning on the light in a dark room the screen came to live.

To make a long story short: It looks like the problem is actually not the intel driver but a faulty regulation of display brightness respectively the missing "acpi_os=linux" grub option. And because of that, the user is forced to install Fedora with that "basic video support" option, which leads to the nomodeset option in grub which causes X to start with vesa.
So the real solution would be to start the installer with "acpi_os=linux" in first place and then just hit the brightness button for the picture to come up (or even better: fix the driver that causes the screen to go blank).

Thanks again for your help!