[Bug 30447] Re: Lockup problems with both the free xorg ATI driver and the proprietary fglrx driver, using various ATI cards

[Mattias Johnsson]

I have what I think is the same problem, so I won't file a new bug
report, but rather list in detail what I've found out about the problem.
I know people trying to fix bugs appreciate excruciating detail, so here
we go:

I am using a fresh stock install of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS 64-bit edition,
fully up to date. I have not installed anything from universe or
multiverse. My video card is an ATI X800 Pro (AGP version), and my
monitor is a 17 inch LCD (Samsung Syncmaster 172x) running on the card's
DVI output.

During the install process, either the card or the monitor was not
recognized, and the install defaulted to 600x480 resolution (which is a
problem in itself, because you can't see the forward/back buttons at
this resolution). After the install was complete, there was no way I
could get any resolution higher than 600x480, despite running dpkg-
reconfigure xserver-xorg many times and hacking the xorg.conf file to
death.

At this point I installed the xorg-driver-fglrx
(7.0.0-8.25.18+2.6.15.11-1) package using Synaptic, and reconfigured the
xorg.conf file by running "sudo aticonfig --initial". This fixed my
resolution problem but introduced a new bug, which appears to be related
to the bug discussed in this thread.

Whenever I choose "restart" or "shutdown" or "switch user" from the
System->Quit menu, the computer immediately hangs permanently with a
black screen. A chunk of the shutdown music loops repeatedly with a
period of ~0.3 seconds.

Further testing shows that this hang also occurs if I log out twice.
That is, I can log in as any user, log out, log in as any user and then
experience the same hang when I log out again. This second logout of
death is independent of the number of users I create on the system.

If I open a terminal and type "sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop" the hang
immediately occurs.

Adding "AlwaysRestartServer=true" to gdm.conf-custom as suggested above
does not fix the problem. Neither does the suggestion of adding Option
"UseInternalAGPGART" "no" to my xorg.conf file.

The hang does not occur if I boot in safe mode, and then shut down with
"shutdown -r".

If I go back to the "ati" driver rather than the "fglrx" driver, this
hang problem goes away, but once again I am condemned to an immutable
600x480 resolution. This is totally repeatable. The "ati" driver screws
up the resolution, and the "fglrx" driver causes a hang.

The final piece of information is that this did not occur under Breezy
installed on the same PC. Under Breezy the resolution was fine with the
"ati" driver, and there was no hang with the "fglrx" driver. I believe,
although I am not 100% sure, that the Breezy version was 32-bit, not
64-bit.

If you need any more information such as log files, please get in
contact with me; I'd be happy to help. I would include them, but I don't
know where they are or what would be relevant.

-- 
Lockup problems with both the free xorg ATI driver and the proprietary fglrx driver, using various ATI cards
https://launchpad.net/bugs/30447