[Intel-gfx] Very strange GM45 crash behavior over a wide range of driver versions

[Jens Mittag]

Hi!

I am following the development of the xf86-video-intel driver for over 5 
months already and I am hoping since then that my GM45 will run stable 
enough at some point in time. However, I am not able to find a working 
combination of xorg-server, libdrm, mesa, xf86-video-intel and linux 
kernel which won't crash my computer shortly after I start X.

The problem: as long as I don't start an X server my laptop runs without 
any problems (e.g. I can compile packages for hours and load the CPU as 
much as I want), but as soon as I start X, it is only a question of 
seconds until my display freezes and the whole systems hangs. It is 
sufficient to load my computer (e.g. by starting a few applications, 
starting a compile or by running glxgears) to reproduce this behavior. A 
cold reboot is the only solution then.

As said, I have tried the following package versions already in more or 
less all possible combinations (takes a lot of time):

   - xf86-video-intel from 2.8.0 to 2.9.1
   - xorg-server 1.7.2, 1.6.5 and 1.6.3
   - libdrm from 2.4.11 to 2.4.15
   - mesa 7.6, 7.6.1, 7.5.2 and 7.5.1
   - several kernel versions from 2.6.30 to latest 2.6.32-rc8-git1

I don't know what else to try anymore. I would like to be able to 
provide a better bug report to help, but my tries to get a crashdump 
from the kernel had no success. Also my debug approaches of the X server 
with gdb dont work since the whole computer is locked down when I get 
this freeze. Can you give me a hint or tell me how you would debug this 
situation? Thanks for your help.

  Jens

-- 
Jens Mittag, Tullastraße 38, 76131 Karlsruhe
E-Mail: jens.mittag at prime23.de
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