[Intel-gfx] Screen unusable for console until X starts (945GM)

[Rolf Eike Beer]

I have an older Laptop with this card in it:

[    0.813208] agpgart-intel 0000:00:00.0: Intel 945GM Chipset
[    0.813284] agpgart-intel 0000:00:00.0: detected gtt size: 262144K total, 
262144K mappable
[    0.814188] agpgart-intel 0000:00:00.0: detected 8192K stolen memory
[    0.814377] agpgart-intel 0000:00:00.0: AGP aperture is 256M @ 0xc0000000

I observe the following strange behavior: if I start up the system (grub2, 
openSUSE 12.1) I see the splash screen appearing shortly. In most cases it 
will then disappear and the screen will become just black. This is not the 
delay "X is loading but has not put anything on the screen", but it is much 
earlier. I'm asked for a crypt password during bootup, which in most cases now 
happens totally in the dark, i.e. no console messages at all, no prompt. 
Booting just to runlevel 3 leaves me with a black screen but a functional 
system.

The strange thing is: sometimes (like 10%) things are just working, i.e. I 
have console output. I've tested with 3.1.10 as well as 3.6.2 and both have 
the problem. I've run a number of 2.6 kernels before on this system, but I do 
not recall when the problem occured or which is one that definitely worked.

Starting X will always get the screen back into working state, i.e. the system 
is normally usable after startup, but it is just annoying to see nothing 
during startup.

Any hints, patches, whatever?

Greetings,

Eike

P.S.: please keep me on CC, I'm not on the list.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/intel-gfx/attachments/20121020/af6900d6/attachment.sig>