[Openchrome-users] Chrome9 HC VN896 + VT8237a not working

[V.O. Dah]

Hello all!
I am one of those unlucky Linux users, who have VIA graphics.

Details on the hardware / software

Chrome9 HC IGP (VN896 also known as P4M900, as I understood) and VT8237a
This is NEXOC notebook , made of Clevo M660 SE barebone notebook.
The LCD monitor TFT, 15,4 inch

In Bios, I set 128 MB for Video.

relevant strings from lspci -vnn output:

00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M900 Host Bridge [1106:0364]
    Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M900 Host Bridge [1106:0364]
    Flags: medium devsel
    Memory at c0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [disabled] [size=128M]
    Capabilities: [80] AGP version 3.5
    Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2

00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 PCI Bridge [1106:b198] (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
    Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 0
    Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=0
    Memory behind bridge: c9000000-c9ffffff
    Prefetchable memory behind bridge: a0000000-bfffffff
    Capabilities: [70] Power Management version 2

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: VIA Technologies, Inc. Chrome9 HC IGP [1106:3371] (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
    Subsystem: CLEVO/KAPOK Computer Unknown device [1558:0664]
    Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 9
    Memory at a0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=512M]
    Memory at c9000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
    Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2
    Capabilities: [70] AGP version 3.0

OS/Software

I have Slackware 12.0, kernel 2.6.22.1 , libdrm-2.3.0, 
kernel modules via, drm, via_agp, agpart are loaded at startup. 

I tried vesa, official VIA driver, and openchrome

VESA
    Vesa gives me max. 640x480 resolution (or maybe 800x600, not sure, have to check).
When I try to switch to console (Ctrl_At_F2 etc) or kill X server Ctrl Al Backspace), 
everything freezes, has to do power offf/on to reboot

VIA Official
    Tried to compile their driver, but it doesn't work (probably because it is distro
 and/or kernel-version specific  and I have to make some specific changes to make it work.
Anyway, I do not like the idea to use VIA-forks of Mplayer, xine et cetera

Openchrome
    I tried several branches, with "trunk", no devices were detected.
When I tried to use experimental, vn896 and release-0.30 branches, in every case I added 
my Card ID ( Clevo/ M660 SE   0x1558:0x0664] ) in via_id.c:
 {"Clevo M660SE",                   VIA_P4M900,  0x1558, 0x0664, VIA_DEVICE_CRT | VIA_DEVICE_LCD},

(Please, add it to svn code)

 With experimental branch and release-0.3.0 I only got darkgrey screen.
The branch vn896 worked best, 
   I could  get X working,  with resolution about 1280x800, but
the visible picture was somewhat smaller than the screen. 
(on the top, bottom and left and right of the screen was some black space)
 
I had cursor (using SWCursor), and could work *almost* normally. 
But could not switch to console or kill Xserver
(system freezes)

THE PROBLEMS with VN896 openchrome driver:
0) it takes 4 seconds after I type startx, before I see some weird color image, 
   and only after that normal splash screen 
1) In about 50 cases out of 100, X freezes at startup
and I only see splash screen - for XFCE, background image with a picture of mouse,
and then system freezes.
2) even if X starts normally, and I start to work, in several minutes everything freezes.

QUESTIONS:
1)Can someone help me to get working 2D at least ?(I don't care about DVD movies watching or 3D at present)
2) I guess, VN896 is not yet fully supported, I am ready to test exp.driver and provide any additional information
on my hardware/setup

In any case, thanks to whole openchrome community!
Best regards,

A.Kusmin

Below are parts of xorg.conf and Xorg.0.log (for the case when vn896 branch is used and Xserver worked)
(also attached togther with lspci output as bzip2-files)

****
relevant  sections from my XORG.CONF:
****
Section "Module"
#    Load  "drm"
#    Load  "glx"
    Load  "extmod"
    Load  "xtrap"
    Load  "record"
    Load  "GLcore"
    Load  "dbe"
#      Load  "dri"
    Load  "freetype"
    Load  "type1"
    Load  "v4l"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier   "Monitor0"
    VendorName   "Monitor Vendor"
    ModelName    "Monitor Model"
    DisplaySize  332 207
    HorizSync    28-82
    #Option       "DPMS"
    VertRefresh  43-75
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Card0"
    Driver      "via"
    VendorName  "via"
    BoardName   "Chrome9 HC"
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
     Option      "VideoRam" "131072"
    Option      "ActiveDevice" "LCD,CRT"
    Option      "VBEModes" "true"
    Option      "VbeSaveRestore" "true"
    Option      "PanelSize" "1280x800"
    Option      "NoXVDMA"
    OPtion      "EnableAGPDMA" "false"
    Option      "HWCursor" "false"
    Option      "SWCursor" "true"
    #Option      "NoDDCValue" "true"
    Option      "Center"
    #Screen      0
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen0"
    Device     "Card0"
    Monitor    "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth 16
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     1
        Modes "1280x800" "1280x768" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    
   And the same for   Depths     4, 8, 15, 16, 24
 
EndSection


******************
Few warnings from Xorg.0.log 
******************

(--) VIA(0): Detected Clevo M660SE.
(II) VIA(0): ...Finished parsing config file options.
(II) VIA(0): Detected MemClk 8
(WW) VIA(0): Unknown Memory clock: 8

(WW) VIA(0): Panel on K8M800, PM800 ,VM800, P4M890, K8M890 or P4M900 is currently not supported.
(WW) VIA(0): Using VBE to set modes to work around this.

(WW) VIA(0): VIALoadPalette: Function not implemented for this chipset.





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