[Openchrome-users] Sylvania (VX700) - black screen at 'modprobe viafb', problem resuming

[James Simmons]

> > > are on the kernel-level, but I figure this would be a good start.
> > > 
> > > I'm playing with a Sylvania netbook based on VIA C7-M CPU with a
> > > VX700-based display adapter (see lspci and such below). It originally
> > > had a system called gOS which I didn't really like. I installed Debian
> > > Testing on it. It is currently running an up-to-date system with the
> > > latest kernel from Debian Unstable. Though I also had similar issues
> > > with various other Debian kernels (2.6.32-5-686 from Stable, 2.6.32,
> > > 3.0) and with self-compiled 3.0.8 and 3.2.0-rc2.
> > 
> > Did you enable the "X server compatibility" for the viafb driver?
> 
> Yes.

The viafb driver is a bit limited in its support range. Unfortunely the 
same is true for the newer openchrome drm drivers.
 
> > If you 
> > enable that and it still doesn't work then your best bet is to just 
> > disable the vaifb driver. The xorg driver will work fine with UMS mode.
> > Also the DVI port is not supported at this time.
> 
> That's what I have. Anything that can be done to help with KMS?

Being a netbook I assume you have a LVDS display or is it a DVI only 
system? As for helping with KMS, well if you serious want to tackle a drm 
kernel driver I welcome the help. I just recieved a S3 card that has a DVI 
port.
 
> > > Occasionally the system just hangs completely. I have no idea what makes
> > > it hang. I ran it with memtest86+ for a number of days and no problem
> > > was found. I see no aparant error message on the console. I tried
> > > running a network console a few times and got no useful output. 
> > > I'm really at loss on how to debug/fix this. 
> > 
> > Sounds like a GPU lockup. Usually this happens with the DMA engine.
> > First try with the viafb driver. If that doesn't work you can install the 
> > debug version of the xorg server and do a gdb backtrace of it. 
> > 
> 
> The system locks up completely. How will a debug version help? Even a
> remote ssh session is hung.

Can you create a xorg.conf file and set NoAccel to TRUE. See if that 
helps.