Since a few weeks, I experience the problem that my screen stays blank as soon
as KMS is supposed to be activated. I have to boot with radeon.modeset=0
parameter to prevent this problem from happening.
I'm using this graphics card:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
[AMD/ATI] Pitcairn PRO [Radeon HD 7850] [1002:6819]
When I manually try to modprobe radeon after booting with radeon.modeset=0, I
get this error:
modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'radeon': Invalid argument
[ 132.951583] [drm:radeon_init] *ERROR* No UMS support in radeon module!
This error shows up even with a file /etc/modprobe.d/radeon.conf with this
contents:
options radeon modeset=1
However, when I run
# modprobe radeon modeset=1
it works successfully:
[ 76.004511] [drm] radeon kernel modesetting enabled.
[ 76.006261] [drm] initializing kernel modesetting (PITCAIRN 0x1002:0x6819
0x174B:0xE218).
[ 76.006355] [drm] register mmio base: 0xF7D00000
[ 76.006415] [drm] register mmio size: 262144
[ 76.006559] ATOM BIOS: C40304
[ 76.006680] radeon 0000:01:00.0: VRAM: 2048M 0x0000000000000000 -
0x000000007FFFFFFF (2048M used)
[ 76.006753] radeon 0000:01:00.0: GTT: 1024M 0x0000000080000000 -
0x00000000BFFFFFFF
[ 76.006824] [drm] Detected VRAM RAM=2048M, BAR=256M
[ 76.006884] [drm] RAM width 256bits DDR
[ 76.007029] [TTM] Zone kernel: Available graphics memory: 8177176 kiB
[ 76.007094] [TTM] Zone dma32: Available graphics memory: 2097152 kiB
[ 76.007156] [TTM] Initializing pool allocator
[ 76.007220] [TTM] Initializing DMA pool allocator
[ 76.007306] [drm] radeon: 2048M of VRAM memory ready
[ 76.007368] [drm] radeon: 1024M of GTT memory ready.
[ 76.007447] [drm] Loading PITCAIRN Microcode
[ 76.008488] radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware
radeon/PITCAIRN_pfp.bin
[ 76.009169] radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware
radeon/PITCAIRN_me.bin
[ 76.009527] radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware
radeon/PITCAIRN_ce.bin
[ 76.010586] radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware
radeon/PITCAIRN_rlc.bin
[ 76.011054] radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware
radeon/PITCAIRN_mc2.bin
[ 76.011128] [drm] radeon/PITCAIRN_mc2.bin: 31100 bytes
[ 76.011679] radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware
radeon/PITCAIRN_smc.bin
[ 76.011757] [drm] Internal thermal controller with fan control
[ 76.011891] [drm] probing gen 2 caps for device 8086:151 = 261ad03/e
[ 76.021475] [drm] radeon: dpm initialized
[ 76.022829] radeon 0000:01:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware
radeon/TAHITI_uvd.bin
[ 76.022930] [drm] GART: num cpu pages 262144, num gpu pages 262144
[ 76.023884] [drm] probing gen 2 caps for device 8086:151 = 261ad03/e
[ 76.023947] [drm] PCIE gen 3 link speeds already enabled
[ 76.036665] [drm] PCIE GART of 1024M enabled (table at 0x0000000000276000).
[ 76.036860] radeon 0000:01:00.0: WB enabled
[ 76.036921] radeon 0000:01:00.0: fence driver on ring 0 use gpu addr
0x0000000080000c00 and cpu addr 0xffff88041590ec00
[ 76.036994] radeon 0000:01:00.0: fence driver on ring 1 use gpu addr
0x0000000080000c04 and cpu addr 0xffff88041590ec04
[ 76.037067] radeon 0000:01:00.0: fence driver on ring 2 use gpu addr
0x0000000080000c08 and cpu addr 0xffff88041590ec08
[ 76.037139] radeon 0000:01:00.0: fence driver on ring 3 use gpu addr
0x0000000080000c0c and cpu addr 0xffff88041590ec0c
[ 76.037212] radeon 0000:01:00.0: fence driver on ring 4 use gpu addr
0x0000000080000c10 and cpu addr 0xffff88041590ec10
[ 76.037909] radeon 0000:01:00.0: fence driver on ring 5 use gpu addr
0x0000000000075a18 and cpu addr 0xffffc90006135a18
[ 76.037981] [drm] Supports vblank timestamp caching Rev 2 (21.10.2013).
[ 76.038040] [drm] Driver supports precise vblank timestamp query.
[ 76.038116] radeon 0000:01:00.0: irq 48 for MSI/MSI-X
[ 76.038128] radeon 0000:01:00.0: radeon: using MSI.
[ 76.038212] [drm] radeon: irq initialized.
[ 76.196420] [drm] ring test on 0 succeeded in 4 usecs
[ 76.196476] [drm] ring test on 1 succeeded in 1 usecs
[ 76.196530] [drm] ring test on 2 succeeded in 1 usecs
[ 76.196592] [drm] ring test on 3 succeeded in 2 usecs
[ 76.196652] [drm] ring test on 4 succeeded in 1 usecs
[ 76.382430] [drm] ring test on 5 succeeded in 2 usecs
[ 76.382486] [drm] UVD initialized successfully.
[ 76.382703] [drm] ib test on ring 0 succeeded in 0 usecs
[ 76.382847] [drm] ib test on ring 1 succeeded in 0 usecs
[ 76.382992] [drm] ib test on ring 2 succeeded in 0 usecs
[ 76.383084] [drm] ib test on ring 3 succeeded in 0 usecs
[ 76.383179] [drm] ib test on ring 4 succeeded in 1 usecs
[ 76.534296] [drm] ib test on ring 5 succeeded
[ 76.535809] [drm] Radeon Display Connectors
[ 76.535869] [drm] Connector 0:
[ 76.535918] [drm] DP-1
[ 76.535983] [drm] HPD4
[ 76.536049] [drm] DDC: 0x6530 0x6530 0x6534 0x6534 0x6538 0x6538 0x653c
0x653c
[ 76.536113] [drm] Encoders:
[ 76.536162] [drm] DFP1: INTERNAL_UNIPHY2
[ 76.536231] [drm] Connector 1:
[ 76.536289] [drm] DP-2
[ 76.536347] [drm] HPD5
[ 76.536396] [drm] DDC: 0x6540 0x6540 0x6544 0x6544 0x6548 0x6548 0x654c
0x654c
[ 76.536452] [drm] Encoders:
[ 76.536527] [drm] DFP2: INTERNAL_UNIPHY2
[ 76.536577] [drm] Connector 2:
[ 76.536643] [drm] HDMI-A-1
[ 76.536692] [drm] HPD1
[ 76.536743] [drm] DDC: 0x6550 0x6550 0x6554 0x6554 0x6558 0x6558 0x655c
0x655c
[ 76.536800] [drm] Encoders:
[ 76.536850] [drm] DFP3: INTERNAL_UNIPHY1
[ 76.536917] [drm] Connector 3:
[ 76.536967] [drm] DVI-I-1
[ 76.537017] [drm] HPD6
[ 76.537067] [drm] DDC: 0x6580 0x6580 0x6584 0x6584 0x6588 0x6588 0x658c
0x658c
[ 76.537124] [drm] Encoders:
[ 76.537175] [drm] DFP4: INTERNAL_UNIPHY
[ 76.537226] [drm] CRT1: INTERNAL_KLDSCP_DAC1
[ 76.587127] [drm] fb mappable at 0xE0478000
[ 76.587183] [drm] vram apper at 0xE0000000
[ 76.587236] [drm] size 9216000
[ 76.587289] [drm] fb depth is 24
[ 76.587342] [drm] pitch is 7680
[ 76.587524] fbcon: radeondrmfb (fb0) is primary device
[ 76.629867] Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 240x75
[ 76.635516] radeon 0000:01:00.0: fb0: radeondrmfb frame buffer device
[ 76.635541] radeon 0000:01:00.0: registered panic notifier
[ 76.657381] [drm] Initialized radeon 2.39.0 20080528 for 0000:01:00.0 on
minor 0
KMS is working, my screen does not stay blank, and I can start X successfully
and have a fully working system.
When my system is booted without radeon.modset=0 and I have the blank screen, I
cannot SSH into the system, trying to switch vc does not have any effect. When
I press num lock on the keyboard, the num lock led switches on/off correctly,
but caps lock does not show any reaction. Pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del makes my HD led
on the system blink briefly, but the screen stays blank and does not appear to
be rebooting. I need to hard reset the system.
I tried other kernels (a custom built 3.17 and 3.14.15-2 and 3.15.5-1~exp1 from
snapshot.debian.org), and they all show the same behaviour. Which suprised me,
because I am pretty sure at least 3.14 worked fine in the past. So my guess is
that this maybe is not a bug in the kernel itself, but in something else.