[XFree86] FreeBSD 5.2.1 and XFree86-4.x ati driver lockupproblem -- Solutio

[James]

Robert,

Thanks for the kind words.  I fooled around with my laptop for many 
hours, after work, but to no avail.  I checked the mail archives on 
FreeBSD and XFree86 but no help.  Finally I figured out a work around, 
so I figured other folks might be interested.  Especially considering 
how long it took me to get the thing working.  It was frustrating to say 
the least, and I've been using FreeBSD for over ten years!  It's 
embarrassing admitting that -- oh well, such is life.

By the way, Brooks Davis also responded to my email, and he advised that 
recompiling the FreeBSD kernel with SMP and apic disabled will also fix 
the problem.  I tested it, and he was absolutely right on.  If you do 
this you can have acpi enabled and Xwindows will be stable.


Best regards,


Jim

marella at cox.net wrote:
> Aloha James,
> A big mahalo from me in Kona. I also have been struggling with an ATI Rage video driver. I have attached my email to XFree86 to show the similarity. This was actually my second email to try to resolve this problem. I received no responses from my first email.
> 
> The device.hints insertion fixed my problem. I am now able to use FReeBSD on my system. 
> 
> Thanks again for paying attention and posting the fix. I know how difficult it is when you are wrestling with a problem to forget what you just did that fixed it.
> 
> Robert
> 
> On March 31, 2004 James wrote:
> 
>>Subject: [XFree86] FreeBSD 5.2.1 and XFree86-4.x ati driver lockup problem -- Solution
> 
> 
>>To the FreeBSD team,
>>
>>I struggled with this one for quite a while before figuring it out, so 
>>here goes...
>>
>>I had been using FreeBSD 4x for quite some time on my Compaq Presario 
>>1800.  And, XFree86-3.6x worked nicely with the laptop's ATI Rage 
>>Mobility graphics chip.  Unfortunately, the FreeBSD 4x branch didn't 
>>support the Atheros chipsets in some of the newer networking cards like 
>>the Netgear WG511, so I upgraded to FreeBSD 5.2.1.
>>After that, I couldn't get XFree86-4x to work reliably with my laptop.
>>It turned out that the X instability, which included complete system 
>>lockup, was caused by the ACPI module being loaded upon boot-up. 
>>Sometimes the Xserver would start-up sometimes not.  Also, there was a 
>>guaranteed system lockup if you exited Xwindows and then re-entered 
>>Xwindows at a later time.  In other words, you only got one Xsession per 
>>boot!  So, after trying all sorts of things in XF86Config, and upgrading 
>>  to XFree86-4.4 from XFree86-4.3 it turned out that all I needed to do 
>>was add the following line to my /boot/device.hints file...
>>
>>       hint.acpi.0.disabled="1"
>>
>>After that everything worked great!  Xwindows is stable, and my new 
>>Netgear WG511 card is working like a charm.
>>
>>By the way the "beastie" menu incorrectly shows "boot with ACPI enabled" 
>>as it's second choice.  In actuality it disables ACPI!  That's how I 
>>first solved the problem -- by booting with beastie-menue item "2" 
>>selected, finding Xwindows working correctly for a change, and then 
>>doing a kldstat to find that the acpi.ko kernel module wasn't loaded.
>>
>>
>>Best regards, and thanks for the great operating system!
>>
>>
>>Jim Yuzwalk
>>
> 
> My email:
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Hello
> 
> I have a system that i've loaded FreeBSD on. I am currently running 5.2.1 but 
> it also failed on 5.2-rc.
> 
> I have xfree86 version 4.4.0 installed but it also failed on 4.3.
> 
> It is an older system with a KU440EX mother board with a celeron 266MHz 
> processor and 128MB ram. The onboard video driver is an ATI Rage IIC 
> Controller.
> 
> I do a:
> "XFree86 -configure" and I get a XF86Config.new file. When I try to test with 
> "XFree86 -xf86config /root/XF86Config.new" the system starts to run and I get 
> the start of the log screen and then all systems stop. No keyboard response or 
> anything. "Ctl-Alt-Del" does nothing. I have to powerdown reboot. 
> 
> When the system comes back up the XFree86.0.log has not been updated so I don't 
> know what failed. I have tried remaking out the module loads one at a time 
> without success (sort of).
> 
> Every once in a while it will go to the test screen and all will look fine. 
> I'll exit with Ctl-Alt-Bkspc and the exit is fine. If I try to do a retest 
> without changing anything, it always fails.
> 
> Now, here's the weird part, I can install Slackware 9.1 on the system, on the 
> same partition and it works. The XF86Config file is exactly the same as the one 
> from FReeBSD. 
> 
> Attached are the Xf86Config.new, XFree86.0.log and the output of dmesg as dmesg.
> txt. I hope someone can point me in the right direction.
> 
> Please cc your answer to my email.
> 
> Thank you
> 
> Robert