2

I've seen this problem mentioned for Ubuntu 14.04, 16.04, and 17 but I have not found a solution for it. My monitor blacks out at random times, sometimes blinks black and then back, and sometimes does it for a minute or so before returning the desktop and windows that I was using.

I was running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS for a long time and, yesterday, installed Bionic Beaver in an empty partition. After installing Bionic Beaver, the screen blanking out issue started with 14.04 LTS and it is also occurring in the Bionic Beaver installation.

I also have a Debian 8 installation on this machine and that installation is not experiencing this problem. Here are two of the pages I found, but they did not help:

Here are some data about my system:

sdaddona@CLM1001-Ubuntu18:~$ uname -a
Linux CLM1001-Ubuntu18 4.13.0-17-generic #20-Ubuntu SMP Mon Nov 6 10:04:08 UTC 2017 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

sdaddona@CLM1001-Ubuntu18:~$ cat /etc/os-release
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION="18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver)"
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu Bionic Beaver (development branch)"
VERSION_ID="18.04"
HOME_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://help.ubuntu.com/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/"
PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy"
VERSION_CODENAME=bionic
UBUNTU_CODENAME=bionic

root@CLM1001-Ubuntu18:/var/log# lsmod | grep drm
drm_kms_helper        167936  1 radeon
syscopyarea            16384  1 drm_kms_helper
sysfillrect            16384  1 drm_kms_helper
sysimgblt              16384  1 drm_kms_helper
fb_sys_fops            16384  1 drm_kms_helper
drm                   356352  27 radeon,ttm,drm_kms_helper

sdaddona@CLM1001-Ubuntu18:~$ lshw -c video
root@CLM1001-Ubuntu18:/home/sdaddona# lshw -c video
  *-display                 
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: RS880 [Radeon HD 4250]
       vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
       physical id: 5
       bus info: pci@0000:01:05.0
       version: 00
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=radeon latency=0
       resources: irq:18 memory:d0000000-dfffffff ioport:c000(size=256) memory:fe9f0000-fe9fffff memory:fe800000-fe8fffff memory:c0000-dffff

root@CLM1001-Ubuntu18:/var/log# dmesg | grep drm
[    2.715941] [drm] radeon kernel modesetting enabled.
[    2.723264] [drm] initializing kernel modesetting (RS880 0x1002:0x9715 0x1043:0x843E 0x00).
[    2.723837] [drm] Detected VRAM RAM=368M, BAR=256M
[    2.723837] [drm] RAM width 32bits DDR
[    2.723936] [drm] radeon: 368M of VRAM memory ready
[    2.723937] [drm] radeon: 512M of GTT memory ready.
[    2.723946] [drm] Loading RS780 Microcode
[    2.724005] [drm] radeon: power management initialized
[    2.724059] [drm] GART: num cpu pages 131072, num gpu pages 131072
[    2.734213] [drm] PCIE GART of 512M enabled (table at 0x00000000C0146000).
[    2.736451] [drm] Supports vblank timestamp caching Rev 2 (21.10.2013).
[    2.736451] [drm] Driver supports precise vblank timestamp query.
[    2.736464] [drm] radeon: irq initialized.
[    2.768297] [drm] ring test on 0 succeeded in 1 usecs
[    2.942973] [drm] ring test on 5 succeeded in 0 usecs
[    2.942989] [drm] UVD initialized successfully.
[    2.943068] [drm] ib test on ring 0 succeeded in 0 usecs
[    3.616060] [drm] ib test on ring 5 succeeded
[    3.616430] [drm] Radeon Display Connectors
[    3.616430] [drm] Connector 0:
[    3.616431] [drm]   VGA-1
[    3.616432] [drm]   DDC: 0x7e40 0x7e40 0x7e44 0x7e44 0x7e48 0x7e48 0x7e4c 0x7e4c
[    3.616432] [drm]   Encoders:
[    3.616433] [drm]     CRT1: INTERNAL_KLDSCP_DAC1
[    3.616433] [drm] Connector 1:
[    3.616433] [drm]   DVI-D-1
[    3.616434] [drm]   HPD1
[    3.616434] [drm]   DDC: 0x7e50 0x7e50 0x7e54 0x7e54 0x7e58 0x7e58 0x7e5c 0x7e5c
[    3.616435] [drm]   Encoders:
[    3.616435] [drm]     DFP3: INTERNAL_KLDSCP_LVTMA
[    3.681096] [drm] fb mappable at 0xD0247000
[    3.681096] [drm] vram apper at 0xD0000000
[    3.681097] [drm] size 9216000
[    3.681097] [drm] fb depth is 24
[    3.681097] [drm]    pitch is 7680
[    3.681167] fbcon: radeondrmfb (fb0) is primary device
[    3.755104] radeon 0000:01:05.0: fb0: radeondrmfb frame buffer device
[    3.776117] [drm] Initialized radeon 2.50.0 20080528 for 0000:01:05.0 on minor 0

I also noticed the video blanking and flashing behavior during bootup before the kernel was loaded and also when I ran 18 Bionic Beaver from the installation DVD. I looked on AMD's web site a day or so ago for a driver for the RS880 [Radeon HD 4250] but didn't find one.

  • I should also mention that I upgraded the 14.04 LTS kernel from 3.13.0-93 to 4.4.0-109 yesterday, which probably is the cause of 14.04 LTS experiencing this problem now. –  Jan 16 '18 at 06:53
  • I rebooted to Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with kernel 3.13.0-93 and the display is not flashing. Apparently, the older versions retain their respective drivers. I can work from this boot if I must.

    I noticed that, when I am booted to the most recent Ubuntu 14.04 - with kernel 4.4... that my wine applications no longer will launch. I saw an error message during update that mentioned wine.hq (?) not being found, or something to that effect. I will investigate updating wine or reinstalling wine on that version.

     –  Jan 16 '18 at 16:54
  • I found a driver for AMDGPU-PRO which applies to Ubuntu 16.04 and I would like to try it (after upgrading to 16.04) but I'm not sure if it applies to my hardware. I have an AMD RS880 [Radeon HD 4250] card. I will do some more research to see if this might resolve the blacking-out/blinking issue with the video. I'm posting this as a comment because I don't yet know if it is a solution or not, so it probably shouldn't be called an "answer." Here is where to find the driver if it applies to anyone else's situation: http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/AMDGPU-PRO-Install.aspx –  Jan 19 '18 at 18:19
  • This is not asking for clarification nor pointing out a problem in the post, but is to provide an update for your information: I installed 4.4.0-111-generic #134~14.04.1-Ubuntu today and I have been booted to this version for a few hours, so far, with no flashing or blacking out. I did notice a minor amount of horizontal lines ("screen tearing?") in the display while grub was waiting for my boot selection. Perhaps the problem is fixed now. –  Jan 23 '18 at 21:16
  • Well, I spoke too soon. After about 4 hours, the blacking-out and blinking resumed in 4.4.0-111-generic. Oh, well. I will just boot to 3.13.0-93-generic. That one works. –  Jan 23 '18 at 23:24

2 Answers2

1

Try plugging in headphones per https://github.com/rolandguelle/razer-blade-stealth-linux/issues/18. This seems to have fixed it for me for the time being.

@brendanrankin says: "A bit of an odd thing happened just now. I discovered that if I have a headset plugged in the issue goes away. The same thing applies if I choose anything other than "built in audio" as the output channel. I have two audio capable monitors that I combine to operate as left and right channels....no video glitches when I use those or headphones plugged into the laptop. As soon as I unplug the headphones and the laptop reverts to its own speakers, the monitor connected to the HDMI port starts "glitching".

I'm not sure what value this post brings anyone, but (for me) it makes my RBS much more tolerable to use when "docked". :-) ...

Funky issue, but since HDMI (and DP) standards support audio and video over the same wires it "feels" like an audio/video channelization issue. I'll work to file this at freedesktop.org and/or see if it's already been filed."

Jason
  • 111
0

This problem is a result of the video hardware (and fglrx driver) no longer being supported. On my machine, the video hardware is integral to the motherboard, (ASUS M5A88-M) and it appears that my best solution, if I want to upgrade past Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, will be to install a new motherboard.