HP Pavilion / ATI 200M Random Crashes - was: [Suspend bug]

[Ken Nordquist]

oleksandr korneta wrote:
>
> I have Compaq Presario v2404us (consider it HP) Turion based. FC6 
> x86_64 installed. Is is equipped with ATI Radeon Express 200M 
> videodapter which I use with opensource drivers. I experience regular 
> daily crashes (1-2 times per day) with kernel panic (blinking CapsLock 
> led, darks screen, non-responsive system). I did not notice any 
> correlation between the crashes and my activity on this laptop, it can 
> happen equally under heavy load as well as right after waking up the 
> machine from the suspend mode.
>
> kernel version 2.6.19-1.2895.fc6
>
> familiar symptoms huh?
>
> note, I did not have such problem using FC4 on this machine for the 
> whole year.
>
> because of kernel panic, I assume I can't catch any output in the log 
> files about the cause, can I?

I have an HP Pavilion dv8135nr with the AMD Turion chip , an ATI 200M 
video, and the Broadcom AirForce One 54g wireless NIC.  Until recently, 
I had the same problem as you - My FC6 box would randomly freeze (AND my 
wireless connection was unstable).  I made some changes and have not had 
a crash or a system hiccup since then (Jan 24, 2007).

I may have stumbled on the solution through blind luck.  First, via my 
local LUG, I was given the xorg.conf (listed below) to use.  The author 
who turned me on to this used ATI's newest proprietary driver, but I am 
using the radeon driver included with xorg.  He mentioned that he found 
two areas which are "must haves" in the xorg.conf.  They are:

    SubSection "extmod"
        Option        "omit xfree86-dga"
    EndSubSection

and

    Option        "MaxGARTSize" "128"

He also mentioned that turning off the video shared memory in the bios 
is critical as well.

Well, I did all that and viola!  I *still* had random crashes...  
needless to say I was very disappointed.

I also have been having problems with my wireless randomly dropping the 
signal and not (easily) connecting and reconnecting... so I started to 
research that problem.  I will preface my solution by mentioning that I 
use ndiswrapper and I typically use the most current ndiswrapper source 
to build rpm's (I am currently using v1.34).  I "assumed" the problem 
was the driver and looked for a "new and improved" AirForce One driver.  
I discovered there was a new driver which fixed a security problem and 
tried it...  *Still* no luck...   After searching the ndiswrapper site, 
I discovered another AirForce One driver and tried it...

*And it worked!*  My wireless connects easily and does not randomly drop 
connections.

And guess what...  now my HP Pavilion with the ATI 200M is *not* 
randomly crashing...

Here is my crash-free setup (caveat: I do not have 3D capability)

Broadcom Driver Location: 
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp33001-33500/sp33008.exe ***note: extract 
using cabextract
Ndiswrapper driver v1.34: 
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=93482&package_id=99148  
***note: current version is 1.37

I am using the radeon driver provided by xorg and listed below is my 
xorg.conf file.

I hope this helps someone...  if it works, please provide feedback.

***** xorg.conf *****
# Xorg configuration created by system-config-display

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "single head configuration"
    Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Synaptics" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load  "dbe"
    SubSection "extmod"
        Option        "omit xfree86-dga"
    EndSubSection
    Load  "glx"
    Load  "fbdevhw"
    Load  "v4l"
    Load  "record"
    Load  "freetype"
    Load  "type1"
    Load  "synaptics"
    Load  "dri"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Keyboard0"
    Driver      "kbd"
    Option        "XkbModel" "pc105"
    Option        "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Mouse0"
    Driver      "mouse"
    Option        "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
    Option        "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option        "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
    Option        "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Synaptics"
    Driver      "synaptics"
    Option        "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option        "Protocol" "auto-dev"
    Option        "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
    Option        "SHMConfig" "on"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"

 ### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
    Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[0]"
    ModelName    "LCD Panel 1920x1200"
 ### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
    HorizSync    31.5 - 90.0
    VertRefresh  59.9 - 60.1
    Option        "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]"
    Driver      "radeon"
    BoardName   "ATI Technologies Inc ATI Radeon XPRESS 200M 5955 (PCIE)"
    Option        "DesktopSetup" "clone"
    Option        "MaxGARTSize" "128"
    Option        "ForceMonitors" "notv"
    Option        "VideoOverlay" "on"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]"
    Device     "aticonfig-Device[0]"
    Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[0]"
    DefaultDepth     24
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     24
        Modes    "1440x900" "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1280x960" 
"1280x800" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "DRI"
    Group        0
    Mode         0666
EndSection
***** xorg.conf *****

-- 
Ken Nordquist
"Did I Do That?!"