Dv8000 Display Problems

Hello, I am somewhat new to Linux. I just got a new laptop so I can finally install my own version. From other users posts I decided to try installing 10.1 Beta 6 x64 on my dv8000. Everything went great until it tried to come up with graphics.
When trying to boot, it stalled after starting the SSH Daemon. The system was still responsive, it would just not boot anymore. I was able to boot at runlevel 3. I disabled earlykdm and now it will finish with the text based booting. As soon as it tries to boot up a graphical interfacec it completely freezes. It also does the same thing when I go through Yast2 to try and get at the display properties. It'll show an x for a mouse but will not respond to anything else except for holding down the power button. If I boot with runlevel 3 and then try to get to level 5 it will do the same thing when booting.

My graphics card is an ATI Radeon Xpress 200 with a 128 MB of dedicated memory. Below is my configuration:

AMD Turion™ 64 ML-40 (2.2GHz/1MB L2 Cache)
– 17.0" WSXGA+ BrightView Wide Viewing (1680x1050)
– 128MB ATI RADEON® XPRESS 200M w/Hypermemory™
– 1.0GB DDR SDRAM (2x512MB)
– 160 GB 5400 RPM Dual Hard Drive (80 GB x 2)
– LightScribe 8x DVD+/-RW&CD-RW Combo w/Double Layer
– 54g™ 802.11a/b/g WLAN & Bluetooth

Any help is much appreciated.
Thanks,
Josh

when you boot to runlevel 3,log in as root.once logged in type sax2 andpress enter. from here you can configure yor graphics. failing that, if you log in as root (runlevel3 again) type sax2 -m 0=vesa,then reboot. this will give you basic graphics to get you up & running. once logged in as normal user with gui, download & install ati drivers from here & use their install instructions, or search the forums if you have problems installing ati drivers

andy

I have the exact notebook. did u do the update during installation? it may have something with kdebase package. I experienced thesame with the package version ending ....27, which i removed and issue was resolved.

I have the exact same problem, although my video card is different : ATI Mobility Radeon 9100 IGP...
The laptop is HP Pavillion zv5000

I tried the solution, logged in as root and write the sax2 program... It showed me a simple graphic mode with some configuration to be made on the video and monitor... I checked them , tested them and saved... but then when i restart the computer it freezes again... when I try the sax2 again it shows me the default settings again... looks like it just won't save them...

So is there a way to log in with GUI as normal user without restarting the whole system?
Any commands?

Thanks

By running Sax2 in VESA mode and then restarting the system it fixed it. I made no changes, just started it up. For those of you that have the same laptop, did you have any luck getting the wireless card to work as well as the ethernet port? I tried installing ndiswrapper but am having problems getting Suse to recognize the card at all and do anything with it.

Josh

By typing "init 5" it will start KDE and let you log in. For my laptop, this also froze up though.

Josh

Hi all,

I was having similar problems... I have a DV8000 also and couldn't get the ATI driver to do anything. I installed it correctly accourding to every post I found but the screen would just go black. I used FC5, Suse10.1 and Ubuntu, all in 32bit & 62bit flavors but no luck.

I was considering Gentoo today as a last ditch effort and on a Gentoo site I found this:

Make sure that you have turned on the additional shared memory (UMA) in the BIOS and set it to 128MB. Otherwise, the display will not come up (Is this a bug or feature?).

It made a huge differance. I lost a little memory but I gained the ability to use my notebook for more.

Hi there,

Yes it work. I have a dv8000z - xpress radeon 200M and the ATI driver works perfectly on SUSE 10.0-32 bits.

Unfortunaly, I can`t boot on 64 bits when I install the system, and I try to explain below the steps I made to it's work.

1 - Upgrade the Kernel from YOU
2 - Download the ATI Radeon Driver from www.ati.com : ati-driver-installer-8.26.18-x86.run
3 - init 3 : this change to text mode
3.1 - I make all this in /tmp directoy, I don't know why, but I read this in somewhere
4 - Logon as root and execute the ati driver sh ati-driver-installer-8.26.18-x86.run, to make a RPM Suse100 version
5 - Observe the Log file , check if has no erros in : /usr/share/fglrx/fglrx-install.log
6 - execute rpm -Uiv fglrx_6_8_0_SUSE100-8.26.18-1.i386.rpm
7 - Open /etc/X11/xorg.conf with vi, and edit with ":w"
8 - add ---> load "dri" , in module section
9 - change in device section : Driver "fglrx"
10 - Save the xorg.conf ""
11 - execute SAX2 and change[indent]SAX initiate with 800x600 resolution but with 3d enabled. I Tried this configuration the first time and then increase to 1440x900 :
12 - init 5 - fglrxinfo

when execute fglrxinfo

display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: RADEON XPRESS 200M Series Generic
OpenGL version string: 2.0.5879 (8.26.18)

fgl_glxgears
Using GLX_SGIX_pbuffer
903 frames in 5.0 seconds = 180.600 FPS
1168 frames in 5.0 seconds = 233.600 FPS
1167 frames in 5.0 seconds = 233.400 FPS
1176 frames in 5.0 seconds = 235.200 FPS
1167 frames in 5.0 seconds = 233.400 FPS



Wifi broadcom works with ndiswrapper, sound, calculator button, wifi button, it`s very very cool

fbarradas

Here are a couple of things I have noticed and a couple of things I found to be quick and easy:
1. I don't upgrade my kernel if I "really" don't need to. I use things like vmware and other stuff for my job, so that always ends up being a nightmare. I haven't noticed if there is even a kernel update out yet. if you do update, make sure you update your kernel source.
2. I just tried the new ATI driver and it didn't work. I found that using the ati.blah.8.24.blah driver is still the best. I got it from here and saved it someplace that I can always reach it. http://jarpack.net/ati-driver-how-to
3. I noticed you wrote "rpm -Uiv rpm.blah (probably a typo and you meant rpm -Uvh rpm.blah)"
after you install the driver do this:
type "ldconfig" and hit enter
type "aticonfig --initial --input=/etx/X11/xorg/xorg.conf" and hit enter
type "sax2 -r -m 0=fglrx" once you get the message to accept the config you can and reboot.

Go ahead and run the commands glxgears and fglrxinfo to see if your driver is the blasted ATI and it should be...

My own sidenote is I wish ATI would just jump on board and be nice to all! Also, maybe Novell could work on that cool little "tiny-ati-installer --update" with ATI" just a thought, but would be nice!

Other than that the machine really is rock solid. Cheers mate, thats a nice screenshot!

anyone here tried updating to the 8.27 driver yet?