computer freezing after few minutes when connected to a projector

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1

Hello,
i was able to connect my laptop to various projectors at work without any issue, even though I think I never tried to have it full screen. The other day I tried to connect to my projector at home, an older model but nevertheless good enough for my needs. I connected to it via the VGA port and after setting the resolution to 1024x768 and unifying the outputs was able to watch from the internet or a local saved video file for few minutes until the computer got into a loop with the image freezing and sound being in a few seconds loop. Nothing I could do to get out of the freezing mode only hard reboot. Tried it few times with the same result, but I noticed that it happens only in full screen mode.
My laptop is a SONY VGN-FW235D which runs OpenSUSE 12.3 with KDE.

grenada:/home/dan # uname -a
Linux grenada.caribean 3.7.10-1.16-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri May 31 20:21:23 UTC 2013 (97c14ba) x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
grenada:/home/dan # lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 07)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801IBM/IEM (ICH9M/ICH9M-E) 4 port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
05:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation WiFi Link 5100
07:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8055 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 13)
09:03.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 05)
09:03.1 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 22)
09:03.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 12)

checking the /var/log/messages I noticed this block of errors:

2013-11-03T20:42:30.271148-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.938708] [drm:drm_edid_block_valid] *ERROR* EDID checksum is invalid, remainder is 148
2013-11-03T20:42:30.271172-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.938712] Raw EDID:
2013-11-03T20:42:30.271174-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.938715]         00 ff ff ff ff ff ff 00 4d d9 f3 01 01 01 01 01
2013-11-03T20:42:30.271177-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.938717]         0e 0b 01 02 1f cb 98 00 0a ae b9 a6 59 4c 99 26
2013-11-03T20:42:30.271179-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.938719]         0c 48 4c bf ef 80 81 99 81 59 71 59 61 59 45 59
2013-11-03T20:42:30.271181-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.938720]         31 59 01 01 01 01 86 3d 00 c0 51 00 30 40 40 a0
2013-11-03T20:42:30.271183-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.938722]         13 00 ef f4 75 00 00 61 00 00 00 fd 00 2b 56 1e
2013-11-03T20:42:30.271185-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.938724]         5c 10 00 0a 20 20 20 20 20 20 00 00 00 fc 00 53
2013-11-03T20:42:30.271187-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.938725]         4f 4e 59 20 50 58 32 30 2f 33 30 0a 00 00 00 ff
2013-11-03T20:42:30.271190-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.938727]         00 35 30 30 30 30 30 31 0a 20 20 20 20 20 00 25
2013-11-03T20:42:30.298135-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.965875] [drm:drm_edid_block_valid] *ERROR* EDID checksum is invalid, remainder is 148
2013-11-03T20:42:30.298143-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.965877] Raw EDID:
2013-11-03T20:42:30.298145-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.965879]         00 ff ff ff ff ff ff 00 4d d9 f3 01 01 01 01 01
2013-11-03T20:42:30.298147-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.965881]         0e 0b 01 02 1f cb 98 00 0a ae b9 a6 59 4c 99 26
2013-11-03T20:42:30.298149-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.965883]         0c 48 4c bf ef 80 81 99 81 59 71 59 61 59 45 59
2013-11-03T20:42:30.298151-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.965884]         31 59 01 01 01 01 86 3d 00 c0 51 00 30 40 40 a0
2013-11-03T20:42:30.298152-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.965886]         13 00 ef f4 75 00 00 61 00 00 00 fd 00 2b 56 1e
2013-11-03T20:42:30.298154-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.965887]         5c 10 00 0a 20 20 20 20 20 20 00 00 00 fc 00 53
2013-11-03T20:42:30.298156-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.965889]         4f 4e 59 20 50 58 32 30 2f 33 30 0a 00 00 00 ff
2013-11-03T20:42:30.298158-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.965890]         00 35 30 30 30 30 30 31 0a 20 20 20 20 20 00 25
2013-11-03T20:42:30.325134-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.992932] [drm:drm_edid_block_valid] *ERROR* EDID checksum is invalid, remainder is 148
2013-11-03T20:42:30.325140-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.992935] Raw EDID:
2013-11-03T20:42:30.325142-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.992937]         00 ff ff ff ff ff ff 00 4d d9 f3 01 01 01 01 01
2013-11-03T20:42:30.325144-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.992938]         0e 0b 01 02 1f cb 98 00 0a ae b9 a6 59 4c 99 26
2013-11-03T20:42:30.325146-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.992940]         0c 48 4c bf ef 80 81 99 81 59 71 59 61 59 45 59
2013-11-03T20:42:30.325147-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.992941]         31 59 01 01 01 01 86 3d 00 c0 51 00 30 40 40 a0
2013-11-03T20:42:30.325149-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.992943]         13 00 ef f4 75 00 00 61 00 00 00 fd 00 2b 56 1e
2013-11-03T20:42:30.325150-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.992944]         5c 10 00 0a 20 20 20 20 20 20 00 00 00 fc 00 53
2013-11-03T20:42:30.325152-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.992946]         4f 4e 59 20 50 58 32 30 2f 33 30 0a 00 00 00 ff
2013-11-03T20:42:30.325154-05:00 grenada kernel: [12910.992948]         00 35 30 30 30 30 30 31 0a 20 20 20 20 20 00 25
2013-11-03T20:42:30.352135-05:00 grenada kernel: [12911.019953] [drm:drm_edid_block_valid] *ERROR* EDID checksum is invalid, remainder is 148
2013-11-03T20:42:30.352141-05:00 grenada kernel: [12911.019955] Raw EDID:
2013-11-03T20:42:30.352143-05:00 grenada kernel: [12911.019957]         00 ff ff ff ff ff ff 00 4d d9 f3 01 01 01 01 01
2013-11-03T20:42:30.352150-05:00 grenada kernel: [12911.019959]         0e 0b 01 02 1f cb 98 00 0a ae b9 a6 59 4c 99 26
2013-11-03T20:42:30.352152-05:00 grenada kernel: [12911.019960]         0c 48 4c bf ef 80 81 99 81 59 71 59 61 59 45 59
2013-11-03T20:42:30.352154-05:00 grenada kernel: [12911.019962]         31 59 01 01 01 01 86 3d 00 c0 51 00 30 40 40 a0
2013-11-03T20:42:30.352155-05:00 grenada kernel: [12911.019964]         13 00 ef f4 75 00 00 61 00 00 00 fd 00 2b 56 1e
2013-11-03T20:42:30.352157-05:00 grenada kernel: [12911.019965]         5c 10 00 0a 20 20 20 20 20 20 00 00 00 fc 00 53
2013-11-03T20:42:30.352159-05:00 grenada kernel: [12911.019967]         4f 4e 59 20 50 58 32 30 2f 33 30 0a 00 00 00 ff
2013-11-03T20:42:30.352161-05:00 grenada kernel: [12911.019968]         00 35 30 30 30 30 30 31 0a 20 20 20 20 20 00 25
2013-11-03T20:42:30.352163-05:00 grenada kernel: [12911.019973] i915 0000:00:02.0: VGA-1: EDID block 0 invalid.

which was logged after each reoccurrence of my attempts to reconnect my projector.

I can provide other logs if they are needed(ex. Xorg.log) or any other info. I checked the log but couldn’t see anything related to VGA1 (errors,settings,etc). But I’m not that familiar with what is supposed to be in there.
Thank you for your attention.

2

I am puzzled about ‘setting the resolution and unifying the outputs.’ The default behaviour in KDE is to use the lower resolution of the two monitors connected and to restore the resolution of the higher resolution monitor after disconnecting.

I wonder if trying to vary KDE’s default behaviour is part of the problem.

3

Hi John,
If I connect the second monitor leaving the default LDS1 (1600x1050) I think that is the default on my laptop then the VGA1 doesn’t connect being of a lower resolution(or maybe I didn’t wait enough for KDE to figure out the resolution). After changing the resolution on LVDS1 to the lower one which fits both the signal comes through. I will try one more time to see if maybe I was not patient enough for KDE to find the proper settings and not unifying the outputs. I will let you know in few hours the output of the test.
thanks

4

The only thought I have is that the laptop does not support the external monitor resolution; all the recent versions of KDE have worked with a variety of external monitors that I have used, resizing the laptop resolution to suit the external monitor resolution without any problems.

The next version of Kwin has a more sophisticated tool for handling multi-monitor setups which may solve your problem when 13.1 comes out in two weeks time.

5

it’s a bit flaky in this version but nevertheless is working if things are done in a specific order. I followed your suggestions, thanks john_hudson. So first I lower the resolution of my laptop to the highest one available for my projector. then I connect the projector and select the same resolution for it. or i downgrade the resolution of my laptop as this is not lowered automatically. The most important thing was not to unify the outputs, that seems to be the culprit. So it works and if it will be working better with the next version than would be great. is not a critical issue and probably is not experienced by many users. thanks john_hudson for you suggestions.