Intermitent black screen with Radeon graphics card

Problem
Black screen every now and then.
I manage to solve the issue by connecting a second monitor and reboot, otherwise it’s impossible to logon.
Screen seems dead.

System details:
ASUS A52J laptop
Opensuse 15.2, x86_64 (5.3.18-lp152.75-default)

Graphics card:
[AMD/ATI] Park [Mobility Radeon HD 5430/5450/5470]

I’ve been reading all over and it seems this has happened to others but threads don’t seem to finish with a solution.

This is the contect of /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-amdgpu.conf

Section "OutputClass"
        Identifier "AMDgpu"
        MatchDriver "amdgpu"
        Driver "amdgpu"
EndSection

but I’m not sure if the card is actually using amdgpu since lsmod shows radeon

> lsmod | grep -i radeon
radeon               1630208  20
i2c_algo_bit           16384  1 radeon
drm_kms_helper        229376  1 radeon
ttm                   122880  1 radeon
drm                   544768  10 drm_kms_helper,radeon,ttm

but doesn’t show anything when asking for amdgpu

This is most annoying as one thinks the problem has gone until it pops up again.

Here is what’s installed for radeon and amdgpu

> rpm -qa | grep radeon
radeon-profile-daemon-20190603+0-lp152.2.2.x86_64
libvulkan_radeon-19.3.4-lp152.27.1.x86_64
libdrm_radeon1-2.4.100-lp152.1.4.x86_64
radeon-profile-20200824+6-lp152.3.1.x86_64
libvdpau_radeonsi-19.3.4-lp152.27.1.x86_64
kernel-firmware-radeon-20210503-lp152.36.1.noarch

> rpm -qa | grep amdgpu
libdrm_amdgpu1-2.4.100-lp152.1.4.x86_64
xf86-video-amdgpu-18.1.0-lp152.2.5.x86_64

Can/should I remove one of them, which one?

BR, Eduardo

Amdgpu rpms are inert on your laptop. Your Radeon is too old for them to support it. Please do:

sudo inxi -U

Next, copy and paste here using code tags input and output from the following run in an X terminal:

inxi -GISazy

If response is file not found, do:

sudo zypper in inxi

Then repeat both inxi commands.

When the black screen appears, can you Ctrl-Alt-F3 and find a login prompt, then Alt-F7 to find X is back? IME, the Radeon HD 5xxx series is a little cantankerous. If this does not help, next time a black screen appears and you reboot, please check for the existence of /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old. If it exists and has a current timestamp, do

susepaste /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old

and post the resulting URL here. If it does not exist, look for Xorg.0.log.old in ~/.local/share/xorg/. If it exists with a current timestamp, do

susepaste .local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log.old

and post the resulting URL here.

Removing rpms won’t help you, with one possible exception, which I might explain after seeing your responses.

How often is “every now and then”, more than once an hour, once a day, once a week, less often?

Hi, thanks for the support

Here is the output you requested

> inxi -GISazy
System:
  Kernel: 5.3.18-lp152.75-default x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 7.5.0 
  parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.3.18-lp152.75-default 
  root=UUID=081a6f34-d7e1-4e12-bc89-853dc19dd3f8 splash=silent 
  resume=/dev/disk/by-uuid/5fed5ba3-fc14-46ac-8532-e7df2657dfe3 
  mitigations=auto quiet 
  Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.18.6 tk: Qt 5.12.7 wm: kwin_x11 vt: 7 dm: SDDM 
  Distro: openSUSE Leap 15.2 
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Park [Mobility Radeon HD 5430/5450/5470] vendor: ASUSTeK 
  driver: radeon v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:68e0 class-ID: 0300 
  Device-2: IMC Networks Integrated Webcam type: USB driver: uvcvideo 
  bus-ID: 1-1.2:4 chip-ID: 13d3:5130 class-ID: 0e02 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: 
  loaded: ati,radeon unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa display-ID: :0 
  screens: 1 
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1280x720 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 338x190mm (13.3x7.5") 
  s-diag: 388mm (15.3") 
  Monitor-1: LVDS res: 1280x720 hz: 60 
  OpenGL: 
  renderer: AMD CEDAR (DRM 2.50.0 / 5.3.18-lp152.75-default LLVM 9.0.1) 
  v: 3.3 Mesa 19.3.4 compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes 
Info:
  Processes: 274 
  Uptime: 20:36:40  up 2 days  4:52,  3 users,  load average: 0.47, 1.08, 0.68 
  wakeups: 8569 Memory: 3.69 GiB used: 1.33 GiB (36.0%) Init: systemd v: 234 
  runlevel: 5 target: graphical.target tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 7.5.0 When 
  alt: 7 Packages: rpm: 2791 lib: 1195 flatpak: 0 Shell: Bash v: 4.4.23 
  running-in: konsole inxi: 3.3.04 

When the black screen happened Ctrl-Alt-F3 didn’t work on the laptop screen but did on the connected extra monitor.

I do have a /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old from last sunday which is when I got last black screen.

> susepaste /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old
Pasted as:
https://susepaste.org/54445230
https://paste.opensuse.org/54445230

Incidence happens about once a week.

Let me know if you need something else.

BR, Eduardo

According to that log from the afternoon of the 16th, Xorg reported only two outputs found, an unconnected VGA, and the HDMI connected to an external display running in 1920x1080 mode, as if the internal display didn’t exist. Your latest inxi output shows only the laptop’s screen, LVDS, using mode 1280x720, HDTV’s 720p mode, not a mode I can recall seeing in use on a laptop before. The difference between the log and inxi output must be some sort of symptom of your problem.

If you haven’t seen this X driver primer, go ahead and have a look at the OP, so you might have a better understanding what follows here. Then I’d like you to try switching from the Radeon DDX driver to the Modesetting DIX driver, followed by removing ~/.xsession-errors (if it exists), then restarting X or rebooting to report back - after you’ve had enough time to think the problem may be gone, or unaffected.

There are two ways to make the switch. The first is to remove the Radeon DDX and the the meta package responsible for its installation, either using YaST, or:

sudo zypper rm xf86-video-ati xorg-x11-driver-video

The other is to create a configuration file that specifies modesetting. Content:

Section "Device"
    Identifier	"Default Device"
	Driver	"modesetting"
EndSection

The exact name of the file isn’t particularly important, except that it needs to end in “.conf”. I suggest /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/25-drv.conf. The latter method allows to switch back and forth between the DDX and the DIX slightly more simply. The former mostly makes updates take a little less time now and then, and use a tiny bit less space on disk.

Regardless whether the switch helps or not, I’d like to see a fresh Xorg.0.log susepasted while both displays are active as you would expect with the external powered up & connected, and the laptop lid up, plus input and output, running in Konsole, from:

xrandr --listproviders
inxi -Gayz
cat ~/.xsession-errors

hi
I’ve done as you suggested.


Pilar@localhost:~> more /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/25-drv.conf
Section "Device"
        Identifier "Default Device"
        Driver     "modesetting"
EndSection

I then rebooted the system and inmediately got a black screen on the laptop.
CTRL-Alt-F6 had no effect.
Iconnected the external monitor and then Ctrl-Alt-F6 did return a prompt.>
I rebooted again, with the ext. monitor hooked up and X session came up on the ext. monitor but not on the laptop that remains black.
There is no ~/.xsession-errors file

Here is the output you requested.

Pilar@localhost:~> xrandr --listproviders
Providers: number : 1
Provider 0: id: 0x45; cap: 0xf (Source Output, Sink Output, Source Offload, Sink Offload); crtcs: 4; outputs: 2; associated providers: 0; name: modesetting
    output HDMI-1
    output VGA-1
Pilar@localhost:~> inxi -Gayz
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Park [Mobility Radeon HD 5430/5450/5470] vendor: ASUSTeK 
  driver: radeon v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:68e0 class-ID: 0300 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: 
  loaded: modesetting display-ID: :0 screens: 1 
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.0x11.2") 
  s-diag: 582mm (22.9") 
  Monitor-1: HDMI-1 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 93 size: 527x296mm (20.7x11.7") 
  diag: 604mm (23.8") 
  OpenGL: 
  renderer: AMD CEDAR (DRM 2.50.0 / 5.3.18-lp152.75-default LLVM 9.0.1) 
  v: 3.3 Mesa 19.3.4 compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes 
Pilar@localhost:~> cat ~/.xsession-errors
Pilar@localhost:~> susepaste /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old
Pasted as:
   https://susepaste.org/53562059
   https://paste.opensuse.org/53562059
Link is also in your clipboard.

BR, Eduardo

After a second reboot with the external monitor connected I got both screens working so just in case I resend out puts.

Pilar@localhost:~> susepaste /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old
Pasted as:
   https://susepaste.org/92428010
   https://paste.opensuse.org/92428010
Link is also in your clipboard.

Pilar@localhost:~> inxi -Gayz
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Park [Mobility Radeon HD 5430/5450/5470] vendor: ASUSTeK 
  driver: radeon v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:68e0 class-ID: 0300 
  Device-2: IMC Networks Integrated Webcam type: USB driver: uvcvideo 
  bus-ID: 1-1.2:3 chip-ID: 13d3:5130 class-ID: 0e02 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: 
  loaded: modesetting display-ID: :0 screens: 1 
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 3286x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 867x285mm (34.1x11.2") 
  s-diag: 913mm (35.9") 
  Monitor-1: LVDS-1 res: 1366x768 hz: 60 
  Monitor-2: HDMI-1 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 93 size: 527x296mm (20.7x11.7") 
  diag: 604mm (23.8") 
  OpenGL: 
  renderer: AMD CEDAR (DRM 2.50.0 / 5.3.18-lp152.75-default LLVM 9.0.1) 
  v: 3.3 Mesa 19.3.4 compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes 
Pilar@localhost:~> xrandr --listproviders
Providers: number : 1
Provider 0: id: 0x46; cap: 0xf (Source Output, Sink Output, Source Offload, Sink Offload); crtcs: 4; outputs: 3; associated providers: 0; name: modesetting
    output LVDS-1
    output HDMI-1
    output VGA-1

Still no

Pilar@localhost:~> cat ~/.xsession-errors
cat: /home/Pilar/.xsession-errors: No existe el fichero o el directorio

BR, Eduardo

I believe you may be experiencing a software defect that needs to be reported by the person experiencing it. :frowning: Instructions are here:
https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Submitting_bug_reports
https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Bugreport_X
https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Bug_reporting_FAQ
If you have questions about making the report not answered by the FAQ you may ask here for assistance.

Please include https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/554131-Intermitent-black-screen-with-Radeon-graphics-card and describe it in your report.

Hi
According to your suggestions I should now have
radeon (kernel) plus modesetting (DDX) instead of the default radeon (kernel) plus radeon (DDX) as the graphics card falls under old AMD/ATI GPUs/IGPs.

If I understand what we have done until now this is achieved by /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/25-drv.conf which overrides the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-amdgpu.conf

Since yesterday I’ve been powering off & up, hibernating and resuming and for the moment, except that black screen I got after the modifications it seems to be beheaiving.

But you have come to the conclusion, I guess looking at the logs, that there is still a problem that needs reporting ?

I thought this was a bug report, I’ll check the links you sent to learn a bit more.

BR, Eduardo

It wasn’t my understanding from your response that the problem is now gone. If it’s gone, then there’s little reason for you to report a bug about a configuration you are not using. :slight_smile:

OTOH, because you need 25-drv.conf for it to behave as expected, a bug report for that might be worth filing so that others won’t have the same problem you had. In another thread elsewhere with a Radeon HD 5450 involved I just responded with a pointer here, and to another plea for 5450 help thread.

Ok, then I’ll give it a few days of testing.
If “black screen” doesn’t reappear I’ll report it as solved with your solution.
Otherwise I’ll report it as needing attention.

I’m very grateful for your kind and extensive support.

BR, Eduardo

Ups, got a black screen again.
All I did was power off and hibernate a few times!

Ctrl-Alt-F2 had no effect on the laptop’s monitor.
I connected HDMI cable to ext. monitor and Ctrl-Alt-F2 did return a prompt on the ext. mon.
Rebooting provided Xsession on the ext. mon. again but nothing on the laptop’s mon.

Just in case it’s of any use here is the output of
inxi -Gayz

Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Park [Mobility Radeon HD 5430/5450/5470] vendor: ASUSTeK 
  driver: radeon v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:68e0 class-ID: 0300 
  Device-2: IMC Networks Integrated Webcam type: USB driver: uvcvideo 
  bus-ID: 1-1.2:3 chip-ID: 13d3:5130 class-ID: 0e02 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: 
  loaded: modesetting display-ID: :0 screens: 1 
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.0x11.2") 
  s-diag: 582mm (22.9") 
  Monitor-1: HDMI-1 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 93 size: 527x296mm (20.7x11.7") 
  diag: 604mm (23.8") 
  OpenGL: 
  renderer: AMD CEDAR (DRM 2.50.0 / 5.3.18-lp152.75-default LLVM 9.0.1) 
  v: 3.3 Mesa 19.3.4 compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes 

susepaste /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old

Pasted as:
   https://susepaste.org/98694943
   https://paste.opensuse.org/98694943

Do you think it’s time to file a bug report?

BR, Eduardo

It’s time to clean off all mentions about amdgpu from your system settings (file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-amdgpu.conf and others).
Why are you trying to use amdgpu when you have no GCN, but only Terascale2 chip?
If you want to add some settings, for instance - for preventing tearing, use radeon, otherwise you will get what you’re getting right now.
I was using AMD/ATI Cedar/Park with standard Linux + Mesa 3D drivers, without troubles.


Section "Device"
    Identifier "Radeon"
    Driver "radeon"
EndSection 

When posting a URL, don’t put it within a code block. That de-linkifies it unless you explicitly linkify it manually.

xrandr --listproviders should actually be more definitive than inxi.

Re: 2: The log shows only LVDS connected (laptop internal display). This log and inxi output don’t provide any clue that there is a second monitor connected. Was there one when the log and inxi were run? Were they from the same X session?

Re: 3: Notwithstanding Svyatko’s suggestion, which you may proceed to try, I believe a bug report is called for. I’ve been seeing a lot of black screen bugs about old radeons scattered about the net, some found directly in familiar locations, others via web search. It’s my guess your GPU combination is something openSUSE’s senior X developer might term an edge case, a rather old entry level gfxcard alongside a very new and powerful same brand gfxcard, possibly not worth his effort to fix. Likely very few have the hardware to reproduce this except you.

RE: 1: IMO, you shouldn’t need heroics to make this work reliably using the default X driver, modesetting DIX. As I wrote previously, I don’t have the hardware to do more than approximate:

# hwinfo --gfxcard | grep edar
  Model: "ATI Cedar [Radeon HD 5000/6000/7350/8350 Series]"
  Device: pci 0x68f9 "Cedar [Radeon HD 5000/6000/7350/8350 Series]"
# grep RETT /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="openSUSE Leap 15.2"
# xrandr --listproviders
**Providers: number : 1**
Provider 0: id: 0x46; cap: 0xf (Source Output, Sink Output, Source Offload, Sink Offload); crtcs: 4; outputs: 3; associated providers: 0; name: modesetting
    output **HDMI-1**
    output **DVI-I-1**
    output VGA-1
# xrandr | egrep 'onnect|creen|\*' | grep -v disconn | sort -r
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 2280, maximum 8192 x 8192
**HDMI-1 connected** 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 160mm x 90mm
**DVI-I-1 connected** primary 1920x1200+0+1080 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 519mm x 324mm
   **1920x1200**     59.95*+
   **1920x1080**     60.00*+  59.96    59.94    59.93    30.00    24.00    29.97    23.98
# inxi -Gayz
Graphics:
  Device-1: **AMD Cedar [Radeon HD 5000/6000/7350/8350 Series]**
  vendor: PC Partner Limited **driver: radeon v: kernel** bus-ID: 01:00.0
  chip-ID: 1002:68f9 class-ID: 0300
  Display: server: **X.Org 1.20.3 driver: loaded: modesetting**
  unloaded: fbdev,vesa alternate: ati display-ID: :0 **screens: 1**
  **Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x2280** s-dpi: 120 s-size: 406x482mm (16.0x19.0")
  s-diag: 630mm (24.8")
  **Monitor-1: HDMI-1** res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 305 size: 160x90mm (6.3x3.5")
  diag: 184mm (7.2")
  **Monitor-2: DVI-I-1** res: 1920x1200 hz: 60 dpi: 94
  size: 519x324mm (20.4x12.8") diag: 612mm (24.1")
  OpenGL:
  renderer: AMD CEDAR (DRM 2.50.0 / 5.3.18-lp152.75-default LLVM 9.0.1)
  v: 3.3 Mesa 19.3.4 compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes

Hi guys
sorry for not answering before, been busy.

Answering to Svyatko I have to say that file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-amdgpu.conf
is there because that is what the installation did, I mean, I didn’t create or install it.
In any case following mrmazda’s I created file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/25-drv.conf which should override the previous file.

To give it a test this is what I’ve done:

  • commented the contents of 10-amdgpu.conf & 25-drv.conf
  • created the file 10-radeon.conf with radeon which didn’t exist before

Rebooted.
I’ll give it a try and report back.
Thanks guys

After rebooting this is the status

Pilar@localhost:~> rpm -qa | grep radeon   
radeon-profile-daemon-20190603+0-lp152.2.2.x86_64
libvulkan_radeon-19.3.4-lp152.27.1.x86_64
libdrm_radeon1-2.4.100-lp152.1.4.x86_64
radeon-profile-20200824+6-lp152.3.1.x86_64
libvdpau_radeonsi-19.3.4-lp152.27.1.x86_64
kernel-firmware-radeon-20210503-lp152.36.1.noarch

Pilar@localhost:~> rpm -qa | grep amdgpu
libdrm_amdgpu1-2.4.100-lp152.1.4.x86_64

Pilar@localhost:~> inxi -Gayz
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Park [Mobility Radeon HD 5430/5450/5470] vendor: ASUSTeK 
  driver: radeon v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:68e0 class-ID: 0300 
  Device-2: IMC Networks Integrated Webcam type: USB driver: uvcvideo 
  bus-ID: 1-1.2:3 chip-ID: 13d3:5130 class-ID: 0e02 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: 
  loaded: radeon display-ID: :0 screens: 1 
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 2390x768 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 632x203mm (24.9x8.0") 
  s-diag: 664mm (26.1") 
  Monitor-1: LVDS res: 1366x768 hz: 60 
  Monitor-2: VGA-0 res: 1024x768 hz: 60 dpi: 86 size: 304x228mm (12.0x9.0") 
  diag: 380mm (15") 
  OpenGL: 
  renderer: AMD CEDAR (DRM 2.50.0 / 5.3.18-lp152.75-default LLVM 9.0.1) 
  v: 3.3 Mesa 19.3.4 compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes 

Pilar@localhost:~> xrandr --listproviders
Providers: number : 1
Provider 0: id: 0x56; cap: 0xf (Source Output, Sink Output, Source Offload, Sink Offload); crtcs: 4; outputs: 3; associated providers: 0; name: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5000 Series @ pci:0000:01:00.0
    output LVDS
    output HDMI-0
    output VGA-0

Pilar@localhost:~> lsmod | grep -i radeon
radeon               1630208  10
i2c_algo_bit           16384  1 radeon
drm_kms_helper        229376  1 radeon
ttm                   122880  1 radeon
drm                   544768  10 drm_kms_helper,radeon,ttm

Pilar@localhost:~> lsmod | grep -i amdgpu
Pilar@localhost:~> 

(In case anyone notices the ext. monitor is a different model)

I’ve rebooted, hibernated/resumed & powered off/on at least 60 times and no black screen.

Seems better … but difficult to conclude if the problem is fixed or not

Looking at the history I can only see that when I reported the problem inxy output showed


Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 compositor: kwin_x11 driver:    
  loaded: ati,radeon unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa display-ID: :0

Then after setting “modesetting” the first time with 25-drv.conf inxi showed


Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: 
  loaded: modesetting display-ID: :0 screens: 1

and right now, with 10-radeon.conf

Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: 
  loaded: radeon display-ID: :0 screens: 1 

The first 2 scenarios produced “black screens”, the last one seems more stable. Keep finger crossed.
mrmazda, I don’t think the problem has to do with the fact that there is an external monitor plugged in or not.
I only plugged in the ext. monitor when the black screen appeared because I thought it might help and in fact it
did as that is where I got the prompt after Ctrl-Alt-F2

BR/Eduardo

Please show


ls /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/

and


cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-radeon.conf

Hi
I’ve come to the conclusion that the problem is a hw problem related with the opening/closing of the laptop’s screen.

When there is no opening/closing there is no problems but when the laptop screen is closed and reopened, sometimes, the problem appears.

I do not have the laptop with me right now as it is not mine. The owner reports stable beheaviour, meaning no black screens. Of course I’ve told her about the probable cause and she has not closed the lid since I returned laptop.

BR, Eduardo

pd: I’ll try to get hold of the output you request.

If you found solution and posted it here then no additional work is needed.