F10 display problems

Brian Mury brianmury at alumni.uvic.ca
Mon Dec 8 00:50:42 UTC 2008


Hello,

I've been having several display problems since installing F10. None of
these problems existed with F9. I experienced the problems after an
upgrade, did a fresh install, and am still seeing them.

Graphics card is a Radeon 9200 (RV280).

If I switch to a console (such as Ctrl-Alt-F2) and back, it switches
from using hardware rendering to software rendering. From glxinfo:

Before:
OpenGL vendor string: Tungsten Graphics, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI R200 20060602 AGP 8x x86/MMX+/3DNow!+/SSE TCL
OpenGL version string: 1.3 Mesa 7.3-devel

After:
OpenGL vendor string: Mesa Project
OpenGL renderer string: Software Rasterizer
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 7.3-devel
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.10

This will write the following to /etc/messages:
Dec  7 16:25:51 localhost acpid: client connected from 2536[0:0]
Dec  7 16:25:52 localhost kernel: agpgart-nvidia 0000:00:00.0: AGP 3.0 bridge
Dec  7 16:25:52 localhost kernel: agpgart-nvidia 0000:00:00.0: putting AGP V3 device into 8x mode
Dec  7 16:25:52 localhost kernel: pci 0000:01:00.0: putting AGP V3 device into 8x mode
Dec  7 16:25:52 localhost kernel: [drm] Loading R200 Microcode

Which looks like an exact copy of what I get at system startup.

This will, of course, cause glxgears to go from 1500 fps and low CPU
usage, to 180 fps and 100% CPU usage. However - I am experiencing
sluggish display updates regardless of whether it is using hardware or
software rendering. Moving or resizing a window with other windows open
is slow and choppy; scrolling in a terminal is *very* slow if the
terminal occupies most of the screen (but is very fast at smaller sizes,
such as the default 80x24). Scrolling in firefox is sometimes painfully
slow. Xorg seems to use a lot of CPU time during these times.
Interestingly

Sometimes, when switching to a console, instead of the console I see a
what looks like a corrupted copy of my desktop (though I cannot interact
with it at all). Switching back to the desktop is fine, but the consoles
all seem to stay that way until I reboot.

Occasionally, X dies completely - my screen goes black, and several
seconds latter the gdm login screen comes up.

I haven't found anything in any log files to suggest where the problem
may be, though I'm no X expert. 

Has anybody else experienced any of this behaviour? Anyone have any
suggestions for troubleshooting/potential fixes?

Brian





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