Bug 530218

Summary: Strange "composite-dot crawl"-type corruption on R200 (RV250) with kernel modesetting
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Jud Craft <craftjml>
Component: xorg-x11-drv-atiAssignee: X/OpenGL Maintenance List <xgl-maint>
Status: CLOSED DUPLICATE QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: low    
Version: rawhideCC: jglisse, mcepl, mcepl, xgl-maint
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard: card_R200
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2009-11-10 21:34:57 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
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Description Flags
boot screen - terminal text
none
login screen
none
desktop and panel
none
shot of window none

Description Jud Craft 2009-10-21 22:09:49 UTC 
Fedora 12 Beta, Live CD.
Mesa 1.3 7.7-devel
xorg-x11-drv-ati 6.13.0.0.7.[big-git-number].fc12.

Card, from glxinfo:  Mesa DRI R200 (RV250 4C66) 20090101 AGP 4x TCL


Problem:

The screen is significantly corrupted when running Fedora 12 Beta.  This seems to be a problem of kernel modesetting.  The laptop in question is a Dell Inspiron 600m (roughly four years old) with an old ATI R200 card.


Details:

The corruption is NOT related to any GUI or program; instead, it is a symptom of the entire screen itself, included the plymouth boot sequence and GDM login.

The corruption can only be compared to running your PC through a cheap composite TV-out cable; everything is very fuzzy, and I can see dots crawling up the screen at the edge of any line.

This happens to the entire desktop, and makes it difficult to read text.  Note however that the system appears perfectly fine, aside from global graphical corruption.

Enabling compiz does not help; the corruption is constant and unrelated to desktop composition.


Temporary resolution:

Disabling kernel modesetting with "nomodeset" from the boot screen fixes this problem, at the expense of losing kernel modesetting (and that means no DRI2 either).


I had assumed that the R200 cards were probably well supported, but the old card on this cheap-arse Dell laptop is giving kernel modesetting some problems.



This is NOT related to #490651, "video artifacts on ATI RV250".  While that appears to be the same card, my symptoms under F12 are entirely different and not related to Firefox or scrollbars at all, but the entire screen.

I cannot take a screenshot, as this appears to be a global display problem.  I have no good video cameras to demonstrate.
Comment 1 Jud Craft 2009-10-22 23:32:07 UTC 
Created attachment 365794 [details]
boot screen - terminal text

Shot of the boot sequence in text mode.  Note the extreme static near the text, and the color fringing on the mouse cursor.
Comment 2 Jud Craft 2009-10-22 23:35:15 UTC 
Created attachment 365795 [details]
login screen

Note the dot-crawl artifact on the sides of the login box, and the blurry text.
Comment 3 Jud Craft 2009-10-22 23:39:38 UTC 
Created attachment 365796 [details]
desktop and panel

See the dot-matrix artifacts on the text and icons.

Notice how there seems to be a shearing in the framebuffer at about X=80 / one inch from left.
Comment 4 Jud Craft 2009-10-22 23:39:52 UTC 
Created attachment 365797 [details]
shot of window

I apologize for the flash, but I included this picture because of the incredible sharpness.

As you can see, the dot-crawl artifact on the windows is NOT caused by my digital camera.  The text really is that hard to read, too.
Comment 5 Matěj Cepl 2009-11-05 17:18:47 UTC 
Since this bugzilla report was filed, there have been several major updates in various components of the Xorg system, which may have resolved this issue. Users who have experienced this problem are encouraged to upgrade their system to the latest version of their packages (at least F12Beta, but even better if the very latest versions).

Please, if you experience this problem on the up-to-date system, let us now in the comment for this bug, or whether the upgraded system works for you.

If you won't be able to reply in one month, I will have to close this bug as INSUFFICIENT_DATA. Thank you.

[This is a bulk message for all open Fedora Rawhide Xorg-related bugs. I'm adding myself to the CC list for each bug, so I'll see any comments you make after this and do my best to make sure every issue gets proper attention.]
Comment 6 Jérôme Glisse 2009-11-10 21:34:57 UTC 
More than likely a duplicate of 533314

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 533314 ***