Radeon HD 3870 + fglrx + 64 bit linux = crash

[zappbrannigan]

How much system RAM do you guys have ?

4GB of DDR2

Me too. I updated the damned ASUS mainboard BIOS with 0905 and run a test with Ubuntu 7.10 with the same (old) results. After work I'll buy a serial port card for more tests... Maybe a test with Vista 64 will follow.

[Kano]

http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/networking/netconsole.txt

[jens]

same issue with HD 3850

Wow, finally somebody with the same problem. I'm experiencing the same issue on a HD 3850, and I also found a workaround in disabling memory remapping. My hardware is:
Sapphire Radeon HD 3850 256mb, 4GB DDR2, Asus P5K-E/WiFi-AP, running 64bit ArchLinux.

On a side note, I also have Vista 64bit and XP 32bit installed on this system. In Vista, the driver at first seems to be working fine in 3d applications/games, but there is a crucial problem: severe graphical corruptions will appear usually after loading the next level or whatever makes something new load into the VRAM. I don't know at all if this could be related to the problem in Linux. But in XP the driver works flawlessly. I've just got the feeling that it could have something to do with the memory addressing in 32bit vs 64bit operating systems.

It would be interesting to see if more people experience this problem, maybe we can narrow down what hardware / os combinations are affected and hopefully draw a conclusion as to where the problem should be fixed.

[zappbrannigan]

Xorg.log

Hello!
The new 8.02 driver fixes the hang of the first gl application but dosen't fix my 4GB problem. I run

X -verbose 999

over a serial terminal and got this log:
http://paste.ubuntu-nl.org/56713/ (it's debian sid!). There is only one line difference between a run with/without memory remap (except timestamp): the last line. With enabled memory remap the system hang there. In line 499 the driver detects 256 mb video ram but the 3780 has 512mb.
This is not a mb error since the radeonhd driver works and a run with Vista x64 also works fine.

Any new hints?

[uraslacker]

Try the radeonhd driver.

Any new hints?

Though you'll have to build it from source, I've had luck getting the radeonhd driver to (sort of) work with 4GB of RAM, an HD2400Pro, and an x86_64 version of Xubuntu.

You can follow some of the links I've given on this thread on Ubuntu Forums.

To give a quick summary, I...

1. Installed the radeonhd driver from GIT sources.
2. Passed the iommu=noaperture option to the kernel on boot.
3. Set the following options in the xorg.conf "Device" section:
   • Option "MonitorLayout" "TMDS"
   • Option "NoRandR"

There are other suggestions mentioned on Xorg's radeonhd Wiki, and in the bugs that I'm tracking on my final post at the Ubuntu Forums post that I refer to above.

NOTE: This is not "stable", though it is functional. I still see occasional glitches that require a reboot to fix. Most often this is caused by either allowing DPMS to shut off the LCD or just shutting if off manually. The radeonhd driver does not handle this well....yet. Still, this is better than the hard crash that the fglrx driver causes

Hope this helps! Cheers!

[zappbrannigan]

problem found and fixed!

OK, I found the problem. The 64bit driver can't handle my mtrr table.

$ cat /proc/mtrr
reg00: base=0xd0000000 (3328MB), size= 256MB: uncachable, count=1
reg01: base=0xe0000000 (3584MB), size= 512MB: uncachable, count=1
reg02: base=0x00000000 (   0MB), size=4096MB: write-back, count=1
reg03: base=0x100000000 (4096MB), size= 512MB: write-back, count=1
reg04: base=0x120000000 (4608MB), size= 256MB: write-back, count=1

The fglrx driver (8-01) works with this table:

reg00: base=0x00000000 (   0MB), size=2048MB: write-back, count=1
reg01: base=0x80000000 (2048MB), size=1024MB: write-back, count=1
reg02: base=0xc0000000 (3072MB), size= 256MB: write-back, count=1
reg03: base=0x100000000 (4096MB), size= 512MB: write-back, count=1
reg04: base=0x120000000 (4608MB), size= 256MB: write-back, count=1

But after an update to fglrx 8-02 I got this (fgl_glxgears):



@uraslacker: thanks, but the (debian) radeonhd driver works since weeks.

[zappbrannigan]

But after an update to fglrx 8-02 I got this (fgl_glxgears):

OK, this is fixed under 8-03 !

[maligor]

The Bug is very much a Asus bios bug, it's present in P5K WS 1104 BIOS aswell. Remapping the mtrrs to what you mention worked here aswell.

It's also a fglrx bug since it clearly doesn't detect broken mtrr's, it also makes fglrx look rather bad since it happens on X11 startup.

[uncle_fungus]

Unfortunately it doesn't just affect the HD series cards either. I had to use this fix to get both an X1800XT and an X1900XT to work in my P5K-E with any more than 2GB of RAM.

[alec]

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-restricted-modules-2.6.24/+bug/224404

And same problem here
Gigabyte EX38 mobo, 4GB DDR2 and 3870 radeon. Works fine except with fglrx in 64bit linux.
Who is to blame? Kernel? AMD? Intel?

I hoped I could switch to linux 100%