[CentOS] Xorg "intel" driver on 965Q lockup?

Ken Key

key-centos at ksquared.net
Thu Jul 3 20:05:09 UTC 2008


Hi Folks,

anyone out there successful in using the new xorg "intel" driver
module on a 965Q-based motherboard with CentOS 5.2?  The old
"i810" and "vesa" work fine, I am looking for anyone else with
experience with the new "intel" video driver in 5.2.

The long of it:

I have a customer's Dell Optiplex 745 (Core2 Duo 6300, 965Q chipset
with integrated video) connected to a 19" NEC  1760V.  Graphical
installs of  CentOS 5.2 completely locks the system when X starts.
Text install succeeds and creates an xorg.conf using the "intel"
video driver.  Starting X causes complete machine lockup (no
network - no ping, SSH dead) requiring a power cycle.  This happens
95% of the time.  I immediately assumed hardware problems but
it passes memtest86 just fine and works with other video drivers.
BIOS was 2.3.1 and I upgraded to latest 2.6.1 - no change.

Unfortunately, a day of testing did not nail down a commonality
of events to explain why the "intel" driver occasionally succeeds.
Usually, it's after I've been in the BIOS menu so I suspect it is
the video being  in just the right state for it to succeed, but
again it is not 100% reproducible.  When the system locks up,
no /var/log/X.0.log has been written or anything in the log files.
I would like to build a kernel with sysrq key enabled to
break into the  kernel debugger on lockup, but I don't have the
time as the hardware will be leaving soon.

Switching  to the "i810" or "vesa" drivers succeed 100% of
the time so I have a workaround: a text install and manual
edit of  /etc/X11/xorg.conf to "i810".  My app is old-school
2D so graphical performance is not a concern of mine.

I've done searches of upstream Bugzilla, xorg, CentOS bugs, and the
'net in general and, while I find X display lockups with the "intel"
driver, I do not find any complete system lockups.  I'll file a bug
against upstream but I'm trying to get a feel of what the scope of
the problem is.  I know there are folks using the "intel" driver
successfully on other distros, so I'm trying to see if this is a
CentOS problem, a RHEL problem, a Dell 745 problem, or just the
one box I have (despite tests).

Thanks for any feedback,
Ken Key






More information about the CentOS mailing list