Weird X shutdown behavior

[asdf]

Hi,
I'm running RH7.2 with 2.4.9 on a Dell laptop. It's running just fine (a lot better than Windows!) but sometimes, whenever I exit X (either by logging out of GNOME which dumps me back to gdm, shutting down or rebooting using the GUI, or switching to a text console) my machine locks up and the screen fades to a spooky white. I'm pretty sure that this can't be good for my hardware. This seems to happen with no noticeable patterns, but it seems to happen more often when the AC power isn't on (it happens about 75% of the time.. if it doesn't lock up I'm just lucky). Has anybody experienced similar problems before? Any ideas?

Thanks.

[voidmain]

I'm also running RH72 on a Dell laptop (Lattitude 350Mhz w/64MB) and do not have those problems but I do not run Gnome.  I was running KDE for quite some time but switched to Windowmaker since I only have 64MB.  WindowMaker is a lot faster on the laptop.  Do you have the same problem when using KDE (and kdm rather than gdm)?  I have a feeling it's not the window manager though, sounds more like X is not configured quite right.  What version of X are you running?  I'm running 4.1.0.  There is an X update on RedHat's errata, might want to try upgrading...

[asdf]

Sorry, I didn't intend to mean this happened only on GNOME (though I do use GNOME). This happens even when I run plain old X without anything and try to shut it down or switch to the text console. I already upgraded XFree86 (well, Red Hat's upgrade at least, not to 4.2). I'm currently running XFree86 4.1.0.

[voidmain]

What model laptop are you running?  And what resolution of text mode are you running (80x25, etc).  The text mode resolution is adjustable in the kernel and in the lilo.con (or GRUB conf if that is what you are using).  But be careful changing this on a laptop, very limited number of text modes. I'll do some searching.  From my experience I have had this problem on several models of laptop.  I found that when started in text mode usually no problem, graphics mode is usually no problem but switching from graphics mode back to text mode can be a problem.  I'll check around for suggestions if you let me know the model number.

[asdf]

Thanks a lot, but I'm warning you - I've searched everywhere  

I have a Dell Inspiron 4000, which has an ATI Rage Mobility M3 2x AGP in it. My text mode is 80x25. I can start X just fine from the text console but I run into problems (sometimes.. actually, most of the time) when shutting down X or switching to the text console.

[asdf]

If it helps, I did a little research on my part.

In my /var/log/messages, the last thing my computer says before it freezes is the following:

Feb 23 23:18:53 microsuck gdm(pam_unix)[1347]: session closed for user john
Feb 23 23:18:53 microsuck gnome-name-server[1499]: input condition is: 0x11, exiting
Feb 23 23:18:53 microsuck gdm[1347]: gdm_slave_xioerror_handler: Fatal X error - Restarting :0

This isn't a gdm problem because it happens whenever I shut down X. It has something to do with X screwing up. It seems that gdm had reacted to the error X made before my machine locked up. But nothing after that.

[voidmain]

First of all, are you *sure* the machine is locked up or you just have no video?  i.e. does your CAPS LOCK light up with you hit CAPS lock?  If you press CNTL+ALT+DEL does it shut down and reboot?  If you blindly type commands (like "find /") do you see the hard drive light flash?  This is the type of problem I used to have with various laptops, it wasn't locked up it just had no video after leaving X.  An easier way to check is to see if you can telnet/ssh to your laptop from another machine (if you are on a network).

If it's just "no video" then I found a page where a guy had a similar problem on his Inspiron 4000 and he just pressed "Fn+F8" a couple of times and it brought his video back.  I read this in one of the Inspiron 4000 links here:

http://www.linux-laptop.net/dell.html

[voidmain]

Oh, and if it really *is* hard locked and not just "no video" then I would also try turning off APM as a test (at the LILO/GRUB boot prompt add a kernel parameter: apm=no).  I have seen APM cause similiar problems (and also play with DPMS settings in your X config).

[asdf]

quote:Originally posted by VoidMain:
First of all, are you *sure* the machine is locked up or you just have no video?  i.e. does your CAPS LOCK light up with you hit CAPS lock?  If you press CNTL+ALT+DEL does it shut down and reboot?  If you blindly type commands (like "find /") do you see the hard drive light flash?  This is the type of problem I used to have with various laptops, it wasn't locked up it just had no video after leaving X.  An easier way to check is to see if you can telnet/ssh to your laptop from another machine (if you are on a network).

If it's just "no video" then I found a page where a guy had a similar problem on his Inspiron 4000 and he just pressed "Fn+F8" a couple of times and it brought his video back.  I read this in one of the Inspiron 4000 links here:

http://www.linux-laptop.net/dell.html

No, the machine totally freezes up. I type things, press keys, and nothing happens. Hitting the CRT/LCD key a few times doesn't help. The machine's actually locked up.

[asdf]

quote:Originally posted by VoidMain:
Oh, and if it really *is* hard locked and not just "no video" then I would also try turning off APM as a test (at the LILO/GRUB boot prompt add a kernel parameter: apm=no).  I have seen APM cause similiar problems (and also play with DPMS settings in your X config).

Nope. I just tried booting with APM disabled but I'm still experiencing that lockup. Could this have something to do with XF86Config-4? If so, what possible things could be wrong in there?

[voidmain]

You could always try commenting out some of the "Modules" in the XF86Config-4 file and see if any of them are causing the problem.  Very strange that there were several documents on that Linux laptop site where people said it was running really well on their 4000 (some with the same video card you have) and didn't mention having this problem.  I assume you already searched Dell's web site?  Of course Dell's web site is about useless when it comes to Linux issues.

[triston1976]

asdf,

Did you try V..Main()'s suggestion about secure shell... If not you might want to verify by that method...

1. ssh into the box from another system.
2. try to emulate the laptops halt problem (on the laptop).
3. when it locks... run "top", "ps -ef | grep x" or anything from the remote system.
4. if you can run remote commands your "system"  isn't locked at all.

I'd also be interested to see if the problems occur when you set your DISPLAY to the remote machine and execute a similar logout process...

Do you have another box with an Xserver running?

[asdf]

quote:Originally posted by SuSEFuckingRulZ:
asdf,

Did you try V..Main()'s suggestion about secure shell... If not you might want to verify by that method...

1. ssh into the box from another system.
2. try to emulate the laptops halt problem (on the laptop).
3. when it locks... run "top", "ps -ef | grep x" or anything from the remote system.
4. if you can run remote commands your "system"  isn't locked at all.

I'd also be interested to see if the problems occur when you set your DISPLAY to the remote machine and execute a similar logout process...

Do you have another box with an Xserver running?

Tried that. The machine's *really* locked up. Argh   :mad:

[asdf]

I'm thinking this may have something to do with my driver. I know XF86 supports my video card but when I run SuperProbe it tells me that it doesn't recognize my video card.

But the crappy thing about Red Hat is its stupid RPM system. Can I safely delete XFree using RPM and install the binaries from xfree86.org?

[voidmain]

Sure you can.  First do a "rpm -qa | grep XFree" and then "rpm -e" each of them, of course there will be a *lot* of screaming about dependency problems if you remove it (i.e. KDE needs it, Gnome needs it etc).  You can also use the graphical RPM manager if you are more comfortable with it. There are a couple of ways to get around that.  One is to remove all the packages that depend on X and the other is to add the "--force" option.  Changing out X and installing from the XFree site can be challenging if you've never done it.  

Also, there are a couple of companies that produce Accelerated X servers at a fairly hefty price (MetroX for instance).  I believe they have a trial download.  You might try it just to see if it behaves the same way.  Also, did you search the web site of the chipset manufacture (ATI)?  I have accelerated drivers that I have downloaded from the nVidia site for my Geforce card, ATI might have similar drivers on their web site.

One thing I recall reading in the documentation on the 4000 on the Linux Laptop site is you don't want to do the video card probe but I could be mistaken on that.  Wish I had the answer for ya, I feel your pain if that's any consolation.  I would love to get my hands on it and try and make it work.

[ February 24, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]