Nouveau - Oct 2010 - [Bug 31058] New: Flickering area on external monitor [9400M]

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31058

           Summary: Flickering area on external monitor [9400M]
           Product: xorg
           Version: git
          Platform: Other
        OS/Version: Linux (All)
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: medium
         Component: Driver/nouveau
        AssignedTo: nouveau at lists.freedesktop.org
        ReportedBy: felix.leimbach at gmx.net
         QAContact: xorg-team at lists.x.org


On a MacBook 6,1 with linux 2.6.36 (64bit) I see two related problems on an
external TFT display, connected via a displayport->DVI adapter:

1) With the TFT's native resolution of 1600x1200 the low area just flickers.
The color of the flickering seems to be related to the background and other
windows in that area. It's size also varies. I've filmed an instance
with a
relatively big size, see video [1].

2) When I use 1280x1024 instead the screen looks fine except for a very short
full-screen flickering approx. every 3-4 minutes. It lasts only a fraction of a
second though.

Details of my env:
- Booted from EFI (possible after Ben's work at #29171)
- xorg-server-1.9.0.902 (gentoo)
- xf86-video-nouveau from today's git
- libdrm from today's git

[1] http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10133404/flickeringarea.ogg

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--- Comment #1 from Pekka Paalanen <pq at iki.fi> 2010-10-22 15:23:40 PDT
---
This is probably an irrelevant comment, but...

You seem to have Samsung SyncMaster 204B monitor, which has two known typical
faults: dying chinese electrolyte capacitors, and instability at the
monitor's
own recommended mode of 1600x1200 60 Hz. Your symptoms, though, do not fit
either of these, but I tought you'd like to know. I have personally fixed
one
of these monitors.

The only fix for capacitors is replacing them. The display mode problem,
however, is more interesting. The standard (and the one the monitor EDID
advertises) 1600x1200 mode uses 162 MHz pixel clock, which the monitor can only
barely accept. Symptoms of mode failure are image blackouts, and white or green
"snowing" (fast moving random bright pixels). Severity depends on the
screen
contents.

The fix for the mode failure is easy: use 1600x1200 60 Hz reduced blanking
mode. Its pixel clock is low enough (130-something MHz) for the monitor to be
stable. That is my personal experience.

If you want to stress-test your monitor, make it show this image:
http://koti.mbnet.fi/inventor/download/kuvia/raster.gif
In the 162 MHz mode, my monitor simply refuses to show anything, or misbehaves
badly. On reduced blanking mode, it works like a charm.

I would recommend the reduced blanking mode regardless if my explanation has
anything to do with your actual problem. When you test different resolutions
and display modes, check the monitor's on-screen display for the mode size
and
frequencies. I do not remember the default on Nouveau, but we may be feeding a
1600x1200 mode regardless of the resolution you have selected (GPU rescaling),
even on VGA text mode(!).

Cheers.

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--- Comment #2 from Felix Leimbach <felix.leimbach at gmx.net> 2010-10-23
10:24:05 PDT ---
(In reply to comment #1)
> You seem to have Samsung SyncMaster 204B monitor, which has two known
typical
> faults:
> dying chinese electrolyte capacitors, and instability at the monitor's
> own recommended mode of 1600x1200 60 Hz.
(offtopic)
Yeah, had to replace 4 leaking capacitors after approx 2 years too, since then
its running great again. However the same monitor works just fine with another
PC and also with the nvidia binary driver.
Thanks for the hint re. ReducedBlanking, will check it out once I *can* run at
the native resolution.

(back on topic)
Today I've found a reproducable kernel panic related to the external display
might be related:

When I play a video in VLC on the external Monitor the kernel panics as soon as
I switch to fullscreen. Maximized window works.

I'll attach a screenshot of the OOPs.

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--- Comment #3 from Felix Leimbach <felix.leimbach at gmx.net> 2010-10-23
10:37:30 PDT ---
Created an attachment (id=39654)
 --> (https://bugs.freedesktop.org/attachment.cgi?id=39654)
screenshot of reproducable kernel OOPS because of fullscreen VLC on external
monitor

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--- Comment #4 from Marcin Slusarz <marcin.slusarz at gmail.com>
2010-10-23 15:54:52 PDT ---
We are hitting BUG_ON in drm_vblank_put, but the stacktrace from your oops does
not make any sense. Please recompile your kernel with CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO,
reproduce this bug and attach new oops. If it's possible catch it with
netconsole (see
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=blob_plain;f=Documentation/networking/netconsole.txt;hb=HEAD
)

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Felix Leimbach <felix.leimbach at gmx.net> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Attachment #39654|0                           |1
        is obsolete|                            |

--- Comment #5 from Felix Leimbach <felix.leimbach at gmx.net> 2010-10-24
01:10:34 PDT ---
Created an attachment (id=39662)
 --> (https://bugs.freedesktop.org/attachment.cgi?id=39662)
stacktrace (netconsole) of OOPS

Stacktrace as requested in comment #4.
Note that every line was logged twice, due to me exerimenting with netconsole
targets. Please just ignore that.

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--- Comment #6 from Felix Leimbach <felix.leimbach at gmx.net> 2010-10-24
01:21:49 PDT ---
New finding: The OOPS disappears if I disable VLC's option "Accelerated
video
output (Overlay)".
Note that on the laptop's internal screen I *can* play full screen with that
option *enabled* and no OOPS happens. It only happens on the external display.

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--- Comment #7 from Felix Leimbach <felix.leimbach at gmx.net> 2010-10-24
01:29:20 PDT ---
I've split off bug #31074 which is about that OOPS triggered by VLC.
This bug is about the original problem of a flickering area on the external
screen.

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Ilia Mirkin <imirkin at alum.mit.edu> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|NEW                         |RESOLVED
         Resolution|---                         |INVALID

--- Comment #8 from Ilia Mirkin <imirkin at alum.mit.edu> ---
It appears that this bug report has laid dormant for quite a while. Sorry we
haven't gotten to it. Since we fix bugs all the time, chances are pretty
good
that your issue has been fixed with the latest software. Please give it a shot.
(Linux kernel 3.10.7, xf86-video-nouveau 1.0.9, mesa 9.1.6, or their git
versions.) If upgrading to the latest isn't an option for you, your
distro's
bugzilla is probably the right destination for your bug report.

In an effort to clean up our bug list, we're pre-emptively closing all bugs
that haven't seen updates since 2011. If the original issue remains, please
make sure to provide fresh info, see http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/Bugs/
for what we need to see, and re-open this one.

Thanks,

The Nouveau Team

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