Nouveau - Sep 2012 - [Bug 54988] New: [C51PV] Garbage on initial Console Screen

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=54988

             Bug #: 54988
           Summary: [C51PV] Garbage on initial Console Screen
    Classification: Unclassified
           Product: xorg
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: x86-64 (AMD64)
        OS/Version: Linux (All)
            Status: NEW
          Severity: critical
          Priority: medium
         Component: Driver/nouveau
        AssignedTo: nouveau at lists.freedesktop.org
        ReportedBy: baldur at email.de
         QAContact: xorg-team at lists.x.org


Created attachment 67247
  --> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/attachment.cgi?id=67247
dmesg  output

Dear all,

after having bad experiences with nouveau (using fedora 15,16,17) ,
which resulted in an immediate lockup of my old server machine,
i have given noveau another chance to run on a fedora kernel:

Linux version 3.5.3-1.fc17.x86_64 (mockbuild@)


The good is news is - it doesn't lead to immediate lockup of the machine
anymore.

The bad news. It still leads to a scrambled console screen, which does
not contain any useful information.

It seems that there is an "INVALID_CMD" issued by the noveau driver.

Can anybody help me to resolve this problem?

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--- Comment #1 from baldur at email.de 2012-09-16 16:06:40 UTC ---
Created attachment 67248
  --> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/attachment.cgi?id=67248
lspci -vv output

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--- Comment #2 from baldur at email.de 2012-09-16 16:11:37 UTC ---
Created attachment 67250
  --> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/attachment.cgi?id=67250
/var/log/dmesg from fedora

as there are some initial lines missing from my dmesg output, this is what
fedora had stored...

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--- Comment #3 from Marcin Slusarz <marcin.slusarz at gmail.com>
2012-09-16 16:31:48 UTC ---
does it work if you boot with mem=2G in kernel command line?

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--- Comment #4 from baldur at email.de 2012-09-16 19:41:48 UTC ---

yes it works!
(with mem=2G)


But memory is already low on my system, so limiting it to 2G is not an option
for me.

This is an 64 bit system. So i am wondering why i have a 32bit (2G?) problem?

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Marcin Slusarz <marcin.slusarz at gmail.com> changed:

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

--- Comment #5 from Marcin Slusarz <marcin.slusarz at gmail.com>
2012-09-16 19:45:48 UTC ---
Your card has problems addressing memory above 2G.
As a temporary workaround you can apply patch from bug 46557.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 46557 ***

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--- Comment #6 from D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh at mimosa.com> 2012-09-16
19:58:49 UTC ---
Marcin:

As I mentioned in 46557, I'm not convinced that the problem is hardware.  It
could easily be some widening bug in C code.  It smells like sign-extension of
a 32 bit quantity that should be zero-extended.  But it could be the truncation
of a wider-than-32-bit quantity to 32 bits.  And, of course, it could be
hardware.

Why would the 32-bit Linux have no trouble with the identical hardware?

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--- Comment #7 from baldur at email.de 2012-09-16 20:04:39 UTC ---
I can add another data point, which indicates it is not the hardware.


This card works "flawless" with the nvidia driver since 4.5 years. It
is only
my curiosity, why i try nouveau from time to time.

As recompiling the kernel on every new update from fedora is not an option i am
going back to the nvidia driver.

But at least i know now how to install a "fresh" fedora (mem=2G), so
your help
is greatly appreciated!

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--- Comment #8 from Marcin Slusarz <marcin.slusarz at gmail.com>
2012-09-16 20:38:51 UTC ---
D. Hugh Redelmeier:
If you can prove it's "widening bug", please do (by fixing it).
Memory used by the kernel in 32-bit mode is allocated in first GB, so you
can't
hit this bug there.

Dietmar:
Nvidia driver may:
a) init the hardware in a way we don't, fixing this bug
b) workaround it internally by allocating memory in first 2G

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