Intel GMA X4500HD woes (Intel G45 Chipset)

[Croccydile]

Well I seem to have hit a brick wall trying to get the video to work properly on this board, so I'm going to throw in the towel and see if anyone is in my boat here.

I just got and setup my new Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H mainboard and Ubuntu 8.04 64-bit and everything works quite well apart from my video troubles.

I expected since the X4500HD is so brand spanking new, that there was not going to be much for driver support... however I took a look at this page which covers the Intel 2.4.0 driver for GMA graphics, however my results were mixed

If I use "intel" for the xorg.conf driver I get the correct resolution, however my cursor is quite garbled as is the entire screen once in a while and there is no DRM, so Compiz is a no-go.

Granted I should not expect much for being so bleeding edge, I'm hoping someone else has run across this as well. I can use a simple ATI X1300 PCI-E in the 16x video slot for the time being until I have better luck... however kind of defeats the purpose of getting a board with integrated video.

Perhaps some marginally useful info... E8400 processor with 4GB of memory

lspci output

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Eaglelake DRAM Controller (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Eaglelake Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Eaglelake HECI Controller (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation ICH10 USB UHCI Controller #4
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation ICH10 USB UHCI Controller #5
00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation ICH10 USB UHCI Controller #6
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation ICH10 USB2 EHCI Controller #2
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation ICH10 HD Audio Controller
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation ICH10 PCI Express Port 1
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation ICH10 PCI Express Port 6
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation ICH10 USB UHCI Controller #1
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation ICH10 USB UHCI Controller #2
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation ICH10 USB UHCI Controller #3
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation ICH10 USB2 EHCI Controller #1
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 90)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH10 LPC Interface Controller
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation ICH10 6 port SATA AHCI Controller
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation ICH10 SMBus Controller
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 02)
03:00.0 Multimedia video controller: Internext Compression Inc iTVC16 (CX23416) MPEG-2 Encoder (rev 01)
03:01.0 Multimedia video controller: Internext Compression Inc iTVC16 (CX23416) MPEG-2 Encoder (rev 01)
03:05.0 IDE interface: Integrated Technology Express, Inc. Unknown device 8213
03:07.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)

I plan on running MythTV once I get it all setup.

[McLogic]

Well I seem to have hit a brick wall trying to get the video to work properly on this board, so I'm going to throw in the towel and see if anyone is in my boat here.

I am also "in your boat" with the Eaglelake chipset. The drivers for it are not in the 8.04 release. The two missing drivers are rather important: Video and SATA.

Read the Phoronix review of the x4500HD chipset, they talk a little about getting the system working:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...=intel_x4500hd

I just got and setup my new Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H mainboard and Ubuntu 8.04 64-bit and everything works quite well apart from my video troubles.

I looked at the Gigabyte board, as it is the only x4500HD board that has the ICH10R chipset for Intel MatrixRAID, and AHCI support. Unfortunatly, the 16x PCI-E slot is only the speed of a 4x slot. This does not matter if you use the intergrated graphics, and don't have any 8x or 16x cards.

I bought the Supermicro MBD-C2SEA, as it has AHCI support on the non-R ICH10 and two 16x PCI-E slots.

Perhaps some marginally useful info... E8400 processor with 4GB of memory. I plan on running MythTV once I get it all setup.

I plan on running MythTV also, with an NTSC ATI/Phillips card. I have a Q9300 and 2GB of memory (DDR3 is expensive).

With 8.10 Alpha 3 you get support for the ICH10, but not working video. I'm currently downloading 8.10 Alpha 4 and that uses the same xorg that they use in the review. I'll post here when I try Alpha 4.

The Phoronix reviewer (Michael Larabel) had to compile xf86-video-intel DDX, Mesa, and DRM (Direct Rendering Manager) code from the respective git master branches. We may have to do the same.

.

Fix: Refux was the first to point out that you can turn off the chip features. It will be slow, but it will not crash.

Turns out I've run into a X bug. The workaround is to add:

Option "NoAccel"

to xorg.conf

[Croccydile]

Oh wow, thats odd about the SATA driver... mine worked without any issue right off the live disc and the installed system. I enabled AHCI in the bios and the system did not give any complaints.

The 4x graphics slot does not bother me, though. The SuperMicro board looks rather nice as well but I was not ready to spend that much money on memory... I wanted at least 4GB of ram. The bill for mainboard/cpu/processor came to just under $400

With 8.10 Alpha 3 you get support for the ICH10, but not working video. I'm currently downloading 8.10 Alpha 4 and that uses the same xorg that they use in the review. I'll post here when I try Alpha 4.

The Phoronix reviewer (Michael Larabel) had to compile xf86-video-intel DDX, Mesa, and DRM (Direct Rendering Manager) code from the respective git master branches. We may have to do the same.

This is what I am worried about. As an ex-Gentoo user I'm still getting used to Ubuntu differences, but I royally screwed up my first two attempts at installing trying to get the 2.4.0 binary video driver working right and don't want to hose my machine to where I have to reinstall yet again.

I'm willing to wait for now until the updated packages are in repositories, however if I can find a guide at compiling the Intel/Mesa/DRM drivers I'd be willing to figure it out.

[McLogic]

Yes, the SATA works in 8.10 Alpha 4 and in 8.04 -- my mistake.

The graphics work with some minor problems. There are colored horizontal lines, and the wait cursor jumps around at login. The VGA output works fine on my CRT, but does something odd (see bug for more details).

It works really well with the HDMI-DVI cable on the digital output. Make sure you get the right HDMI-DVI cable, as some cables do not connect all the pins, and some projector DVI cables have USB pins. The main problem that I have had is black VGA (analog) output on my Dell LCD (1702 FP). I can still log in, and switch to virtual terminals (Ctrl-Alt-Fn) but everything is black.

The Ethernet card (Realtek 8111C) works fine, and it did not work at all in 8.04. It still is reported as a r8169 in the network info box, but who cares as long as it works. It appears that a updated driver has been given the same name; the old r8169 in 8.04 did not support the 8111C, this r8169 driver does.

The sound and onboard IDE/PATA controller also work fine in both 8.04 and 8.10 Alpha 4. I did not test the onboard Firewire/1394, but it was detected as the right TI chip.

I did not test 3D, but 8.10 did run with desktop effects. It would not let me get more then 2 desktops, even when I changed the number in the gnome-panel workspace switcher.

The bugs:
Horizontal lines on Intel G45 (aka x4500hd) output
Black VGA output on Intel G45 (aka x4500hd)
Changes in Workspace Switcher preferences do not create more desktops
RTL8111C gigabit ethernet chip

The 8.10 is not ready for prime-time, that is why it is Alpha 4.
The Supermicro board is really nice, and the onboard stuff works, but video support forces 8.10.

[Croccydile]

Hmmm thats good to hear, perhaps I will try DVI and see if I get any difference in video quality. I have a Dell 2005FPW which fits it ok, but I did notice it did have different keying than other plugs (I'm not terribly familiar with all the DVI port types) and VGA adaptors will not fit.

If not, I suppose I can also wait until 8.10 is released and upgrade my packages then. I suppose I will be able to do this, I have never had an Ubuntu machine to upgrade to a newer version before to tell. (!)

I did notice major issues with the Realtek r8196 driver, at least with my board I got the dreaded "eth0 watchdog timeout" message quite often, the only apparent solution in the meantime is to simply reboot until it decides to work, which when it does its fine... however if it gets stuck in the timeout loop the only fix for me is to reboot until it catches on.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s....20/+bug/76489 seems to describe the problem I have been facing, as do others. As you mention it seems to have been repaired in 8.10.

This has been a rather annoying issue at the moment more than the integrated video, since I can at least live with an add-in graphics card for the moment but don't have a PCI-E lan card to make the machine more stable on the lan side.

The perils of having cutting edge hardware... thanks for all the info you have provided also!

[niklaskb]

I also have a Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H.
I've been able to install Ubuntu 8.10 alpha 4 in safe graphics mode. Seems to work fine, except that the text on the login screen is so small that it is unreadable.

When i install in normal mode then it gets stuck at boot with a blank screen. Occasionally it manages to boot and then everything seems to work fine, including desktop effects. But without HDMI sound.

The installed package xserver-xorg-video-intel sems to be version 2.4.0 but according to the description in synaptics doesn't support 4-series graphics.

Is it possible to download 2.4.1 packages anywhere?

What is planned for next alpha, will it support X4500HD?

[Croccydile]

As a follow up I've also come across this problem

Slow Samba Performance with R8196 driver

I'll see if I can test that kernel in Hardy, because the mentioned issue with Samba is driving me up the wall, along with the watchdog timeout errors. *sigh* I'd like to avoid having to add another hardware band-aid with another add-in card.

The performance is rather abysmal, and my smb.conf file is stripped bare to eliminate any possible config issues... trying to load a few albums into Winamp over the share can take a minute or two, at the blazing speed of a few tens of k/sec.

[niklaskb]

Video seems to work better with 8.10 Alpha 5.
But I still can't get HDMI audio to work....


lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Eaglelake DRAM Controller (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Eaglelake Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Eaglelake HECI Controller (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5
00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) HD Audio Controller
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Port 1
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Port 6
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 90)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JIR (ICH10R) LPC Interface Controller
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) 4 port SATA IDE Controller
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) SMBus Controller
00:1f.5 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) 2 port SATA IDE Controller
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 02)
03:05.0 IDE interface: Integrated Technology Express, Inc. Device 8213
03:07.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)


aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC885 Analog [ALC885 Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: ALC885 Digital [ALC885 Digital]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0


aplay -L
default:CARD=Intel
HDA Intel, ALC885 Analog
Default Audio Device
front:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
HDA Intel, ALC885 Analog
Front speakers
surround40:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
HDA Intel, ALC885 Analog
4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
HDA Intel, ALC885 Analog
4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
HDA Intel, ALC885 Analog
5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
HDA Intel, ALC885 Analog
5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
HDA Intel, ALC885 Analog
7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
iec958:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
HDA Intel, ALC885 Digital
IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
hdmi:CARD=Intel,DEV=0
HDA Intel
HDMI Audio Output
null
Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)


Last part is intresting... how do I select that output?

[talz13]

I just set up my new pc with a Gigabyte GA-EG43M-S2H that has intel GMA X4500, and haven't been able to set the resolution properly yet. I'm stuck with a max 1280x1024/60hz. The display and graphics card just show up as "Configured blah blah" in xorg.conf, and in the screen resolution tool under preferences, the monitor is simply "Unknown". Tried adding modelines to the xorg.conf, but no change.

Since the card apparently isn't supported on hardy's intel driver 2.2.1 whatever it is, I probably shouldn't bother changing it to use intel driver?

I'm running a fresh install of 8.04.1 amd64...

[niklaskb]

I just set up my new pc with a Gigabyte GA-EG43M-S2H that has intel GMA X4500, and haven't been able to set the resolution properly yet. I'm stuck with a max 1280x1024/60hz. The display and graphics card just show up as "Configured blah blah" in xorg.conf, and in the screen resolution tool under preferences, the monitor is simply "Unknown". Tried adding modelines to the xorg.conf, but no change.

Since the card apparently isn't supported on hardy's intel driver 2.2.1 whatever it is, I probably shouldn't bother changing it to use intel driver?

I'm running a fresh install of 8.04.1 amd64...

Install 8.10 Alpha 5 and it will work.

http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/intrepid/alpha5