11.10 to 12.04 laptop upgrade fails with video error

[PaulWhipp]

My ASUS A53B is less than a year old. It has a Radeon HD6470M (512Mb) video card which came as standard.

Windows 7 is working fine. 11.10 Ubuntu was working fine.

12:04 wont run in any graphics mode.

When I upgraded to 12:04, all looked fine up to the restart and it then comes up with "The system is running in low-graphics mode". None of the options including recovery actually boot it into any graphics mode - I can only get to the terminal login.

The "Archive configuration and log files" yielded lightdm.log with these contents:


[+0.00s] DEBUG: Logging to /var/log/lightdm/lightdm.log
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Starting Light Display Manager 1.2.1, UID=0 PID=1047
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Loaded configuration from /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Using D-Bus name org.freedesktop.DisplayManager
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Registered seat module xlocal
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Registered seat module xremote
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Adding default seat
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Starting seat
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Starting new display for greeter
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Starting local X display
[+0.05s] DEBUG: X server :0 will replace Plymouth
[+0.08s] DEBUG: Using VT 7
[+0.08s] DEBUG: Activating VT 7
[+0.08s] DEBUG: Logging to /var/log/lightdm/x-0.log
[+0.08s] DEBUG: Writing X server authority to /var/run/lightdm/root/:0
[+0.08s] DEBUG: Launching X Server
[+0.08s] DEBUG: Launching process 1078: /usr/bin/X :0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch -background none
[+0.08s] DEBUG: Waiting for ready signal from X server :0
[+0.08s] DEBUG: Acquired bus name org.freedesktop.DisplayManager
[+0.08s] DEBUG: Registering seat with bus path /org/freedesktop/DisplayManager/Seat0
[+0.58s] DEBUG: Process 1078 exited with return value 1
[+0.58s] DEBUG: X server stopped
[+0.58s] DEBUG: Removing X server authority /var/run/lightdm/root/:0
[+0.58s] DEBUG: Releasing VT 7
[+0.58s] DEBUG: Stopping Plymouth, X server failed to start
[+0.67s] DEBUG: Display server stopped
[+0.67s] DEBUG: Stopping display
[+0.67s] DEBUG: Display stopped
[+0.67s] DEBUG: Stopping X local seat, failed to start a display
[+0.67s] DEBUG: Stopping seat
[+0.67s] DEBUG: Seat stopped
[+0.67s] DEBUG: Required seat has stopped
[+0.67s] DEBUG: Stopping display manager
[+0.67s] DEBUG: Display manager stopped
[+0.67s] DEBUG: Stopping daemon
[+0.68s] DEBUG: Exiting with return value 1

The Xorg.0.log file is quite long but here is the (relevant?) tail -



[ 17.403] (**) fglrx(0): NoAccel = NO
[ 17.403] (**) fglrx(0): ATI 2D Acceleration Architecture enabled
[ 17.403] (--) fglrx(0): Chipset: "AMD Radeon HD 6320 Graphics" (Chipset = 0x9806)
[ 17.403] (--) fglrx(0): (PciSubVendor = 0x1043, PciSubDevice = 0x101c)
[ 17.403] (==) fglrx(0): board vendor info: third party graphics adapter - NOT original ATI
[ 17.403] (--) fglrx(0): Linear framebuffer (phys) at 0xb0000000
[ 17.403] (--) fglrx(0): MMIO registers at 0xfeb00000
[ 17.403] (--) fglrx(0): I/O port at 0x0000f000
[ 17.403] (==) fglrx(0): ROM-BIOS at 0x000c0000
[ 17.449] (II) fglrx(0): Primary V_BIOS segment is: 0xc000
[ 17.451] (II) Loading sub module "vbe"
[ 17.451] (II) LoadModule: "vbe"
[ 17.452] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libvbe.so
[ 17.452] (II) Module vbe: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[ 17.452] compiled for 1.11.3, module version = 1.1.0
[ 17.452] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 11.0
[ 17.452] (II) fglrx(0): VESA BIOS detected
[ 17.452] (II) fglrx(0): VESA VBE Version 3.0
[ 17.453] (II) fglrx(0): VESA VBE Total Mem: 16384 kB
[ 17.453] (II) fglrx(0): VESA VBE OEM: AMD ATOMBIOS
[ 17.453] (II) fglrx(0): VESA VBE OEM Software Rev: 12.36
[ 17.453] (II) fglrx(0): VESA VBE OEM Vendor: (C) 1988-2010, AMD Technologies Inc.
[ 17.453] (II) fglrx(0): VESA VBE OEM Product: WRESTLER
[ 17.453] (II) fglrx(0): VESA VBE OEM Product Rev: 01.00
[ 17.466] (II) fglrx(0): ATI Video BIOS revision 9 or later detected
[ 17.466] (--) fglrx(0): Video RAM: 393216 kByte, Type: DDR3
[ 17.466] (II) fglrx(0): PCIE card detected
[ 17.466] (--) fglrx(0): Using per-process page tables (PPPT) as GART.
[ 17.466] (WW) fglrx(0): board is an unknown third party board, chipset is supported
[ 17.466] (--) fglrx(0): (PciSubVendor = 0x1043, PciSubDevice = 0x101c)
[ 17.466] (==) fglrx(0): board vendor info: third party graphics adapter - NOT original ATI
[ 17.466] (--) fglrx(0): Linear framebuffer (phys) at 0xc0000000
[ 17.466] (--) fglrx(0): MMIO registers at 0xfea20000
[ 17.466] (--) fglrx(0): I/O port at 0x0000e000
[ 17.466] (==) fglrx(0): ROM-BIOS at 0x000c0000
[ 17.471] (II) fglrx(0): Invalid ATI BIOS from int10, the adapter is not VGA-enabled
[ 17.472] (EE) fglrx(0): Invalid video BIOS signature!
[ 17.472] (EE) fglrx(0): GetBIOSParameter failed
[ 17.472] (EE) fglrx(0): PreInitAdapter for slave 0 failed
[ 17.472] (EE) fglrx(0): PreInit failed
[ 17.472] (II) fglrx(0): === [xdl_xs111_atiddxPreInit] === end
[ 17.472] (EE) fglrx(0): Failed shutdown interrupts. Error -9
[ 17.713] (II) UnloadModule: "fglrx"
[ 17.713] (II) Unloading fglrx
[ 17.713] (II) UnloadModule: "vbe"
[ 17.713] (II) Unloading vbe
[ 17.713] (II) UnloadModule: "fglrxdrm"
[ 17.713] (II) Unloading fglrxdrm
[ 17.713] (II) UnloadModule: "vgahw"
[ 17.713] (II) Unloading vgahw
[ 17.713] (II) UnloadModule: "fglrxdrm"
[ 17.713] (II) Unloading fglrxdrm
[ 17.713] (EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.
[ 17.713]
Fatal server error:
[ 17.713] no screens found

At this stage I should point out that the Windows install on the laptop (which I hardly ever use) is working fine.

How can I get my system back up and running (ideally in 12.04 rather than reinstalling 11.10)?

[wilee-nilee]

Have you tried using the nomodeset option to get in?

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1613132

[holycow131415]

Why dont you just burn 12.04 livecd and test if your computer runs in 3d. And just install 12.04 from the livecd instead of going back to 11.10.

[PaulWhipp]

Yes (as of receiving your reply) - I've tried booting with nomodeset. It makes no difference.

The linux boot line ends with $vt_handof\f which looks a little strange. I tried removing it and while the system ends up at the same "the system is running in low-graphics mode", if flickered through the more normal ubuntu start up screen before it got there. Not sure if that is useful information or not.

[PaulWhipp]

I'm downloading the 12.04 iso now. It may be useful seeing if I can run 12:04 of the disk.

I don't want to just reinstall if I can avoid it because I'll lose time setting everything up again and I wont ever know why this upgrade failed.

[PaulWhipp]

The 12.04 on disc runs fine when I use the Try Ubuntu.

This shows that the video card should work OK with the default drivers. It seems like the 12.04 upgrade process has screwed something up.

Any information on how I can fix this would be appreciated.

[PaulWhipp]

After much obscure googling I found http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=11467052&postcount=798.

I can't get apt-get update to complete atm (perhaps everyone is upgrading to 12.04) but when I did


apt-get remove --purge fglrx*

and restarted, I've got the graphic client (unity) working as it was in 11.04.

I believe that this is because I'm now running a default video driver so I'll continue investigating.