[HP Pavilion g7-1219wm] Graphical Errors and Driver Issue

[Error 418]

First attempt with Ubuntu on this laptop was with 11.10. Was a no-go, as the live CD resulted in a blank screen. After doing some looking about, I saw that I would have to try the 12.04 Alpha 2 release.

With that said, here are my specs.

brian@g7:~$ lspci | grep VGA
00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Wrestler [Radeon HD 6320]

brian@g7:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 14h Processor Root Complex
00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Wrestler [Radeon HD 6320]
00:01.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Wrestler HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6250/6310]
00:04.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 14h Processor Root Port
00:11.0 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 SATA Controller [AHCI mode]
00:12.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:12.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
00:13.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:13.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 42)
00:14.2 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) (rev 40)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 LPC host controller (rev 40)
00:14.4 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge (rev 40)
00:15.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB700/SB800/SB900 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 0)
00:15.1 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB700/SB800/SB900 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 1)
00:15.2 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB900 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 2)
00:16.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:16.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 0 (rev 43)
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 1
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 2
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 3
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 4
00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 6
00:18.6 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 5
00:18.7 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 7
03:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter (rev 01)
07:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 05)
08:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTS5116 PCI Express Card Reader (rev 01)

[Error 418]

Bump.

Found some more information. Not directly related, I don't think, but something to keep in mind.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1894466 Thread in paticular was solved (Talking about instillation and booting.) and deals with the HP Pavilion g7-1279dx model.


Additionally. I preformed a reinstall and didn't activate the AMD drivers this time, nor did I attempt to work with Gnome 3. Haven't been having the graphical problems. I will, however, leave this open until I find the reason for the problem.

[jonnyboysmithy]

I dont know I this applies to you but I also used to get scambled screen like that.
If you have the proprietary driver installed then maybe this helps..
EDIT: I'm using HD 6740m on HP DV6 6023TX

After some experimentation it seems the critical step for me was to switch to eco graphics before restarting after I installed the driver.
After installing the driver you need to configure it with aticonfig:

sudo aticonfig --initial

And after that tell it to use the power save graphics:

sudo aticonfig --px-igpu

Then restart. For me that prevents it from getting a scrambled splash screen.

[Error 418]

I dont know I this applies to you but I also used to get scambled screen like that.
If you have the proprietary driver installed then maybe this helps..
EDIT: I'm using HD 6740m on HP DV6 6023TX

Thats interesting. I'll give that a try. [EDIT] Your solution seemed to work. Thank you.


Some new issues have cropped up, thought I believe this is largely to user error on my part and careless updating.
Ubuntu was running fine without updates, after the re-install. After updates, I began getting graphical errors once more, and this time without activating proprietary devices.

I've also received two errors that worry me. The first one, that I managed to make a log of ...

The problem cannot be reported:

You have some obsolete package versions installed. Please upgrade the following packages and check if the problem still occurs:

unity, compiz, compiz-core, compiz-gnome, compiz-plugins-default, compiz-plugins-main-default, libcompizconfig0, libdecoration0, libgl1-mesa-glx, libglapi-mesa, libindicator3-7, libnux-2.0-0, libnux-2.0-common, unity-common

The second one followed immediately the previous error ...

System Problem Detected

This problem report is damaged and cannot be processed.

TypeError(Error('Incorrect padding',),)

Once again, I believe this is user error and careless updating on my part.

Will attempt starting from scratch again. It's a darn good thing I enjoy this kind of thing, otherwise I'd be overly frustrated. Curious to see what Canonical has in store for the 12.04 Beta 1 release in a couple weeks.