Changing screem modes -> crashes

[ScottHW]

I've been working with a Gateway M275 Tablet laptop w/ Hardy (and recording my results in another thread). I have some sort of array of graphics problems;

I get hangs and need hard reboot (inconsistently) when:

• Switching to use tty virtual terminals
• Suspend/Standby the system
• Shutting down
• Switching LCD/CRT display
• Restarting GDM

I don't quite know how to go about tracking down my problems any more than this. I have looked around extensively, and read launchpad bug reports and i810 conflict reports, etc.

How do I find the specifics on my system to move forward and fix these problems? tracebacks (not entirely sure how to do this...) ?

I can attach Xorg.conf, Xorg.0.log, lspic, dmesg, or any other logs or pertinent info if it would help.

[ScottHW]

Here are the bug reports I've found, albeit some old, with similar symptoms:

laptop hangs when switching video mode
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...el/+bug/127101

[855GM] system hang during suspend/resume
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11432

System freeze after pressing ctrl-alt-bs.
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10809

xserver crashes when rotating display and compiz enabled
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...el/+bug/294309

Can anyone tell me how I can determine if I'm effected by the same problems? Some of those threads are old...

[ScottHW]

Could anyone who has more Ubuntu beans explain to I how to go about trying to diagnose this?

tracebacks? Which logs to look at? How I might need to modify my Xorg.conf file?

[ScottHW]

I checked that I have the most recent BIOS (48.04.01)

Any ideas? Little help?

[ScottHW]

Neither of the sites listed above, bugs.freedesktop nor bugs.launchpad have ANY reports dealing specifically with M275.

Can anyone help me? At least help me get started???

Please???

[ScottHW]

Well, with no help, and not even a single response from anyone on the forums, I read some useful stuff on other forums that has helped me "solve" this problem.

From this older bug report (about several other laptop models), there is a suggestion I'd seen before:
http://<u>https://bugs.launchpad.net...bug/127101</u>

What you need to do is:
edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
and add into the video card section:
Option "ForceEnablePipeA" "true"

I took it to mean this:

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Configured Video Device"
	Option		"ForceEnablePipeA" "true"
...
...
End Section

Anyway, that does work. But, since I haven't actually figured out why this works, or what specific problem(s) it addresses/solves/works-around, I'm not really thrilled with it.

Also, while I can't find the link now, I know I've read in other bug reports that this will cause increased power usage, an unfavorable side-effect on a laptop.

Also, I do not yet know how this might effect actual performance of the video-out VGA. I may report more later, but there don't seem to be many interested readers here on Ubuntuforums...

[MGaddict2000]

You do have interested readers, unfortunatly we seem to have less experience then you. The oddest thing I'm noticing here is you have a short snippet of your xorg.conf here and the section your showing has

...
...
End Section

which tells me you have more info there. I have nothing listed in that section besides

Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Option "ForceEnablePipeA" "true"

Do you have a driver listed or something? I'm having trouble with wacomcpl telling me I need a driver. I'm probably going to post on your other thread this problem if I don't find it when I finish getting though that thread. But thanks a lot for this, its really helping somebody.