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Tasklist

FS#4586 - SiS onboard video flicker

Attached to Project: Arch Linux
Opened by Ralph Alvy (ralvy) - Saturday, 06 May 2006, 19:01 GMT
Task Type Bug Report
Category System
Status Closed
Assigned To No-one
Architecture not specified
Severity Medium
Priority Normal
Reported Version 0.7.1 Noodle
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 0
Private No

Details

Now that at least two other people have reported this on the mailing list (see "Arch Current and SiS video"), I'll report it as a bug. With SiS onboard video, Arch Current, whether I have the vesa or the sis driver selected under X, my screen flickers terribly when moving the mouse, and even worse when using the keyboard. Exiting and opening windows can be very choppy. I do not experience this on this box when running Kubuntu 5.10, Mepis 6 Beta 2, or CentOS 4.3, and I know that Mepis 6 Beta 2 uses Xorg7 like Arch does.

This problem is so uncomfortable that I don't use Arch on this box anymore, though I haven't removed it, hoping an update may changes things.
This task depends upon

Closed by  Jan de Groot (JGC)
Wednesday, 17 May 2006, 17:58 GMT
Reason for closing:  Fixed
Additional comments about closing:  XScreensaver updated to 4.24
Comment by Travis Willard (Cerebral) - Saturday, 06 May 2006, 19:52 GMT
I can confirm this problem on SiS onboard video - my box at work has the exact same problem. They got me a spare Matrox AGP card that they had lying around, and it works like a charm.

Work machine running Arch current, as up-to-date as can be.
Comment by Jan de Groot (JGC) - Wednesday, 10 May 2006, 11:49 GMT
Could you try compiling xorg-server without the i810-crash.patch file applied?
Comment by Ralph Alvy (ralvy) - Wednesday, 10 May 2006, 14:29 GMT
Recompiled without the i810-crash.patch file applied, upgraded with that recompiled package, and rebooted. Problem persists.
Comment by Jan de Groot (JGC) - Wednesday, 10 May 2006, 14:44 GMT
This doesn't make sense to me, we don't apply special patches other than the i810-crash.patch to xorg-server (all the other ones are the same fedora and ubuntu apply, some of them are arch specific patches which set the default mouse device for example). The only thing that I could think of is a kernel bug in our stock kernel.
Could it be something with a framebuffer console, trying a different kernel like the -beyond kernel, etc?
Comment by Ralph Alvy (ralvy) - Wednesday, 10 May 2006, 15:33 GMT
I've been assuming it has something to do with the kernel all along, and have been meaning to mark out some time to experiment with different config options. I thought I'd simply start by using the supplied kconfig26 against sources from kernel.org, with no patches. Then, assuming the problem persists, start adding or eliminating options with menuconfig and see what happens. I know I did this only one time a week or so ago, when I tried adding SiS support to the kernel (this is not there in the Arch stock kernel). This didn't help the problem at all.
Comment by Ralph Alvy (ralvy) - Thursday, 11 May 2006, 00:14 GMT
Just tried the latest Beyond Kernel. This doesn't fix the problem. Next, I'll start working with 2.6.16.15 sources I just downloaded from kernel.org and see what I can do with them, starting with kconfig26 as my oldconfig and working from there.
Comment by Ralph Alvy (ralvy) - Thursday, 11 May 2006, 04:41 GMT
The following fail to resolve this:

1. Using stock kconfig26, simply added SiS support.

2. Using stock kconfig26, simply removing console frame buffer support.

Not sure where to go from here. I'm thinking this is not a kernel problem.
Comment by Ralph Alvy (ralvy) - Friday, 12 May 2006, 03:42 GMT
I'm pretty sure this is not a kernel problem. Tonight I configured 2.6.16.15 from source from scratch with pretty much bare-bones stuff, not bothering to touch the kconfig file. I still get the bad flickering. This flickering takes the form of sparks of horizontal lines. They appear most terribly when typing in a box like this.

This really sounds like something to do with X itself.
Comment by Not Important (pholie) - Tuesday, 16 May 2006, 17:22 GMT
I had been using an old board with integrated SiS card for some time and I know I had some strange flickering when typing and moving mouse, when I was using Ubuntu, too. I would suspect drivers for SiS cards are even crappier than the cards themselves and not guilt the kernel or what.
Comment by Ralph Alvy (ralvy) - Tuesday, 16 May 2006, 18:32 GMT
Well, I don't find any flickering at all with Mepis 6 Betas 1, 2, and 3, which is essentially Ubuntu (actually Kubuntu Dapper). And I don't seen flickering with CentOS 4.3. I have tried recompiling xorg-server with absolutely no patches, and that failed to help Arch out in this regard. I also have tried recompiling other X stuff that had pathches, but doing so without patches, and that also failed to resolve this. Every once in a while I load Arch and try something else, to no avail. I also tried recompling the sis driver, to no avail. And using the vesa driver fail to help.
Comment by Jan de Groot (JGC) - Tuesday, 16 May 2006, 20:01 GMT
Hmm, then the only difference between archlinux and others is that we're still using GCC 4.0 and they're using GCC 4.1. Could be that 4.0 creates code that isn't liked by SiS hardware.
Comment by Ralph Alvy (ralvy) - Wednesday, 17 May 2006, 00:13 GMT
Just got home and booted Mepis and CentOS. Here are they're gcc versions:

Mepis 6 Beta 3
gcc 4.0.3

CentOS 4.3
gcc 3.4.5
Comment by Not Important (pholie) - Wednesday, 17 May 2006, 10:56 GMT
Would it be possible if you tried copying the driver from Mepis to arch and try if it works?
Comment by Ralph Alvy (ralvy) - Wednesday, 17 May 2006, 14:38 GMT
Here's the latest. When I don't run xscreensaver, the problem is gone. So when I get a chunk of time again, I'll start playing with the compile config options of xscreensaver and see what I come up with. In the mean time, I'll let KDE lock my screen (which I have found fairly unreliable in the past). Perhaps the first recompile will be to remove pam support.
Comment by Ralph Alvy (ralvy) - Wednesday, 17 May 2006, 14:43 GMT
Wait a minute ... Take a look at http://tinyurl.com/jjjw3. Here's what's said about version 4.24 (note the second bullet):

4.24 08-Feb-2006

* New versions of cube21, glsnake, celtic.
* Backed out a DPMS-related patch that cause desktop flickering with some X servers.
* Fixed startup crash in getgroups() when running setuid.
* Default to not displaying stderr on the saver window.
* Fixed bad free() in ``Documentation'' button.
* Don't try to run hacks that aren't installed.
* Minor fixes to various XML config files and man pages.

Comment by Ralph Alvy (ralvy) - Wednesday, 17 May 2006, 14:59 GMT
Okay, problem seems solved for now. I used ABS to build xscreensaver 4.24 using the PKBUILD I found there for 4.23. I made no changes to that file, other than these:

pkgver=4.24
pkgrel=1
md5sums=('174b6a7cebd892c1a6c2d56bf5ac5af6' '367a3538f54db71f108b34cfa31088ac')

After installing the newly created package, all seems fine now with xscreensaver running.
Comment by Ralph Alvy (ralvy) - Wednesday, 17 May 2006, 15:02 GMT
Just sent a report to the Arch xscreensaver maintainer to read over this thread.
Comment by Jan de Groot (JGC) - Wednesday, 17 May 2006, 15:12 GMT
Thanks for pointing this one out. I never thought about anything like this. Expect an updated xscreensaver package today or tomorrow.

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