mini laptop P8 black screen, external monitor and nomodeset weirdness

[jfun1]

Hello,

I have a generic mini laptop, apparently named "P8", which is doomed by this bug: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/i915 ... ssues/9063

I can't understand most of what the people say in that bug report. What I understood is: if the i915 driver is loaded, then suspending and resuming fixes the problem temporarily.

I wanted to test that. But I could not do it with the live USB. If I boot without "nomodeset", the screen is black, only an external monitor works and I don't know how to suspend and resume. Closing the lid does nothing. If I boot with "nomodeset", the screen works but only in a default resolution and orientation, and I can't change it. Closing the lid does nothing.

So I installed MX linux (along with the preinstalled Windows. It is a dual boot machine now). To my surprise, it is behaving as if it had "nomodeset" on. I don't know why, because it is not set in the grub boot options. My guess is that the driver fails to load and the system falls back to this. I can't remember if closing the lid does anything, but I understand that if the driver is not loaded in the first place, suspend/resume won't change anything.

So, I ask:

1) is my understanding of the bug report correct? If I can get the driver to load AND the suspend/resume behaviour by closing/opening the lid I should be able to use this machine?
2) how do I set up the suspend/resume with the lid correctly?
3) how do I force the driver to load in a way that if it boots with a black screen I can somehow restore the current configuration and reboot so I can get the screen back?

[Eadwine Rose]

With all help requests, please share your full Quick System Info, found in the menu. Press the Copy for forum button, then click paste in a reply.. thanks.

[jfun1]

Oh yes, there was one more thing I understood from the bug report: the motherboard is custom, in-house made, so no useful info about it. But the manufacturers did give away some files there. Does the output below mean that the i915 driver is not loaded?

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System:
  Kernel: 6.8.9-3-liquorix-amd64 [6.8-12~mx23ahs] arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0 parameters: audit=0
    intel_pstate=disable rcupdate.rcu_expedited=1 BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-6.8.9-3-liquorix-amd64
    root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash resume=UUID=<filter> resume_offset=24885248
  Desktop: Xfce v: 4.18.1 tk: Gtk v: 3.24.36 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm v: 4.18.0 vt: 7
    dm: LightDM v: 1.26.0 Distro: MX-23.2_ahs_x64 Libretto January 21  2024 base: Debian GNU/Linux
    12 (bookworm)
Machine:
  Type: Laptop Mobo: N/A model: N/A serial: <superuser required> UEFI: American Megatrends LLC.
    v: 5.25 date: 11/06/2023
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 20.4 Wh (55.9%) condition: 36.5/36.5 Wh (100.0%) volts: 11.4 min: 11.4
    model: Intel SR 1 SR Real Battery type: Unknown serial: <filter> status: discharging
CPU:
  Info: model: Intel N100 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Alder Lake level: v3 note: check built: 2021+
    process: Intel 7 (10nm ESF) family: 6 model-id: 0xBE (190) stepping: 0 microcode: 0x12
  Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 4 smt: <unsupported> cache: L1: 384 KiB desc: d-4x32 KiB; i-4x64 KiB
    L2: 2 MiB desc: 1x2 MiB L3: 6 MiB desc: 1x6 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 700 min/max: 700/801 boost: enabled scaling: driver: acpi-cpufreq
    governor: ondemand cores: 1: 700 2: 700 3: 700 4: 700 bogomips: 6451
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: gather_data_sampling status: Not affected
  Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected
  Type: l1tf status: Not affected
  Type: mds status: Not affected
  Type: meltdown status: Not affected
  Type: mmio_stale_data status: Not affected
  Type: reg_file_data_sampling status: Vulnerable: No microcode
  Type: retbleed status: Not affected
  Type: spec_rstack_overflow status: Not affected
  Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
  Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Enhanced / Automatic IBRS; IBPB: conditional; RSB filling;
    PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected; BHI: BHI_DIS_S
  Type: srbds status: Not affected
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Alder Lake-N [UHD Graphics] driver: N/A alternate: i915, xe arch: Gen-12.2
    process: Intel 10nm built: 2021-22+ bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:46d1 class-ID: 0300
  Device-2: icSpring camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 3-3:2 chip-ID: 32e6:9005
    class-ID: 0e02
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.7 compositor: xfwm v: 4.18.0 driver: X: loaded: N/A
    unloaded: fbdev dri: swrast gpu: N/A display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 800x600 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 212x159mm (8.35x6.26") s-diag: 265mm (10.43")
  Monitor-1: default res: 800x600 hz: 75 size: N/A modes: N/A
  API: OpenGL v: 4.5 Mesa 23.1.2-1~mx23ahs renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 15.0.6 256 bits)
    direct-render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel driver: N/A alternate: snd_hda_intel, snd_sof_pci_intel_tgl bus-ID: 00:1f.3
    chip-ID: 8086:54c8 class-ID: 0403
  API: ALSA v: k6.8.9-3-liquorix-amd64 status: kernel-api tools: alsamixer,amixer
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.0 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: active
    2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin 4: pw-jack type: plugin
    tools: pactl,pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie:
    speed: Unknown lanes: 63 link-max: gen: 6 speed: 64 GT/s port: 4000 bus-ID: 01:00.0
    chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200
  IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Realtek driver: rtw89_8852be v: kernel modules: wl pcie: gen: 1 speed: 2.5 GT/s
    lanes: 1 port: 3000 bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:b852 class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlan0 state: down mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Realtek Bluetooth Radio type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 3-8:4 chip-ID: 0bda:b85b
    class-ID: e001 serial: <filter>
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: up address: <filter>
  Info: acl-mtu: 1021:6 sco-mtu: 255:12 link-policy: rswitch hold sniff park
    link-mode: peripheral accept service-classes: rendering, capturing, object transfer, audio,
    telephony
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 476.94 GiB used: 21.11 GiB (4.4%)
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
  ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 model: M.2 SSD 512GB size: 476.94 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B
    logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 4A0 scheme: GPT
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 175.59 GiB size: 171.77 GiB (97.83%) used: 21.11 GiB (12.3%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/sda6 maj-min: 8:6
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 200 MiB size: 196.9 MiB (98.44%) used: 274 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/sda5 maj-min: 8:5
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default)
  ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 14.44 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 file: /swap/swap
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 42.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Repos:
  Packages: pm: dpkg pkgs: 2090 libs: 1048 tools: apt,apt-get,aptitude,nala,synaptic pm: rpm
    pkgs: 0
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list
    1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list
    1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
    2: deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list
    1: deb http://mirror.ufam.edu.br/mx/mx/repo/ bookworm main non-free
    2: deb http://mirror.ufam.edu.br/mx/mx/repo/ bookworm ahs
Info:
  Processes: 278 Uptime: 0m wakeups: 2 Memory: 11.44 GiB used: 997.8 MiB (8.5%) Init: SysVinit
  v: 3.06 runlevel: 5 default: graphical tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 12.2.0 alt: 12
  Client: shell wrapper v: 5.2.15-release inxi: 3.3.26
Boot Mode: UEFI

[jfun1]

OK, I saw the system was outdated so I did a

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sudo apt full-upgrade

and now it won't even boot. Black screen with blinking cursor. That suggests now it is trying to load the i915 driver and getting stuck, right?

So I went to the advanced options and tried to boot with the previous kernel. It worked like it was before, apparently falling back to nomodeset.

Pictures:

Older kernel:


The nomodeset behaviour:
Yes, the default is portrait. Very weird. The manufacturer tried to hide that by rotating the BIOS logo (American Megatrends) but it is clear that it is rotated. The spinning circle when Windows loads shows that, as it is not centered but offset to the right.


The result of

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sudo modprobe i915

:
Screen blinks twice and then turns into this (the black colour in both monitors is back light. They are turned on and showing black). The information in the display settings app is wrong, so I suppose it tried to load the driver, failed and went back to this failsafe mode. Maybe the problem is the monitor driver or the edid?


Here a similar problem solved by forcing an edid: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=343706