Major video problem after firmware updates [Solved]

[siamhie]

Question for the masses - is no one else affected? Or am I the only MX user actually using a Zen 4 GPU?

Zen 4 is still (practically) new. X670 chipset boards released in Sep 2022 with the B650 chipset boards released in Oct 2022.

Do you have a discrete graphics card to test with?


There's also a newer BIOS update available for that motherboard. Version 1807 https://rog.asus.com/us/motherboards/ro ... desk_bios/

[texneus]

Good news everyone! It was indeed the firmware (so a tip of the hat to @siamhie) and the instructions provided by @Charlie Brown to download and install the latest available were spot on. Doing some more digging today I found that despite being a new update, the latest firmware in the MX Repos are 6 months old (dated 20230625 vs the latest 20231211) - presumably that's driven by Debian, but I wrongly assumed repos would have the latest. What is interesting is looking at the linux-firmware log https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/ke ... e.git/log/ I can see "Partially revert "amdgpu: DMCUB updates for DCN 3.1.4 and 3.1.5" on July 7, which might be related to the Dmesg errors I saw. There are several amdgpu updates since, probably mostly routine stuff...but nice to be at the latest.

I will take the advice of @j2mcgreg and migrate to the Liquorix 6.6 kernel - I had been patiently been waiting for an official Debian one but after looking into that I learned there won't be one (which seems odd as it's an LTS kernel. Oh well).

[siamhie]

Glad it worked out for you @texneus. Now we know that users on the Zen4 iGPU will need the latest firmware installed. I'm sure those with discrete cards won't.

[texneus]

...users on the Zen4 iGPU will need the latest firmware installed. I'm sure those with discrete cards won't.

Well, assuming I'm not a fluke all we can really say is they will need something other than 20230625 currently provided by MX23. Whatever prior version installed before was OK. It would be a wild guess as to where the problem actually came and left, but so far the Dec 11 2023 firmware seems to work well with everything else of mine too, so its got that going for it. I never thought to check but presumably software rendering with nomodset will work even with the gimped firmware. That may be necessary to at least get functioning displays so newer firmware can be installed. That or an old kernel.

I can't speak about a discrete card as absolutely nothing I do would ever benefit from one, so I don't have one to try. If the Zen 4/RDNA2 architecture appears on any graphics cards it seems to me that discrete cards might be affected.

[Stevo]

I will take a look at again porting over Ubuntu's linux-firmware package like a few times before, since they do regular updates, unlike Rip van Winkeldebian...

Debian's 6.6 kernel is still in their Experimental section, recently updated to 6.6.7. The build configuration in /debian, compared what I have to to do port over Liquorix, is considerably more complex, and they are also making some significant changes in there with 6.6. I have been spending the last several hours poking around in there, and may have some MX builds later tonight.

[Charlie Brown]

@texneus So glad to hear it worked, and thank you for the feedback :)

[siamhie]

...users on the Zen4 iGPU will need the latest firmware installed. I'm sure those with discrete cards won't.

I can't speak about a discrete card as absolutely nothing I do would ever benefit from one, so I don't have one to try. If the Zen 4/RDNA2 architecture appears on any graphics cards it seems to me that discrete cards might be affected.

My train of thought is that you were having problems getting two monitors to work with your motherboards video outputs (DP+HDMI) using the newer kernels for the Raphael chipset.
We know those who run the Radeon 7900XT cards aren't having issues with the latest kernels. It's possible AMD made changes after the 6.1 kernel release which requires firmware newer than June.

[Stevo]

Ubuntu has switched to compressing all their firmwire files to zstd archives. The kernel added a configuration option to enable support for this in 5.19, and I assumed that at least the Liquorix kernels supported this, but after I ported over their latest linux-firmware and installed it, I lost my GUI (amd iGPU). Luckily, I was able to bring up a virtual terminal session and just use apt to reinstall firmware-amd-graphics and firmware-iwlwifi from the debs in my apt cache.

Maybe some one could look at their copy-firmware.sh script and disable that zstd stuff, so that we just get the original firmware files like their Creator intended.

[YetAnotherID]

I've only quickly skimmed through this thread, and I've only been running Linux for a short while so I'm still a novice, but I thought I'd add a quick post to share my display issue. I have a Ryzen 7900X CPU and I'm just using the integrated graphics. I installed the “ahs” version of MX 23 Xfce a while back.

The PC's display port is connected to a gizmo that's converting the signal to analogue, and from there it's connected to a CRT.
The HDMI output is connected to an LCD.

The MX updater installed a bunch of updates today. I didn't pay much attention though and just let it run.

After a restart (I gave the BIOS an update for Xmas) the CRT was still working but not the LCD. According to the GUI for configuring displays, the LCD was connected but when I switched it on manually it complained about a lack of signal .
Not to worry. I saved a snapshot of my setup a few weeks ago so it didn't take long to run the Live USB Maker and restore it, and both monitors worked again.... until I let the MX updater do it's thing.

I installed MX 23.3 Xfce ahs from scratch, but because it's Xmas and I've been pickling my brain all day, and because I've been somewhat distracted, I can't remember if the LCD monitor failed to work straight away or if I had to run the updater again to stop it working. I think it was the latter.
I tried the KDE version of MX 23.3 as well. The displays definitely worked normally after it was installed but once again the LCD monitor stopped working after running the updater.
At the moment I have the non-ahs Xfce flavour of MX 23.3 installed, and I was able to run the updater without it causing a display problem.

I assume the issue is fixable as the thread's marked solved. I'll have to try reading through it again when the remaining Xmas cheer has worn off.

[Eadwine Rose]

If you cannot get it solved, please start a thread of your own and include the Quick System Info in it, thanks. :)