Ubuntu

Blank Screen after log off or switching terminals

Asked by CompWhiz2010

I am running Ubuntu Edgy 6.10 x64. Whenever I log off, shut down, suspend, or try to switch to a terminal, my screen goes blank. The computer stays on but does not do anything. ctrl-alt-backspace doesn't do anything either. I have to hard reset it to get it to work.
Here are my specs:
ATI X800XT (fglrx driver installed)
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.6 Ghz Processor
Intel D975XBX2 Motherboard
2 GB memory

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Rouben
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Rouben (rouben) said : 		#1

I've experienced this on my machine as well (P4 1.8GHz with an X800 and latest fglrx on Edgy) so I have a few questions:

1.When your computer boots and you see the bootup splash screen (the progress bar), do you get any display corruption, no matter how minimal? Do the colours look a bit off?
2. When you switch to a text terminal out of X, and then switch back into X by pressing Alt+F7, do you get X back?
3. Do you run XGL/AiGLX, Compiz or Beryl?

When you get to the GRUB boot screen, try selecting the normal Ubuntu boot entry and then hit the "E" key on your keyboard. Select the kernel line and hit "E" again. Edit the kernel line so that it is changed from

/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.17-10-generic root=X ro quiet splash

to

/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.17-10-generic root=X ro

In other words, remove the last two words "quiet splash". The hit ENTER and "B" to boot. After booting like this, check to see if you still get the same problem.

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CompWhiz2010 (christianclinton) said : 		#2

Answer to previous message
1. There isn't display corruption at all
2. I cannot get back to X. My screen just goes blank and my computer wont respond to any keystrokes
3. No, I am not running any of these.
4.Changing the boot entry doesn't fix the problem

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Rouben (rouben) said : 		#3

*** Before you do this, please be ready to boot into a live CD (the Ubuntu LiveCD will be fine) and reverse the changes described here.

Does the same persist when you don't use the fglrx driver? Please remove it from /etc/modules (comment it out), then rename /etc/rc2.d/S13gdm to K13gdm (disable autoload of X on startup). This will make sure that the kernel won't load it and that X won't start. Then attempt booting with /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.17-10-generic root=X ro quiet splash and /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.17-10-generic root=X ro (without "quiet splash") and see if that makes a difference (my guess is that they both should work).

This will be a simple test to see if this is a problem with the ATI fglrx drivers, or Ubuntu's Linux kernel is corrupting the framebuffer.

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CompWhiz2010 (christianclinton) said : 		#4

I tried to use the radeon driver that comes with ubuntu instead of the fglrx driver by changing it in the xorg.conf. That seemed to solve the problem. So it looks like it has to do with the fglrx driver. Any ideas? I would use the standard radeon driver but I would like the 3d acceleration that is in the fglrx drivers.

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Best Rouben (rouben) said : 		#5

If I had to guess, since the only thing you've changed was the driver, is that this is an issue with ATI's drivers. I have had a similar problem, but slightly different. I suggest that you try try a different version of the fglrx driver. Look it up in aptitude first and if that doesn't work, grab the latest one from ATI/AMD and compile it. Step-by-step instructions for both of these procedures should be available on the Ubuntu wiki and forums.

Good luck! :)

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CompWhiz2010 (christianclinton) said : 		#6

User confirmed that the request is solved.