Intel integrated graphics freezes when intel driver is used

Question

So, I'm finally deciding to post here after a long battle with my graphics card. I believe there is an underlying hardware issue with it since I get BSoD's under Windows and seemingly random display freezes whenever I use the intel driver under Linux. This is not necessarily Arch-specific since I experienced the same problems when I used Ubuntu.
[edit]This is my graphics card according to lspci: Intel Corporation 82946GZ/GL Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)[/edit]
Symptoms:
Using the xf86-video-intel driver causes random, unrecoverable screen freezes that force me to restart.
After a screen freeze, I cannot switch to TTY and screen goes blank or stays frozen.
Screen freezes tend to happen when light to moderate graphics need to be drawn - anything from context menu shadows to OpenGL programs cause a freeze.
Setting Xorg intel driver option "ShadowFB" to "true" fixes the screen freeze issue, but the display becomes unusably slow. fbdev is faster than using the intel driver with ShadowFB on.
Setting Xorg intel driver option "DRI" to "false" and "Accel" to "false" does not fix the problem.
I am able to work around the issue entirely using the fbdev driver (xf86-video-fbdev). The results are perfect for my needs as I don't really use or need any 3d effects as I'm using XFCE. I am fine having only 2d effects as is the case with fbdev. However, the single problem that I'd like to fix with fbdev is that my mouse sometimes disappears when I perform certain actions, such as right-clicking, moving the mouse across the screen, or moving the mouse over a text input to change the cursor. The only way to get the cursor to reappear is to move it.
I'm not sure what sorts of files may be useful here. I would like to fix this problem either by solving whatever is the root issue with the intel driver or by fixing the issue with mouse flickering using fbdev.
Thanks in advance!
Last edited by itsjareds (2012-04-14 07:45:58)

Answer 1

Thanks for responding. The freezing problem began a few years ago when I still used Ubuntu, I'm assuming there was either a kernel or intel driver update that broke it. Back then, when the screen froze I was still able to switch back to a TTY and errors that look similar to this would flood my terminal about 1 time per second (not my output, got it from this thread but it is identical to what I saw):
[ 4232.490910] [drm:i915_hangcheck_elapsed] *ERROR* Hangcheck timer elapsed... GPU hung
[ 4232.509642] [drm:i915_wait_request] *ERROR* i915_wait_request returns -11 (awaiting 120527 at 120524, next 120528)
The intel driver has been broken for me ever since then. I have tried several different distributions to try to fix it but they all produce the same error. Now, those errors do not show up and I can't switch back to a terminal as if the entire system froze. This is my kernel line:
BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-linux-ck root=/dev/sda8 ro quiet
I've tried adding i915.i915_enable_rc6=1, i915.i915_enable_rc6=0, and i915.i915_enable_fbc=1 to my kernel line. enable_rc6 caused no changes, and enable_fbc led to X not being able to start. I also tried enable_semaphores but that produced no changes either (I think that fix only works for Ivy Bridge chipsets, my computer is older).
Enabling "Shadow" in my Xorg configuration as per the wiki did solve the freeze issue, but now I get artifacts on my screen. Taking a screenshot seemed to not show the corruption, so I recreated two common examples in GIMP of where I see artifacts:
Here, notice the highlighted line below where my mouse cursor should be. This stays for 500ms-1sec before the screen refreshes again and the artifact is removed.
And here, the desktop icon highlight effect is buggy.
Note that these are only two examples; I see this in many different places on my screen. I'm not sure whether my card is old or not. I believe it's somewhat older since I bought this computer at least four or five years ago. I've tried also using the xf86-video-intel-devel driver on the AUR as it is, but it also seems to be out of date so I also tried editing the PKGBUILD to create the 2.18-1 driver instead of the 2.16-2 driver. No changes with either driver.
Do you have any more suggestions? Thanks for the help thus far.
edit: Here is my X configuration in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-monitor.conf, if relevant:
Section "Monitor"
        Identifier      "Monitor0"
EndSection
Section "Device"
        Identifier      "Device0"
#       Driver          "fbdev"
#       Option "ShadowFB" "false"
        Driver "intel"
        Option "Shadow" "true"
        Option "DRI" "false"
#       Option "FallbackDebug" "true"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
        Identifier      "Screen0"
        Device          "Device0"
        Monitor         "Monitor0"
        DefaultDepth    24
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth   24
                Modes   "1440x900"
        EndSubSection
EndSection
Last edited by itsjareds (2012-04-14 18:03:01)