Artifacts when changing resolution on Imac5k late 2015. Driver problems?

[AaronTheIssueGuy]

When changing the resolution on my iMac 5k late 2015, I am experiencing an artifact. Horizontal lines appear all over the screen. This happens for all resolutions under the maximum.

This happens on all Linux distros including both common display servers xorg and wayland.

I know that the system has one of those three GPU's inside:

"AMD Radeon R9 M380/M390/M395"

but neofetch/lspci reports:

"AMD ATI Firepro M6100"

and my settings:

"AMD Bonair"

I am using the "Radeon" driver.

I've been dealing with the issue very long and was unable to find an answer. Some users suggest using the AMDGPU driver instead of the radeon, but I was unable to achieve this. Considering this happens across all distributions, I suspect it is some kind of driver issue.

Can anyone help?

 

[Alexzee]

Open your terminal and run this command:
lspci | grep -i VGA

Please post the output.

Does your iMac have dual graphics?

 

[AaronTheIssueGuy]

Afaik I do not have dual graphics.

Here is lspci:

aaron@aaron-iMac:~$ lspci | grep -i VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Saturn XT [FirePro M6100] (rev 80)

and here sudo lshw -numeric -C display:

aaron@aaron-iMac:~$ sudo lshw -numeric -C display
[sudo] Passwort für aaron:        
  *-display                
       Beschreibung: VGA compatible controller
       Produkt: Saturn XT [FirePro M6100] [1002:6640]
       Hersteller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] [1002]
       Physische ID: 0
       Bus-Informationen: pci@0000:01:00.0
       Version: 80
       Breite: 64 bits
       Takt: 33MHz
       Fähigkeiten: pm pciexpress msi vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       Konfiguration: driver=radeon latency=0
       Ressourcen: irq:54 memory:a0000000-afffffff memory:b0000000-b07fffff ioport:3000(Größe=256) memory:d1600000-d163ffff memory:d1640000-d165ffff

 

[Alexzee]

Thanks for posting the output.
I wrote down what GPU that you have so I've got that, thanks.

Before I look for and help you install the AMD GPU driver we have to find out if the radeon driver is installed.

IF the fglrx driver is installed running fglrxinfo should produce some information.
OR> try running dpkg -L fglrx, if nothing shows than it's not installed.

You said that you are using the radeon driver. Did you install the AMD proprietary driver manually?

What Linux distro do you have installed on your iMac right now?

 

[AaronTheIssueGuy]

Thanks for posting the output.
I wrote down what GPU that you have so I've got that, thanks.

Before I look for and help you install the AMD GPU driver we have to find out if the radeon driver is installed.

IF the fglrx driver is installed running fglrxinfo should produce some information.
OR> try running dpkg -L fglrx, if nothing shows than it's not installed.

You said that you are using the radeon driver. Did you install the AMD proprietary driver manually?

What Linux distro do you have installed on your iMac right now?

fglrx does not seem to be installed. I assumed im using the radeon driver because "lshw" tells me i am. I did not install any other drivers manually and I am running ZorinOS 16 which is based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.

 

[f33dm3bits]

Your graphics card should work using the opensource kernel drivers or fglrx as @Alexzee mentioned. It's worth trying the opensource kernel driver to see if you get the same problem there, I think the fglrx is the amd proprietary amd driver but repackaged but you can try both to see if it fixes your problem.

AMD Saturn XT [FirePro M6100]

A database of all the hardware that works under linux

linux-hardware.org

I have a Radeon RX 6700XT in my system which is a newer graphics card and am using the opensource kernel drivers together with mesa, so that should most likely also work for your graphics card.

 

[AaronTheIssueGuy]

Your graphics card should work using the opensource kernel drivers or fglrx as @Alexzee mentioned. It's worth trying the opensource kernel driver to see if you get the same problem there, I think the fglrx is the amd proprietary amd driver but repackaged but you can try both to see if it fixes your problem.

AMD Saturn XT [FirePro M6100]

A database of all the hardware that works under linux

linux-hardware.org

I have a Radeon RX 6700XT in my system which is a newer graphics card and am using the opensource kernel drivers together with mesa, so that should most likely also work for your graphics card.

Yesterday I tried installing the amdgpupro driver. The installation was succesfull but after a reboot I was greeted with a blackscreen and some screensnow lines (The display looked like it was broken). I uninstalled everything through recovery and I am back where I started.

@f33dm3bits when you are talking about kernel drivers you mean the radeon and amdgpu pro driver right? What exactly do you mean when you say you use it with mesa.

fglrx doesnt seem to be maintained for newer Ubuntu versions anymore

 

[Alexzee]

BinaryDriverHowto/AMD - Community Help Wiki

Let us know how things go.

 

[f33dm3bits]

It might be worth mentioning that fglrx is the proprietary Linux binary-only driver and that the opensource driver is part of the kernel and the firmware comes with the linux-firmware package. In order to use 3d grahics implementations such as OpenGL, Vulkan and others you need the mesa package which is installed by default with on most Linux distributions.

 

[f33dm3bits]

Yesterday I tried installing the amdgpupro driver. The installation was succesfull but after a reboot I was greeted with a blackscreen and some screensnow lines (The display looked like it was broken). I uninstalled everything through recovery and I am back where I started.

@f33dm3bits when you are talking about kernel drivers you mean the radeon and amdgpu pro driver right? What exactly do you mean when you say you use it with mesa.

fglrx doesnt seem to be maintained for newer Ubuntu versions anymore

You need to remove the radeon driver first, I am not talking about the amdgpupro driver. I'm talking about this one which is part of the kernel.

tux@xubuntu:~$ modinfo amdgpu
filename:       /lib/modules/5.8.0-55-generic/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/amd/amdgpu/amdgpu.ko
license:        GPL and additional rights
description:    AMD GPU
author:         AMD linux driver team

Basically this is what you should do.
1. Remove radeon driver and amdgpupro driver.
2. Install the needed mesa packages but they are most likely already installed.

ii  mesa-utils                            8.4.0-1build1                       amd64        Miscellaneous Mesa GL utilities
ii  mesa-va-drivers:amd64                 20.2.6-0ubuntu0.20.04.1             amd64        Mesa VA-API video acceleration drivers
ii  mesa-vdpau-drivers:amd64              20.2.6-0ubuntu0.20.04.1             amd64        Mesa VDPAU video acceleration drivers
ii  mesa-vulkan-drivers:amd64             20.2.6-0ubuntu0.20.04.1             amd64        Mesa Vulkan graphics drivers

3. linux-firmware should already be installed.
4. Then reboot, if you still get a black screen, then press ctrl+alt+f6, log into your system and then try installing one of these but one by one.

1. xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu
2. xserver-xorg-video-ati
3. xserver-xorg-video-radeon

So first install 1, then reboot if your still get a black screen press ctrl +alt+f6 again, then login again and remove 1. Then install 2 and then reboot, if you still get a black screen press ctrl+alt+f6 again. Then login and remove 2 and then try 3.

In short if after removing the amdgpu-pro driver and installing the mesa packages your still get a blackscreen after having rebooted, one of the xserver-xorg-video packages should fix that problem. If not you can login into the system as I explained earlier(which you probably already know or else you wouldn't have been able to recover before), and then we can try to see what we can find in your syslog, dmesg and xorg log files. Do you know if your installation is using xorg or wayland?

 

[AaronTheIssueGuy]

You need to remove the radeon driver first, I am not talking about the amdgpupro driver. I'm talking about this one which is part of the kernel.

tux@xubuntu:~$ modinfo amdgpu
filename:       /lib/modules/5.8.0-55-generic/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/amd/amdgpu/amdgpu.ko
license:        GPL and additional rights
description:    AMD GPU
author:         AMD linux driver team

Basically this is what you should do.
1. Remove radeon driver and amdgpupro driver.
2. Install the needed mesa packages but they are most likely already installed.

ii  mesa-utils                            8.4.0-1build1                       amd64        Miscellaneous Mesa GL utilities
ii  mesa-va-drivers:amd64                 20.2.6-0ubuntu0.20.04.1             amd64        Mesa VA-API video acceleration drivers
ii  mesa-vdpau-drivers:amd64              20.2.6-0ubuntu0.20.04.1             amd64        Mesa VDPAU video acceleration drivers
ii  mesa-vulkan-drivers:amd64             20.2.6-0ubuntu0.20.04.1             amd64        Mesa Vulkan graphics drivers

3. linux-firmware should already be installed.
4. Then reboot, if you still get a black screen, then press ctrl+alt+f6, log into your system and then try installing one of these but one by one.

1. xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu
2. xserver-xorg-video-ati
3. xserver-xorg-video-radeon

So first install 1, then reboot if your still get a black screen press ctrl +alt+f6 again, then login again and remove 1. Then install 2 and then reboot, if you still get a black screen press ctrl+alt+f6 again. Then login and remove 2 and then try 3.

In short if after removing the amdgpu-pro driver and installing the mesa packages your still get a blackscreen after having rebooted, one of the xserver-xorg-video packages should fix that problem. If not you can login into the system as I explained earlier(which you probably already know or else you wouldn't have been able to recover before), and then we can try to see what we can find in your syslog, dmesg and xorg log files. Do you know if your installation is using xorg or wayland?

My system is using xorg. I followed the procedure you explained. Unfortunately I always seemed to run into the same error I was experiencing with the AMDGPU-PRO driver. (I attached an Image)

 

[f33dm3bits]

Can you share your grub configuration, so share /etc/default/grub with code tags here in the topic?

 

[AaronTheIssueGuy]

Can you share your grub configuration, so share /etc/default/grub with code tags here in the topic?

This is my default config. I did not change it when I installed AMDGPU-PRO drivers:

# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
#   info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden
GRUB_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=""
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

# Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs
# This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains
# the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...)
#GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef"

# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
#GRUB_TERMINAL=console

# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true

# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries
#GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"

# Uncomment to get a beep at grub start
#GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"

GRUB_THEME=/usr/share/grub/themes/zorin/theme.txt

This is the config I use to make my system use the AMDGPU (OpenSource) drivers instead of radeon (also Opensource) drivers.

# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
#   info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden
GRUB_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="radeon.cik_support=0 amdgpu.cik_support=1 radeon.si_support=0 amdgpu.si_support=1"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

# Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs
# This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains
# the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...)
#GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef"

# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
#GRUB_TERMINAL=console

# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true

# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries
#GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"

# Uncomment to get a beep at grub start
#GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"

GRUB_THEME=/usr/share/grub/themes/zorin/theme.txt

 

[f33dm3bits]

Try using the first grub configuration when using amdgpu and then generate a new grub configuration. If you still a black screen login as you did before by using ctrl+alt+f6, Then run the following command.

dmesg | grep -i amdgpu > dmesg.txt

Then share attach it as a file here, if not post it with code tags and share your Xorg.0.log log file(the one from the time where you get a black screen when trying to use amdgpu) as well.

Also there seem to be an Ubuntu package for fglrx which contains some drivers, it may be worth a try installing that: fglrx-pxpress.

 

[AaronTheIssueGuy]

Sorry for the long pause, live has been stressful and I forgot about this. Anyway here is the log. I am unable get to commandline with the key combination but figured a journalctl would also help.

 

[Alexzee]

When you have time write down the command exactly the way it's written that f33dm3bits asked you to run.

Than try holding down Ctrl + Alt + F1 or F2 and see if that gives you the commandline.

Hope that helps.

 

[AaronTheIssueGuy]

When you have time write down the command exactly the way it's written that f33dm3bits asked you to run.

Than try holding down Ctrl + Alt + F1 or F2 and see if that gives you the commandline.

Hope that helps.

Try using the first grub configuration when using amdgpu and then generate a new grub configuration. If you still a black screen login as you did before by using ctrl+alt+f6, Then run the following command.

dmesg | grep -i amdgpu > dmesg.txt

Then share attach it as a file here, if not post it with code tags and share your Xorg.0.log log file(the one from the time where you get a black screen when trying to use amdgpu) as well.

Also there seem to be an Ubuntu package for fglrx which contains some drivers, it may be worth a try installing that: fglrx-pxpress.

I managed to store a dmesg output by blindly typing on my keyboard while my screen stayed glitched. The output seems to be the same as journalctl though.
Here are some of the ERRORS:

[ 1.179183] amdgpu: CRAT table not found

[ 1.180126] kfd kfd: amdgpu: BONAIRE not supported in kfd

[ 13.088442] [drm:uvd_v4_2_start [amdgpu]] *ERROR* UVD not responding, giving up!!!

[ 13.088552] [drm:amdgpu_device_ip_set_powergating_state [amdgpu]] *ERROR* set_powergating_state of IP block <uvd_v4_2> failed -1

[ 16.689324] amdgpu 0000:01:00.0: [drm:amdgpu_ring_test_helper [amdgpu]] *ERROR* ring uvd test failed (-110)
[ 16.689455] [drm:amdgpu_device_ip_init [amdgpu]] *ERROR* hw_init of IP block <uvd_v4_2> failed -110

[ 41.714289] amdgpu: probe of 0000:01:00.0 failed with error -110


I attached the entire output

 

[Alexzee]

I am not good with the dmesg log.
I'm sorry.

Wait for @f33dm3bits and see what he says.

​

 

[f33dm3bits]

Try editing your Grub configuration to the following.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="radeon.modeset=0"

Then update your Grub configuration: sudo update-grub
Then reboot your system and see if the problem is gone,
if that doesn't work try changing that line to the following.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="nomodeset"

Then update Grub again: sudo update-grub
Reboot again and see if it the problem is gone.