Bug#607227: xserver-xorg-video-radeon: with kms, screen flickers, without kms xorg eats 100% CPU

[Alex Deucher <alexdeucher@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 5:21 PM, Marcos Marado
<mindboosternoori@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello again,
>
> 2010/12/17 Alex Deucher <alexdeucher@gmail.com>:
>> 2010/12/16 Marcos Marado <mindboosternoori@gmail.com>:
>>> 2010/12/16 Michel Dänzer <daenzer@debian.org>:
>>>> On Mit, 2010-12-15 at 21:29 +0000, Marcos Marado wrote:
>>>>> After installing on this machine squeeze from the debian-installer
>>>>> beta 2, I noticed that the
>>>>> screen sometimes flickers (opening a konsole an maximizing it will
>>>>> result in a more frequent flickering).
>>>>>
>>>>> Searching about it, I was led to believe that this could be a kms
>>>>> problem, so I deactivated it.
>>>>> Now the flicker is gone, but the computer is awefully slow, and a top
>>>>> shows Xorg eating 100% CPU.
>>>>
>>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>>> [   17.750916] [drm:radeon_do_init_cp] *ERROR* Failed to load firmware!
>>>>
>>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>>> Versions of packages xserver-xorg-video-radeon suggests:
>>>>> pn  firmware-linux                <none>     (no description available)
>>>>
>>>> Does installing this package and rebooting help for any of your
>>>> problems?
>>>
>>> Thank you very much for your quick reply. I should have looked into the logs...
>>> Installed firmware-linux, and now the 100% CPU issue is gone.
>>> Unfortunately, the flickering issue (more often on black screens) is still
>>> present with kms, so for now I'm sticking with having it disabled.
>>
>> Try booting with radeon.new_pll=0 and/or radeon.disp_priority=2 on the
>> kernel command line in grub.
>
> Yup, just did one test: turned modeset on and booted with
> radeon.new_pll=0 and the flickering is gone.
>

OK, this should be fixed in 2.6.37 then.

Alex

> Feel free to ask me anything else you think it might be useful.
>
> Best regards,
> --
> Marcos Marado
>