Frozen orbiter UI problem

[amirul]

New to linuxmce but know my way around linux. I've completed the install of a hybrid and had to recompile stuff to get mce_usb2 to work. Still figuring out what the buttons on the pinnacle remote do, thats ok.
Built a diskless Intel Atom box (cheap and cheerful) to use as a net-booting MD. Plugged in, and after an overnight update, UI came up, yay! Watched a movie right through, great except for the faint buzzing heard via the onboard sound gear. Mental note to track that down later. Now here comes the odd part. If left with the picture screensaver running, after about 1 or 2 minutes, the UI locks up not responding to keystrokes, but I can move the cursor with mouse. The last picture on screen is frozen in place. The machine is still alive, responding to pings. Now if I leave the selection red box on any other place than the bottom left blue box, the UI seems to be ok.
Has anyone seen this before and if so how do I fix it?
Any help very much appreciated, thanks.

[totallymaxed]

New to linuxmce but know my way around linux. I've completed the install of a hybrid and had to recompile stuff to get mce_usb2 to work. Still figuring out what the buttons on the pinnacle remote do, thats ok.
Built a diskless Intel Atom box (cheap and cheerful) to use as a net-booting MD. Plugged in, and after an overnight update, UI came up, yay! Watched a movie right through, great except for the faint buzzing heard via the onboard sound gear. Mental note to track that down later. Now here comes the odd part. If left with the picture screensaver running, after about 1 or 2 minutes, the UI locks up not responding to keystrokes, but I can move the cursor with mouse. The last picture on screen is frozen in place. The machine is still alive, responding to pings. Now if I leave the selection red box on any other place than the bottom left blue box, the UI seems to be ok.
Has anyone seen this before and if so how do I fix it?
Any help very much appreciated, thanks.

Hi,

Does your system have an Intel based GPU or an nVidia?

Andrew

[amirul]

The hybrid is nvidia, the orbiter with the problem is intel. If the UI is not on it goes like a champ

[totallymaxed]

The hybrid is nvidia, the orbiter with the problem is intel. If the UI is not on it goes like a champ

What is the chipset & GPU on the Orbiter? ie is it a i945 + GMA950 or a i965 + GMA300 etc etc?

Andrew

[amirul]

The board is an Intel D945GCLF. On the box it says GPU is GMA950

[totallymaxed]

The board is an Intel D945GCLF. On the box it says GPU is GMA950

Aaah right... just re-read your original message and connected that with the board model you mention above... your testing a new Atom board!

I guess that you ran the AVwizard as normal... did it detect the GMA950 correctly and use the 'intel' driver in xorg.conf  ?

You can try setting the photo_screen_saver to use 'static' pictures this may be a temp fix for the lockups you see. Go to Web Admin devices tree in the left hand frame and select the Photo_screen_saver for the onscreen Orbiter of the Atom based MD. Now scroll down to the Device Data section near the bottom of the right hand frame...look for the 'Type' field (the first field in the Device Data section). If you hover your mouse of the the 'Type' label to the left of the field you will see a 'Tooltips' panel display that explains the valid values for this field. The value you should test is 'static' which will just display non-animating images. Enter the string 'static' into the field **omit the quiotes obviously** and then click 'Save'.

Now boot your Atom based MD and see if the lockups go away... if yes then at least you have a solution... although not a perfect one of course.

We have some Atom based motherboards on order so I will report on our experiences

Andrew

[amirul]

Its the 'intel' driver in xorg.conf. I've set the screensaver to static and rebooted. We'll see how long she lasts.
One odd thing I noticed was the MD architecture is recorded as amd64. Thats the arch of the core. Should I change it and if so what is the valid entry for intel?
If its any help here's the device section of xorg.conf
   Identifier   "Card0"
   Driver      "intel"
   VendorName   "Unknown Vendor Name"
   BoardName   "Unknown Board Name"
   Option      "LinearAlloc"      "16384"
   #BusID      "PCI:0:2:0"
#   Option      "NoDDC"            "true"
   Option "XvmcUsesTextures" "true"
   Option "renderAccel" "true"
   Option "NoDDCValue"
   Option "UseEDID" "false"
   Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "true"
   Option "NoLogo" "true"
   Option "NoBandWidthTest" "true"
   Option "ModeValidation" "NoDFPNativeResolutionCheck, NoEdidMaxPClkCheck, NoMaxPClkCheck, AllowInterlacedModes, AllowNon60HzDFPModes"
   Option "DynamicTwinView" "false"
   Option "UseEvents" "true"
   Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"
   Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "true"

[totallymaxed]

Its the 'intel' driver in xorg.conf. I've set the screensaver to static and rebooted. We'll see how long she lasts.
One odd thing I noticed was the MD architecture is recorded as amd64. Thats the arch of the core. Should I change it and if so what is the valid entry for intel?
If its any help here's the device section of xorg.conf
   Identifier   "Card0"
   Driver      "intel"
   VendorName   "Unknown Vendor Name"
   BoardName   "Unknown Board Name"
   Option      "LinearAlloc"      "16384"
   #BusID      "PCI:0:2:0"
#   Option      "NoDDC"            "true"
   Option "XvmcUsesTextures" "true"
   Option "renderAccel" "true"
   Option "NoDDCValue"
   Option "UseEDID" "false"
   Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "true"
   Option "NoLogo" "true"
   Option "NoBandWidthTest" "true"
   Option "ModeValidation" "NoDFPNativeResolutionCheck, NoEdidMaxPClkCheck, NoMaxPClkCheck, AllowInterlacedModes, AllowNon60HzDFPModes"
   Option "DynamicTwinView" "false"
   Option "UseEvents" "true"
   Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"
   Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "true"

Hmmm... well the driver is set to 'intel' which is correct. Also the architecture of the Atom is 64bit... but it only has a single Core.

Andrew

[agentsmith]

Not to mix up this post with a bunch of different hardware but I just wanted to share that I have the same problem with a Dell D610 Laptop with the Intel 915GM/GMS/910GML graphics card.  Setting the screensaver to static also fixed my problem, though admittedly I like the animated screensaver much better so it would be nice to have a fix for this but not sure how.

[amirul]

agentsmith,
Your screensaver locks up when the cursor is at the bottom left blue box but ok when the cursor is elsewhere?

[amirul]

Its been almost 24hrs the MD is on since I turned to static screensaver and no problems so far. I'll try tweaking the xorg.conf options and see what happens.

[agentsmith]

Mine locks up wherever I put the red box, even if only for a minute so maybe its a bit different.  Still there definitely appears to be some sort of quirk with the screensaver and some intel cards.

[amirul]

Since the problem is in Photo_Screen_Saver, is there source code I can root around in to see whether I can track down the cause?

[totallymaxed]

Since the problem is in Photo_Screen_Saver, is there source code I can root around in to see whether I can track down the cause?

Check in the svn... there should be sources for the photo_screen_saver there.

Andrew

[amirul]

Andrew,
Read your post about modding aviwizard to get the graphics chip detected correctly. Will that cure the freezing problem?

Amirul