Crash & black screen (Graphics problem?)

[spiderbatdad]

Theo148, if your problem persists, could you please upload the output of dmesg (run in a terminal) as a zip file?

[Theo148]

OK everybody, so I was running into this as well, the same problem everybody else has been describing. I think it has something to do with the restricted drivers. I did

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

and everything has worked. I've just played videos with vlc, mplayer, and gxine and they all worked fine.

Installing the restricted extras package was one of the first things I did after the clean install. Just in case, I've tried reinstalling the restricted extras package, but it doesn't seem to have worked (I still get the problem on shutdown, haven't tried playing videos yet).

Theo148, if your problem persists, could you please upload the output of dmesg (run in a terminal) as a zip file?

You can just call me Theo.

The file is attached.

[Celauran]

I have attached the same in case it will be of further help.

By the by, disabling visual effects did drastically reduce the frequency with which this happens, though it has not completely eliminated it.

[Arthur Archnix]

Just out of curiosity, have you guys tried installing VLC or Mplayer and trying to recreate the problem with those programs?

I haven't been able to recreate it since uninstalling totem. I'm using metacity with compositing enabled.

[coreyinprogress]

Just out of curiosity, have you guys tried installing VLC or Mplayer and trying to recreate the problem with those programs?

I haven't been able to recreate it since uninstalling totem. I'm using metacity with compositing enabled.

Yeah - It was happening to me with both VLC, Mplayer, and Totem. Since I reinstalled the restricted drivers I haven't been having the video problem anymore.

@ Theo, yeah, I didn't realize when I posted but apparently I'm still having the restart problem. I find that if I boot into a slightly older version of the generic kernel it doesnt get stuck on a reboot. Still, thats not exactly an ootb solution now is it?

[Arthur Archnix]

Yeah - It was happening to me with both VLC, Mplayer, and Totem. Since I reinstalled the restricted drivers I haven't been having the video problem anymore.?

Nevermind. Just had the xserver crash while using vlc.

[Celauran]

I haven't looked at any video on the laptop that's giving me problems, so while video may indeed cause crashes, it seems unlikely to be the source IMO.

[free2useemail]

Make sure you have all the latest drivers. Go to and upgrade linux. In windows vista, my PC crashed with graphics, same for linux. ALSO! make sure you know what you PC is capable with. Lets say for example, if you have 68mb of graphic memory, you CAN NOT run the effects, so don't even try! it will crash your PC. Just make sure you know what you can and can't do with graphics.

[spiderbatdad]

Theo148, this is from your dmesg: Local APIC disabled by BIOS -- you can enable it with "lapic"

This is a suggestion to edit the kernel line in /boot/grub/menu.lst to remove --quiet splash and add lapic.

Also: PCI: Using ACPI for IRQ routing
[ 8.724041] PCI: If a device doesn't work, try "pci=routeirq".

this is what my kernel line looks like:

## ## End Default Options ##

title		Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic
root		(hd0,0)
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic root=UUID=604f2b74-7f64-424f-a8bf-1160a71d9ea3 ro lapic pci=routeirq
initrd		/boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic
quiet
savedefault

You can see I have highlighted where I added lapic pci=routeirq to the end of the line beginning with the word kernel. I would then reboot and run

sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Then reboot again. Finally on that last reboot, I would press 'e' at the grub menu, then use the arrow key to move to the kernel line...the 'e' again to edit that line. I move to the end (after pci=routeirq) i add a space and the word "profile" So it looks like this:

kernel/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic root=UUID=604f2b74-7f64-424f-a8bf-1160a71d9ea3 ro lapic pci=routeirq profile

Then hit the enter key and 'b' to boot. This does a one-time profile of the boot...it takes a few seconds longer on this boot, but subsequent boots should be faster. Dont edit /boot/grub/menu.lst to include the word profile, or it will try to profile every time you boot.
Hope this makes sense. Hope it helps.

[spiderbatdad]

Celauran: see the same issue with local apic in your dmesg...do not see any fatal interupts, so perhaps pci=routeirq is unnecessary. You might want to try lapic as described in the above post. You may want to add pci=routeirq if lapic alone gives no results.