Bug#687461: xserver-xorg-video-radeon: HD 6310 video gives only colored snow/black screen

[Patrice Pillot]

Hi,

Last weekend I experienced the same problem as described by original 
reporter while installing wheezy on an Asus K53E with an HD6320 (please note 
that it is not the same card while probably similar enough according to what 
I could read on the internet).

While during installation (squeeze base system, dist-upgraded to wheezy, 
then xorg et al.) the kernel modules were configured so that the radeon 
module be loaded (confirmed by lsmod).

All of the console/CLI only process went fine and, upon wheezy install, I 
noticed the usual modeset display changing (thiner fonts, ...)

Yet, on first X run I got the wrong screen resolution (1024 instead of 1366) 
as reported here and I noticed that some vesafb (IIRC) was used with a 
message in xorg logs about failing to load radeon module (I don't have the 
box at hand to check more precisely, have to wait for this week-end for this).

I then stopped X and forced the use of the radeon driver by editing 
xorg.conf which lead me to the garbage screen on the next X run.

I then added the radeon.modeset=0 stanza to my grub configuration and this 
seemed to make the trick.

Yet there are still some very annoying (and somehow scary) side effects :
- no more console switching
- no suspend to RAM mode : the screen fades progressively to white in a 
somewhat scary manner, as if somebody was pushing on all of the screen 
surface, inch by inch, until all of the display has turned to something 
whitish (don't know how to describe that better),
- same fade to white on system shutdown before the system powers off,
- when closing session to get back to lightdm, the left and right halves of 
the screen are swapped with a thin black vertical space in between them.
- sometimes, after going back to lightdm and then being re-logged, the 
display is lightly flickering.

This is what lspci says about the card :

00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI 
Wrestler [Radeon HD 6320]

And this is the contents of /lib/firmware/radeon as requested :
$ ls -l /lib/firmware/radeon/
total 576
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 24096 juin  12 17:13 BARTS_mc.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  5504 juin  12 17:13 BARTS_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4480 juin  12 17:13 BARTS_pfp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  3072 juin  12 17:13 BTC_rlc.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 24096 juin  12 17:13 CAICOS_mc.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  5504 juin  12 17:13 CAICOS_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4480 juin  12 17:13 CAICOS_pfp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 24148 juin  12 17:13 CAYMAN_mc.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  8704 juin  12 17:13 CAYMAN_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  8704 juin  12 17:13 CAYMAN_pfp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4096 juin  12 17:13 CAYMAN_rlc.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  5504 juin  12 17:13 CEDAR_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4480 juin  12 17:13 CEDAR_pfp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  3072 juin  12 17:13 CEDAR_rlc.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  5504 juin  12 17:13 CYPRESS_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4480 juin  12 17:13 CYPRESS_pfp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  3072 juin  12 17:13 CYPRESS_rlc.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  5504 juin  12 17:13 JUNIPER_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4480 juin  12 17:13 JUNIPER_pfp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  3072 juin  12 17:13 JUNIPER_rlc.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  5504 juin  12 17:13 PALM_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4480 juin  12 17:13 PALM_pfp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2048 juin  12 17:13 R100_cp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2048 juin  12 17:13 R200_cp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2048 juin  12 17:13 R300_cp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2048 juin  12 17:13 R420_cp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2048 juin  12 17:13 R520_cp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 21504 juin  12 17:13 R600_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2304 juin  12 17:13 R600_pfp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  3072 juin  12 17:13 R600_rlc.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4096 juin  12 17:13 R700_rlc.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  5504 juin  12 17:13 REDWOOD_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4480 juin  12 17:13 REDWOOD_pfp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  3072 juin  12 17:13 REDWOOD_rlc.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2048 juin  12 17:13 RS600_cp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2048 juin  12 17:13 RS690_cp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 21504 juin  12 17:13 RS780_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2304 juin  12 17:13 RS780_pfp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 21504 juin  12 17:13 RV610_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2304 juin  12 17:13 RV610_pfp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 21504 juin  12 17:13 RV620_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2304 juin  12 17:13 RV620_pfp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 21504 juin  12 17:13 RV630_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2304 juin  12 17:13 RV630_pfp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 21504 juin  12 17:13 RV635_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2304 juin  12 17:13 RV635_pfp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 21504 juin  12 17:13 RV670_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2304 juin  12 17:13 RV670_pfp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  5440 juin  12 17:13 RV710_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  3392 juin  12 17:13 RV710_pfp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  5440 juin  12 17:13 RV730_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  3392 juin  12 17:13 RV730_pfp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  5440 juin  12 17:13 RV770_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  3392 juin  12 17:13 RV770_pfp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  5504 juin  12 17:13 SUMO2_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4480 juin  12 17:13 SUMO2_pfp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  5504 juin  12 17:13 SUMO_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4480 juin  12 17:13 SUMO_pfp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  3072 juin  12 17:13 SUMO_rlc.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 24096 juin  12 17:13 TURKS_mc.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  5504 juin  12 17:13 TURKS_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4480 juin  12 17:13 TURKS_pfp.bin

As said above, I think I will have the box at hand this weekend to make some 
more exploration (and I will probably give a try to fglrx since it is now in 
wheezy).

I hope this helps,

phep