[Bug 98523] New: Can't run without "nomodeset" on MacPro6, 1 with two AMD R9 280X Tahiti video cards

Tue Nov 1 03:31:28 UTC 2016

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=98523

            Bug ID: 98523
           Summary: Can't run without "nomodeset" on MacPro6,1 with two
                    AMD R9 280X Tahiti video cards
           Product: xorg
           Version: git
          Hardware: Other
                OS: Linux (All)
            Status: NEW
          Severity: major
          Priority: medium
         Component: Driver/Radeon
          Assignee: xorg-driver-ati at lists.x.org
          Reporter: Heigh.Leigh171 at gmail.com
        QA Contact: xorg-team at lists.x.org

Created attachment 127655
  --> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/attachment.cgi?id=127655&action=edit
Journals from Ubuntu and KaOS and hardware info

Dear Radeon driver developers:

I have a rare configuration of 2016 MacPro6,1 with two AMD Radeon R9 280X
Tahiti video cards, and three 4K monitors connected via DisplayPort /
Thunderbolt ports.

The system installs successfully, but both LiveCD (for installation) and
installed system require "nomodeset" option, otherwise boot process hangs with
a black screen.

With "nomodeset" system detects and works only on one monitor, connected via
HDMI. All monitors connected via DisplayPorts remain blank.

I tried different versions of Ubuntu (14.04.4, 14.04.5, 15.10, 16.04, 16.04.1,
16.10), all have this problem, and also several versions of Linux Mint, with
same result. I also tried newer upstream kernels (4.6, 4.7.3, 4.8) on Ubuntu
16.04.1, all with the same result. I tried to build recent radeon driver from
git, with no success.

But I found one distro of Linux, called KaOS (https://kaosx.us/) that works OK
on my hardware. Soon after butting, it successfully detects and turns On all
three monitors connected via Display Ports, and then presents normal wide KDE
desktop on all three monitors.

I compared journal entries from Ubuntu and KaOS boots, and it seems that
KaOS successfully detects and activates both AMD cards, and then continues to
boot normally. I have checked, KaOS uses radeon driver: 
lspci -nnk | grep -i vga -A3 | grep 'in use' gives: Kernel driver in use:
radeon

Ubuntu, on the other hand (all versions and kernels listed above), with the
same radeon driver detects only the first card, and fails on the second card,
which causes immediate shutdown of radeon driver, and boot process hangs after
that.

Here's the relevant messages from the journals. Full journal logs are available
in the attachments. In both cases I start kernel with options "debug
ignore_loglevel drm.debug=1", and only till runlevel 1 to avoid excessive not
relevant output. Difference in behaviour of radeon driver in KaOS and Ubuntu is
visible very early on boot process.

KaOS:
=====

First card:
-------------
    [drm] radeon kernel modesetting enabled.
    [drm] initializing kernel modesetting (TAHITI 0x1002:0x6798 0x106B:0x0128
0x00).
    [drm] register mmio base: 0xA0700000
    [drm] register mmio size: 262144
    [drm] ACPI VFCT contains a BIOS for 02:00.0 1002:6798, size 65536
    [drm:radeon_get_bios] ATOMBIOS detected
    ATOM BIOS: Tahiti
    [drm] Loading tahiti Microcode
    [drm] Initialized radeon 2.45.0 20080528 for 0000:02:00.0 on minor 0
    fb: switching to radeondrmfb from EFI VGA
    .....

Second card:
----------------
    [drm] ACPI VFCT contains a BIOS for 02:00.0 1002:6798, size 65536
    [drm] ACPI VFCT table is not for this card
    radeon 0000:06:00.0: Invalid PCI ROM header signature: expecting 0xaa55,
got 0x0000
    radeon 0000:06:00.0: Invalid PCI ROM header signature: expecting 0xaa55,
got 0x0000
    [drm:radeon_get_bios] ATOMBIOS detected
    ATOM BIOS: Tahiti
    [drm] Loading tahiti Microcode
    [drm] radeon: dpm initialized
    [drm] Initialized radeon 2.45.0 20080528 for 0000:06:00.0 on minor 1

(Notice these "Invalid PCI ROM header signature" errors,
but the card initialized successfully despite them,
and KaOS developers confirmed, that these errors are normal for ATI cards,
and are harmless)

Ubuntu:
=======

First card:
-------------
    [drm] radeon kernel modesetting enabled.
    [drm] initializing kernel modesetting (TAHITI 0x1002:0x6798 0x106B:0x0128).
    [drm] register mmio base: 0xA0700000
    [drm] register mmio size: 262144
    [drm] ACPI VFCT contains a BIOS for 02:00.0 1002:6798, size 65536
    [drm:radeon_get_bios] ATOMBIOS detected
    ATOM BIOS: Tahiti
    [drm] Loading tahiti Microcode
    [drm] radeon: dpm initialized
    [drm] Initialized radeon 2.43.0 20080528 for 0000:02:00.0 on minor 0
    fb: switching to radeondrmfb from EFI VGA

Second card:
-----------------
    [drm] initializing kernel modesetting (TAHITI 0x1002:0x6798 0x106B:0x0127).
    [drm] register mmio base: 0xA0600000
    [drm] register mmio size: 262144
    [drm] ACPI VFCT contains a BIOS for 02:00.0 1002:6798, size 65536
    [drm] ACPI VFCT table is not for this card
    radeon 0000:06:00.0: Invalid ROM contents
    radeon 0000:06:00.0: Invalid ROM contents
    [drm:radeon_get_bios [radeon]] *ERROR* Unable to locate a BIOS ROM
    radeon 0000:06:00.0: Fatal error during GPU init
    [drm] radeon: finishing device.
    radeon: probe of 0000:06:00.0 failed with error -22

Notice same errors "Invalid ROM contents" (slightly different wording,
but I have checked in sources that they mean the same - unexpected ROM
signature) After these errors radeon/drm driver fails with *ERROR* Unable to
locate a BIOS ROM, and then "finishing device."

KaOS uses newer kernel 4.7.3-1, but I tried 4.6, 4.7.3, 4.8 on Ubuntu, without
success.

Another thing I noticed from journals: on KaOS udev rules are loaded before
kernel modesetting, but on Ubuntu - after modesetting. Can this be a reason?

Graphics cards info:
---------------------------

    lspci | grep VGA
    02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
Tahiti XT [Radeon HD 7970/8970 OEM / R9 280X]
    06:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
Tahiti XT [Radeon HD 7970/8970 OEM / R9 280X]

Full "lspci -vvv" and "lshw" outputs are also attached for completeness.

I really need to make this workstation work under Linux, don't want
to settle for MacOS.

If somebody competent could have a look at this and give some suggestions,
I'd appreciate it a lot. 

Some workaround/hack to make it work somehow until the problem is fixed, would
be great as well.

Thanks,
Heigh

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