ATI video problem - extremely slow desktop - 100% cpu load

[Alex Deucher]

On Wed, Jun 20, 2018 at 3:54 PM, Vincent Stemen <vince.lists at hightek.org> wrote:
> Hi.
>
> I also posted about this problem on the FreeBSD mailing list.
>
> FreeBSD 11.1-RELEASE
> Motherboard:    gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 R2
> Video:          Integrated ATI Radeon HD 3000 graphics
>
> I have also tested with two additional ATI cards.
> A Radeon HD 5450 and and older card that shows as
> "RV370 [Radeon X300 SE]" in the PCI info.
>
> Same problem on all of them.
>
> System runs fine with a simple stand alone window manager such as jwm,
> openbox, etc.  But anytime I run a desktop environment that has a panel and/or
> desktop icons, the X desktop takes a very long time to start up and runs
> extremely slow and unresponsive, the pointer jumps instead of moving smoothly,
> and the main Xorg process runs at 100% load on one core.  I have tried several
> different desktops, such as xfce, enlightenment, lumina, etc.  Similar problem
> on all of them.
>
> The weird thing is that, every once in a while, when I launch X, it comes up
> quick and runs fine.  Shut down X and re-run it and it's back doing it again.
> Once it comes up working correctly, it stays working until I restart X.
>
> I have tried re-installing all the ports from X11 and the desktop environments
> from FreeBSD 11 release_1, release_2, quarterly, and latest.  Same problem
> with all of them.
>
> Does anybody have any idea what could be causing this?
>
> I don't know if for sure if this is a FreeBSD or an xorg problem.  Here are
> radeon kernel modules running when running on the Radeon HD 3000.
>
> # kldstat
>
>    5    1 0xffffffff82431000 12b4a0   radeonkms.ko
>    ...
>   10    1 0xffffffff825b9000 103e     radeonkmsfw_RS780_pfp.ko
>   11    1 0xffffffff825bb000 5b3f     radeonkmsfw_RS780_me.ko
>   12    1 0xffffffff825c1000 1338     radeonkmsfw_R600_rlc.ko
>
> X is using the ati driver from the xf86-video-ati-7.9.0_1,1 package.
>
> The evidence points stongly toward it being an ATI driver problem.  If I edit
> /etc/X11/xorg.conf to use the "vesa" driver rather than the "radeon" driver the
> problem goes away.
>
> But, of course, the vesa driver is low resolution and does not re-initialize the
> console when I exit X.

I don't know how well the radeon driver works on FreeBSD.  If you can
test Linux and it works properly, I guess there is probably some issue
with the FreeBSD driver or some configuration problem on your end.
I'd check your xorg log and kernel output to start with to make sure
everything is loading correctly.

Alex