# Black / blank screen with Radeon graphics



## dan_m (Dec 2, 2021)

Hello,

I have and old laptop with the following environment:

```
# uname -a
FreeBSD harghita 13.0-STABLE FreeBSD 13.0-STABLE #0 stable/13-n248228-354988ca3f9: Thu Nov 25 02:27:15 UTC 2021     root@releng3.nyi.freebsd.org:/usr/obj/usr/src/i386.i386/sys/GENERIC  i386
```
With the following graphics card:

```
vgapci0@pci0:1:5:0:     class=0x030000 rev=0x00 hdr=0x00 vendor=0x1002 device=0x5a62 subvendor=0x1631 subdevice=0xc101
    vendor     = 'Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]'
    device     = 'RC410M [Mobility Radeon Xpress 200M]'
    class      = display
    subclass   = VGA
```

The system boots via Grub because I also have a Debian installation  on the same PC, which in turn loads the FreeBSD boot manager which loads the kernel. As soon as the kernel loads, the console becomes blank, until the radeonmks.ko loads when it becomes visible again.

Let's say I can live with this minor inconvenience. The problem is that when I attempt to `startx`, the screen becomes blank again. For 2 seconds it displays a rectangular cursor in the top left corner which doesn't react to touchpad gestures and which dissapears shortly leaving the screen pitch black.

After that moment, the system doesn't react to attempts to change the console via CTRL-ALT-1, CTRL-ALT-2 etc. but I am able to controll it via SSH.

Looking in the /var/log/Xorg.0.log doesn't give me any clue.
This is the comple log: https://pastebin.com/K8QTEa43

And this is the log from my Debian installation, on which the X works flawlessly, it put it here for reference: https://pastebin.com/JxSMxZuf

I've been googling around for this issue and browsing this forum for a while but I haven't found a way to make the X work so far. So thank you for the help.


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## drr (Dec 13, 2021)

As you have mentioned that the laptop is old, just wondering whether using the 'radeon' driver instead of the kms driver 'radeonkms' would make any difference?


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## Vull (Dec 14, 2021)

Might try installing xf86-video-ati


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## grahamperrin@ (Dec 17, 2021)

dan_m maybe try graphics/drm-devel-kmod/ 𠉧

(<https://github.com/freebsd/drm-kmod/issues/93> bugs _AMD Thames [Radeon HD 7550M/7570M/7650M]_, I don't know whether it'll bug your _RC410M [Mobility Radeon Xpress 200M]_.)



Vull said:


> … xf86-video-ati



Remind me, please: for that to be effective, is it appropriate to _not_ load the DRM driver? 

`sysrc -f /etc/rc.conf kld_list-=radeonkms`


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## Vull (Dec 17, 2021)

grahamperrin said:


> dan_m maybe try graphics/drm-devel-kmod/ 𠉧
> 
> (<https://github.com/freebsd/drm-kmod/issues/93> bugs _AMD Thames [Radeon HD 7550M/7570M/7650M]_, I don't know whether it'll bug your _RC410M [Mobility Radeon Xpress 200M]_.)
> 
> ...


To begin with, I think we may have already lost the OP, but just for the record, things have changed for my experience since recent updates to FreeBSD 13.0-RELEASE. I'm not sure which update did the trick but I'm now on 13.0-RELEASE-p5 and am running with `kld_list="radeonkms acpi_video"` in /etc/rc.conf.

Prior to one of the recent FreeBSD 13.0-RELEASE updates, again I'm not sure which one, I was not able to load the radeonkms driver during the boot sequence without inadvertantly starting a thrashing condition in radeonkms, which resulted in an unusable system, as well as a black screen if I tried to start X. This thrashing condition was verifiable by inspecting `dmesg` output. Therefore, as a workaround, I tried installing the xf86-video-ati driver and omitting radeonkms from kld_list. As a result, the radeonkms.ko module would not be loaded until after starting X. Looking at the Xorg.0.log file, it appeared that this was a result of the "radeon" video driver (not to be confused with the "radeonkms.ko" kernel mode-setting driver).

To clarify further, it appears that the drm-kmod port supplies the radeonkms.ko driver, whereas the xf86-video-ati port supplies the radeon video driver.

Now, with 13.0-RELEASE-p5, I'm able to include radeonkms in kld_list, and no longer require the radeon video driver or xf86-video-ati. I can start X using only the "modesetting" driver. For my limited purposes, either of the two video drivers, radeon or modesetting, appears to work equally well. Also there are other unrelated benefits to including radeonkms in kld_list.


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## grahamperrin@ (Dec 17, 2021)

Thanks. 



Vull said:


> … a thrashing condition in radeonkms, …



Not for your (past) case, but FYI: The system may fail to start properly – a blackout – if kld_list includes radeonkms (workaround: instead, load drm) · Issue #108 · freebsd/drm-kmod


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