Frozen: Dell Dimension 2400 Intel 82845G/GL/GE Chipset

[Rasa1111]

In Lucid, I have finally found a working combo of fixes provided on the "Lucidi8xxFreezes" wiki page. They stop crashing on the following hardware:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)

The fixes "A" (Enabling KMS) and "E" (Disable DRI) have stopped the crashes.

The wiki is unclear about fix A in the sense that you must modify the GRUB settings for fix A to work. If you simply execute the code given in a terminal, chances are you will be unable to boot into your OS. You have to add "i1915.modeset=1" to your GRUB settings (the instructions for this are found below the two fix A terminal commands, for no apparent good reason). Before you attempt this fix, ensure you have a non-USB keyboard, as editing the GRUB settings is impossible with a USB keyboard.

Hope I am clear enough.

aust77

Hi aust77~
Thank you!

Would you be able to elaborate a bit on how to fix this?
It is happening more often than my nerves can handle lately.. ..
and Im really not sure what to do with the instructions here~https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Bugs/Lucidi8xxFreezes

?

thanks man.

[corcoram]

I also have a Dimension 2400 with the Intel 82845G/GL/GE Chipset. I had the same problem with Fedora, switched to Ubuntu 10.04 and the problem continued. Turning off the screensaver made things better, but the display would continue to go away at the most inopportune times. I finally broke down and purchased a geforce 9400gt (sparkle brand) and haven't had any problems since.

Warning: Look at the below post for details on getting the nvidia to work. My guess is an ATI video card may provide for an easier setup, but I can't guarantee anything.

http://ubuntuforums.org/search.php?searchid=73322793

[Rasa1111]

I also have a Dimension 2400 with the Intel 82845G/GL/GE Chipset. I had the same problem with Fedora, switched to Ubuntu 10.04 and the problem continued. Turning off the screensaver made things better, but the display would continue to go away at the most inopportune times. I finally broke down and purchased a geforce 9400gt (sparkle brand) and haven't had any problems since.

Warning: Look at the below post for details on getting the nvidia to work. My guess is an ATI video card may provide for an easier setup, but I can't guarantee anything.

http://ubuntuforums.org/search.php?searchid=73322793

good to know mate, thanks.

So, If I buy this~
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814187058
and put it into my Dell Dimension 2350,
This problem will [or should] stop?

[fishwebby]

Hello,

after having the same problem and coming across this thread, I'm glad to see it's not just me!

I tried A + E as described above but it still likes to crash every so often (and Alt + SysReq + reisub doesn't work either) - I hope they come up with a fix for it soon. My problem is I can't work like this, and I can't do what I'm doing in Windows either (Rails development - couldn't get gems to work nicely in Windows). So my question is what is the last version of Ubuntu that worked nicely with the Intel graphics card? And can I reinstall that, even though more recent versions have a newer version of grub (my /home partition is separate)? I don't want to have to reinstall everything if I can avoid it, just the / partition.

Many thanks
Dave

[Rasa1111]

hi Dave,
Im not sure man, sorry.

but, Ubuntu has recently "fixed itself" at my house..
im not quite sure how it happened...
but this is the 4th day I think..
and it hasnt happened once~ "The Crash". lol

thread here~
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1494141

Im wondering, anyone else whose PC was doing what i described in linked thread...
has it stopped doing that for you also?


it fixed itself that way~ but today my USB stopped opening my external drives. not sure whats up with that. lol

[fishwebby]

Hi Rasa,

great, lucky you! I've found that too - sometimes things just fix themselves (good Gremlins perhaps?).

Alas the crashes on mine were getting more frequent, so I went ahead and went back to 9.04. So far no problems, apart from having to check out all my subversion repositories again as it seems there was a version clash. I'll upgrade to 10.04 if I ever read that the bug has been sorted!

Cheers
Dave

[aust77]

Hi aust77~
Thank you!

Would you be able to elaborate a bit on how to fix this?
It is happening more often than my nerves can handle lately.. ..
and Im really not sure what to do with the instructions here~https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Bugs/Lucidi8xxFreezes

?

thanks man.

Here are the instructions from the wiki page in the order they should be (thus meaning all credit goes to the wiki editors):

(Method A Instructions in Order)
From an installation:

1) Hold down Shift while booting to enter the GRUB menu.
2) Press 'e' to edit.
3) Add "i915.modeset=1" after "quiet splash".
4) Ctrl+x to boot.
If adding "i915.modeset=1" to your boot parameters allows you to boot successfully, you then need to enter the command below into a terminal to make the changes permanent.

-OR-

From the LiveCD:

1) At the purple screen with a keyboard and stickfigure, press Enter to get to the menu.
2) Hit Enter to select your language, and then press F6 and then Esc.
3) Add "i915.modeset=1" after "quiet splash".
4) Press Enter to boot the LiveCD.

-AFTER HAVING DONE ONE OF THE ABOVE, PASTE THE FOLLOWING IN A TERMINAL-

echo options i915 modeset=1 | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915-kms.conf
sudo update-initramfs -u

Method "E" seems to be clear enough, so I'd just read the wiki page.

As I said before, USB keyboards do not function in the GRUB menu. I was using one but ended up having to switch to a "direct" keyboard (i.e. a keyboard plugged in to the special keyboard slot on the back of a PC) as it is the only type that works in the GRUB menu.

The reason I re-arranged the instructions is because when I pasted the two lines of code in the terminal (one by one, of course) my computer would not boot into Ubuntu. I later figured out I had to edit my kernel boot parameters BEFORE pasting the two lines of code into the terminal.

Crashing has virtually stopped for me except for the fact that my monitor is running at 85 Hz instead of what it should be running at; 75 Hz. This is why: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...17#post9370317

Apologies for the late response, and I hope I have assisted you.



aust77

[jhansonxi]

I solved my 845 lock-up problems in 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) by adding the X Retro repository and updating (effectively a downgrade) the xserver-xorg-video-intel driver. I also added the "nomodesetting" to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAUT line in /etc/default/grub (and then running update-grub). I'm not sure if the grub change affects the X problem but it solved VT corruption I was experiencing. This didn't fix every crash but greatly reduced them. I can play Chromium, Trigger, and Supertux but gCompris stalled and then X started hogging CPU until it crashed back to to the flashing black screen.

[InTheSand]

Here are the instructions from the wiki page in the order they should be (thus meaning all credit goes to the wiki editors):
...

Crashing has virtually stopped for me except for the fact that my monitor is running at 85 Hz instead of what it should be running at; 75 Hz. This is why: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...17#post9370317

Apologies for the late response, and I hope I have assisted you.

aust77

Just like to say a big THANKS to you on this! Have recently been given a Compaq Presario (2.6 Celery, WinXP, 512Mb, sloooooow) and decided to blow that away and install Lucid on it (as I run this on more modern machines and my netbook) - thanks to your clear steps above, the crashing has stopped and it's now a decent machine to give to the relatives!

[erfahren]

my update:

I went and found an older NVIDIA GeForce4 128MB PCI video card on eBay and just reinstalled Lucid (I had reverted back to 8.04 anyway) and then just installed the proprietary Nvidia driver through the "Hardware Drivers" app off the menu.

paid about $15(US) for the card (including shipping) and it seems to be running well & suspend works with no issues.