Ati Radeon HD 5450 Driver Problem

[chasha420]

Hi guys, this is yet another problem and I don't know how to describe this....I'll try my best though

I'm Running Sabayon6 KDE Edition with KWin as the Window Manager.

Screenshot of my Desktop (Size may be big): http://i.min.us/idIZni.png

The screenshot wasn't necessary but it helps to explain things some what.

Anyway, when ever I try to move my mouse at the bottom right hand corner of the screen...just touching task bar @ right hand corner....my mouse along with all other activity stops for like 1second. Whether I'm playing a video, even the video's frame would like hang for 1s along with my mouse...but the sound isn't affected when I'm playing music, etc.

Also in my previous Sabayon install the taskbar was at the top...but I still had this problem...so this is probably not related to the taskbar itself..and only related to that part of the area.

I don't know whether it's a fault with my hardware, graphics card or driver...but when I used Sabayon for the first time few months ago there was no such problem. Even on KDE it wasn't there but recently like a few weeks back I started noticing this...so I made a fresh install of Sabayon6 just so I could get rid of this problem...but even after a fresh install it simply doesn't go away!

When I move mouse on the task bar in general there's no such problem, it only happens when I try to move my mouse on the bottom right hand corner.

I have Ati Radeon HD 5450 with amdcccle installed, and I enabled "Tear Free Desktop" option if that makes a difference.

Also:

Code: Select all

$ eselect opengl list
Available OpenGL implementations:
  [1]   ati *
  [2]   nvidia
  [3]   xorg-x11


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$ uname -a
Linux core 2.6.39-sabayon #1 SMP Wed Jun 15 22:52:37 UTC 2011 i686 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7500 @ 2.93GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux


Anyway, I don't know what problem anyone would categorize this as...but if anyone has an idea about this or know what this may be related to then please help me out.

Thanks.

[Fitzcarraldo]

I see you have not locked your widgets [<-- Sounds rather amusing, doesn't it? ]

Click on the 'cashew' in the top right corner of your Desktop, then click on 'Lock Widgets' in the pop-up menu. The 'cashew' on the right of the Panel, which is what you use to open the Panel Tool Box, will disappear.

See if your problem goes away if you lock your widgets.

[chasha420]

Thanks for the tip, but locking the widgets doesn't help lol.

[Skull Fire]

i dont experience this problem. maybe its related to desktops effects or one of the screen edges options.

in kde ive found 2 settings that auto maximize windows, they generally make me crazy as i move windows around a lot, so i shut them off. i go to system settings>workspace behavior>screen edges and unselect "maximize windows by. . ."

also system settings>windows behavior>windows behavior> "titlebar actions" tab and change "titlebar actions" to nothing.

anyway it seems you have a screen edge or desktop effect thinking about doing something for a second, maybe play with some of those settings.

[chasha420]

Thanks for the suggestion Skull Fire, well I decided to experiment with this in a logical way

1) Completely disabled KDE Desktop Effects, problem still there.
2) Messed around with Window list settings, nothing there.
3) Logged out of KDE and changed to Fluxbox session...hope the problem is solved? Nope!
4) Logged out of Sabayon...reboot back into Windows XP pirated edition...problem solved? Yes!
5) Logged out of Windows...reboot back into Gentoo Live CD KDE Edition...problem solved? Yes!
6) Logged out of Sabayon...reboot back into Sabayon 6 Live CD....problem solved? Noooo....

So to me it seems like something's messing around with Sabayon, but I can confirm that this is recent and previously I didn't have such an issue

Anyway it's not much of a big issue...just that I have to be aware of not to move mouse on the bottom right hand corner lol. Other than that everything is fine here. Also this problem only occurs on my Desktop, Laptop doesn't have such issue.

If anyone faces a similar problem in the future or has a solution to this let me know...if not I'll still be using Sabayon!

Edit: Btw, when I log into the session for the first time I get a warning at the top that the device doesn't support touchpad configuration or something...does that have any connection with this problem?

[BlueJayofEvil]

I had a similar issue to this awhile back. My mouse would freeze for a few seconds if I moved it lower than the taskbar. Occasional hiccups in desktop responsiveness (seemingly unrelated) were also common.
Long story short, fglrx (the AMD/ATI driver) was causing it for me. This may or may not be a solution for you, but if you don't need the proprietary driver, you could possibly switch to the FOSS drivers. What video card do you have specifically?

[chasha420]

I had a similar issue to this awhile back. My mouse would freeze for a few seconds if I moved it lower than the taskbar. Occasional hiccups in desktop responsiveness (seemingly unrelated) were also common.
Long story short, fglrx (the AMD/ATI driver) was causing it for me. This may or may not be a solution for you, but if you don't need the proprietary driver, you could possibly switch to the FOSS drivers. What video card do you have specifically?

Hmm...may be you're right...I'm using ATI HD 5450 and probably the driver is responsible for this...but I dunno may be the latest update is causing this problem? Because in the past it seemed to work perfectly on Sabayon.

I did a search regarding this issue and seems like this thread here is similar to mine: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&p=438900

Anyway I'm trying out the suggestion in that forum and see if it works for me...if not then I guess I'll have to switch drivers as a last resort. Let me know if you have a suggestion/ a quick fix for this.

Thanks!

[chasha420]

Sorry for double post, but I had to change the title and also I've found the root of this problem and it is probably the driver.

Anyway at first I tried totally disabling "Tear Free" but that didn't help here, and also I tried changing the driver to something else and totally screwed my computer and had to make a fresh install lol. I'm really amazed at my own stupidity.

Can anyone suggest how I can change to fglrx version of the driver? Also what is the default driver that comes preinstalled with Sabayon? Because if that is the open-sourced version of the driver then it also has the same problem when I tested it out from LiveCD.

Any help would be appreciated, Thanks!

Edit: Also please move this thread to it's proper section if applicable.

[Fitzcarraldo]

If you want to install and use the closed-source FGLRX driver then see the post Re: Building a Media Center That Works. If you want to install and use the open-source Radeon driver, then see the post Re: ATI Mobility Radeon X 1700 Драйверы!. Obviously change the kernel versions in those posts to suit the kernel version you are using currently, as explained in the first of those posts.

If you are using the closed-source FGLRX module (driver), you will see the following when you use the lsmod (list modules) command:

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# lsmod | grep fglrx
fglrx                2623427  191

and your xorg.conf file will contain:

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# cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf | grep fglrx
        Driver      "fglrx"

and the closed-source OpenGL libraries will be selected:

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# eselect opengl list
Available OpenGL implementations:
  [1]   ati *
  [2]   xorg-x11

[chasha420]

Thanks Fitz! The issue with the mouse cursor stalling has been successfully resolved after changing to the open-sourced implementation of the driver.

But....now there's a big issue lol. I can't use any desktop effects in Kwin!

Even though I have a good enough graphics cards, but now it's like I don't have one at all. I dunno...may be I should go back using the closed sourced one? I can't make my mind about it...using both the drivers...I've had to sacrifice something.

Also I'm not sure if there's a fix for the closed source version of the driver that works...but let me know if there's one.

Edit:

Had no choice but to go back to the closed sourced one, mouse problem exists...but doesn't get in the way much if you're careful.

Also I noted that this is not the same as Fitzcarraldo quoted:

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# lsmod | grep fglrx
fglrx                2404621  161


What does the number 161 mean? Is it the version of the driver or something else?

Also after that switch...seems like guake lost it's pseudo transparency lol.

Problems keep on propagating automatically.