0

I upgraded from Ubuntu 14.04 LTS to 16.04.1 LTS AMD-64 desktop, and the computer now boots to a black screen. After the BIOS screen there is no signal to the monitor on neither the VGA nor HDMI ports. I can hear the bongo drums from the login screen, and I can SSH into it from another computer, so Ubuntu is running, just with no display. Occasionally I get the GNU GRUB menu, but the screen goes black after I select something.

Suspecting that something got corrupted (I got four System Problem Detected messages during the update) I tried booting, not installing, from a 16.04.1 installation DVD: same result.

I have the AMD A10-7850K Kaveri APU (on-chip graphics) on a Gigabyte F2A88XM-D3H motherboard.

From conman253's reply to this question, I tried "man amdgpu" and "man radeon", and the Kaveri APU is listed as supported hardware for the radeon driver.

Some more information from the system:

    $ lspci | grep -E "VGA|3D"
    00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Kaveri [Radeon R7 Graphics]

    $ sudo lspci -v -s 00:01.0
    00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Kaveri [Radeon R7 Graphics] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
    Subsystem: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd Kaveri [Radeon R7 Graphics]
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 39
    Memory at c0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
    Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=8M]
    I/O ports at f000 [size=256]
    Memory at feb00000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256K]
    Expansion ROM at feb40000 [disabled] [size=128K]
    Capabilities: [48] Vendor Specific Information: Len=08 <?>
    Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 3
    Capabilities: [58] Express Root Complex Integrated Endpoint, MSI 00
    Capabilities: [a0] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
    Capabilities: [100] Vendor Specific Information: ID=0001 Rev=1 Len=010 <?>
    Capabilities: [270] #19
    Capabilities: [2b0] Address Translation Service (ATS)
    Capabilities: [2c0] #13
    Capabilities: [2d0] #1b
    Kernel driver in use: radeon
    Kernel modules: radeon

Is it possible to make this work in 16.04.1? Reverting back to 14.04.4 is an option I suppose, but doesn't that require a clean install?

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

As you are able to ssh into your box, feel free to skip the first step. Others might find it useful so I decided to include it in my response.

From the grub menu, before booting, make the following changes to the boot parameters: replace "quiet nosplash" with "nomodeset". This way X server will start, but possibly with lower screen resolution.

Once you have logged in (via recovery mode, ssh, or after the step above) open /etc/default/grub, locate GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT and change the value from "quiet splash" to "nomodeset vga=XXX" where XXX is the code for your desired screen resolution and color depth. See here for reference: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/vga-boot-modes-to-set-screen-resolution/

Once done, run sudo update-grub and reboot your system.

This process was confirmed to work on a box with AMD A10-7850K Kaveri and an MSI MoBo, with Ubuntu 16.04.1 upgraded from 14.04.

Improve this answer
1
  • I used SSH to edit the /etc/default/grub file. I had best luck using just "nomodeset", it then automatically picked the 1600x900x32 mode of my monitor.
    – spanky
    Aug 8, 2016 at 9:27

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .