Screen shutting off on X61 Tablet

[debussy]

Hi, I just received a new SXGA+ X61 Tablet and it is lovely.

Last night, after I had performed a minimal install of Debian and then opened up Chromium and mpv, my screen just shut off. The LED lights on the bezel were still functioning and I could hear things moving from within the machine but the screen shut off completely and I had to restart the machine to restore the display. It then happened one more time under similar circumstances. My immediate thought was that the laptop had overheated. It was getting a little hot in the palm rest (a result of the old wifi card that I plan on replacing), so I thought that might be the case but I'm not sure.

Other thoughts:
The screen is bubbling. Would this have the effect of making the screen shut off randomly?
It is a fresh install and perhaps I need to install some video drivers.

PS: I do plan on replacing the LCD assembly soon as I personally can't deal with the bubbling long term.

Any opinions as to what's wrong with my machine and how I can fix it, as well as any other questions you may have, are welcome.
Thank you.

[xiphmont]

The screen is bubbling. Would this have the effect of making the screen shut off randomly?

No.

It is a fresh install and perhaps I need to install some video drivers.

Probably no

PS: I do plan on replacing the LCD assembly soon as I personally can't deal with the bubbling long term.

Any opinions as to what's wrong with my machine and how I can fix it, as well as any other questions you may have, are welcome.

Can you see a ghost of the screen image, just not lit up? If so, it's a worn backlight. If not, something more interesting is happening.

[debussy]

The screen is bubbling. Would this have the effect of making the screen shut off randomly?

No.

It is a fresh install and perhaps I need to install some video drivers.

Probably no

PS: I do plan on replacing the LCD assembly soon as I personally can't deal with the bubbling long term.

Any opinions as to what's wrong with my machine and how I can fix it, as well as any other questions you may have, are welcome.

Can you see a ghost of the screen image, just not lit up? If so, it's a worn backlight. If not, something more interesting is happening.

I had a similar problem with a T61 of mine but no, I didn't see a ghost image. IIRC that is usually accompanied with a reddening of the screen, which I also don't have as the display looks magnificent when it's on. I'm using it right now and will be doing some light surfing so I'll see what happens.

Thank you.

[xiphmont]

I had a similar problem with a T61 of mine but no, I didn't see a ghost image.

OK, then that's less likely to be it.

IIRC that is usually accompanied with a reddening of the screen

Depends on the CCFL. The X3x certainly went reddish before failing, but most don't. They just get dimmer then wink out.

In any case, hope you get it figured out!

[debussy]

Well, last night I used it for about 30 minutes and things were fine. This morning I wake it up from hibernation and do some more light browsing. I was monitoring the CPU and the memory and they hovered around 48C and 400mb respectively (this is just with a few Chromium tabs and wicd). After about 5 minutes the screen shut off once again, while everything internally appeared to still function.

I really hope this is a software problem and not a hardware problem, and if it's a hardware problem I hope it can be fixed by replacing the screen assembly, as I plan on doing that next week.

I'm going to see if this can be resolved by updating some drivers. In the meantime, any helpful thoughts, opinions or questions are appreciated.

Thank you.

[vavet]

I really hope this is a software problem and not a hardware problem, and if it's a hardware problem I hope it can be fixed by replacing the screen assembly, as I plan on doing that next week.

Well checking if its a software issue is very simple, just install a windows 7 and see it it works. As for the hardware, your screen is the most valuable part in that machine. Finding such screen for reasonable price is not easy.

[Bibin]

I've had a similar problem on my X61. It will be perfect, but if I look at a youtube video in Chrome often the screen will freeze up for a few seconds, then shut off. It's not just the backlight, it looks like all output to the screen has failed. The TTY sessions do not work either, so it is not just X that has crashed or anything of the like. I haven't tried an external monitor since it happens so infrequently. I think it might be an actual display driver bug.

[debussy]

I've had a similar problem on my X61. It will be perfect, but if I look at a youtube video in Chrome often the screen will freeze up for a few seconds, then shut off. It's not just the backlight, it looks like all output to the screen has failed. The TTY sessions do not work either, so it is not just X that has crashed or anything of the like. I haven't tried an external monitor since it happens so infrequently. I think it might be an actual display driver bug.

Well, it's nice to know that I'm not the only person with this problem on GNU/Linux. I haven't tried to install or upgrade any video drivers yet, but tonight I was in the process of doing a complete package upgrade (while watching a video) when the issue occurred again. I'm going to finish the package upgrade and see what else there is to do for me on the software side before I do the screen replacement and then I'll let you guys know how it goes.

Thank you.

[Eric Giles]

I've had a similar problem on my X61. It will be perfect, but if I look at a youtube video in Chrome often the screen will freeze up for a few seconds, then shut off. It's not just the backlight, it looks like all output to the screen has failed. The TTY sessions do not work either, so it is not just X that has crashed or anything of the like. I haven't tried an external monitor since it happens so infrequently. I think it might be an actual display driver bug.

I am having the same issue with my X61 that runs Linux Mint 17. I was thinking the hardware was faulty, but it does now sound like an issue with the display driver.

[rkawakami]

I'm not familiar enough with Linux and the (possible) requirements of some software support to handle the following:

- Before the screen blanks out again, try hitting the Fn+F7 key combination. Normally that will allow switching of the active display between the LCD and any external monitor. If Linux duplicates the Presentation Manager's active screen support, you may also have to use the arrow/Home/End keys and/or Enter key to "select" which mode you want. If not, then successive pressings of Fn+F7 should cycle between the LCD and external monitor.
- When the display does shut off the next time, hit Fn+F7 and see if you can get the LCD to come back on. It's possible that the system is getting confused and it thinks you're driving an external monitor. It's also possible that there's something else wrong with your motherboard and/or display that's causing it to turn off.

[debussy]

Thanks for the help all. It appears as if the offending piece of software was Chromium.

I started browsing again last night and I noticed that I didn't have the Adblock-Plus extension installed -- which I thought was weird because I could've sworn I installed it each time I booted up the machine. So I went to install it. As soon as I clicked the button to install the extension my machine froze up and the screen shut off with it. That's when I realized that it must've been Chromium that was behind this issue, and perhaps the Chromium web store specifically.

So I downloaded Iceweasel and I've been browsing for quite some time now (last night and throughout today) and haven't encountered hiccups yet.

It appears my problem has been remedied for now. But I still can't help but wonder what it was specifically about Chromium that caused my whole machine to crash (while the LED lights on the screen bezel still functioned). I tried searching online for people that experienced the same problem with but I haven't found anything relevant. Eric Giles, does this also occur while using Chromium/Chrome? Let me know.

Though my problem has been solved for now, I would still appreciate any information or thoughts as to why Chromium/Chrome causes machines to crash in such a way.

Thanks for the help again, guys.

[Eric Giles]

Eric Giles, does this also occur while using Chromium/Chrome? Let me know.

Yes, it does-I am using Chromium with AdBlock Plus installed.

[debussy]

Eric Giles, does this also occur while using Chromium/Chrome? Let me know.

Yes, it does-I am using Chromium with AdBlock Plus installed.

Then Chromium does appear to be the issue here. It isn't a big deal to me personally because I prefer Firefox but I'm still going to try to find out the actual cause.

Thanks.

[Bibin]

I was using regular Chrome. The issue only occured when viewing an HTML5 video, which in many cases meant YouTube.

[xiphmont]

I was using regular Chrome. The issue only occured when viewing an HTML5 video, which in many cases meant YouTube.

Ah ha, which implies hardware-accelerated video decode, something Chrome/Chromium should use aggressively. Hm. Let me ping some of the driver people, see if they can offer some narrowing-down advice.

[wileE]

Ok, it happened to me today too. With Chromium and Opera.
It is the hardware acceleration. Turn that off and the problem is gone.

And the machine becomes nearly completely unresponsive.

If you want to try it, go to the review of the Viva H7 on www.notebookcheck.com.
But be warned: this turned off all my Gnome 3 desktop extensions. Did not damage anything.

[FreakShow!]

Hi, just registered because I have come across the exact same issue!

How do you go about disabling hardware acceleration in Chrome?

This issue is only prevelant on Ubuntu based distros (I have tried Xubuntu and Mint with different DEs). It always happens when trying to load Chrome or even visiting the Chrome website in Firefox.

I'm currently posting this in Chrome on Fedora and it's all working just fine. So unless the hardware acceleration isn't enabled by Fedora, then it must be a driver issue. Is it possible to port the drivers from Fedora to Ubuntu?