linux 2.6.0-pre11, XFree fails to start

["Éric Brunet" <Eric.Brunet@lps.ens.fr>]

Hello all,

I have an intermitent bug on my computer (intel PIV, shuttle motherboard,
integrated i845 video card): sometimes, at boot time, XFree (4.3.0,
from redhat 9 package) fails to start. The screen goes black (or, more
precisely, darkgrey) as the video mode is changed, and stays there
forever. Keyboard is not responding (not even caps-lock or sysrq), and I
have to reboot the computer. There is nothing in the log, the only
information are the last lines written by the XServer in
/var/log/XFree86.0.log:

(II) I810(0): xf86BindGARTMemory: bind key 5 at 0x067f8000 (pgoffset 26616)
(II) I810(0): xf86BindGARTMemory: bind key 6 at 0x066f8000 (pgoffset 26360)
(II) I810(0): xf86BindGARTMemory: bind key 7 at 0x05278000 (pgoffset 21112)
(II) I810(0): Before: SWF1 is 0x00000108
(II) I810(0): After: SWF1 is 0x00000108

On a normal boot, those lines are followed by:

(II) I810(0): Display plane A is enabled.
(II) I810(0): Display plane B is disabled.
(II) I810(0): PIPEACONF is 0x80000000

There is nothing peculiar in the logs of the kernel.

As I said, the bug is intermitent. I should say it happens every three or
four boots. Before 2.6.0-pre11, I have been using 2.6.0-pre8 and -pre9,
and I don't remember this problem happening. Or if it did occur, it was
much less frequent. Maybe I should go back to 2.6.0-pre9 to be sure.

I really don't know how to debug a hard lock like this, or how to find
usefull information.

Every interesting information on my computer (config files, lspci, log of
XFree, etc.) is available on <http://perso.nerim.net/~tudia/bug-reports/>.

Éric Brunet