stuck with VESA & 1024x768 or worse on Sony VAIO with G86M [GeForce 8400M GT] (rev a1)
by mrmazda from LinuxQuestions.org on (#4Q344)
https://mobilespecs.net/laptop/Sony/...GN-AR730E.html seems to describe this non-Optimus laptop.
https://www.sony.com/electronics/sup...ies/vgn-ar730e seems to be the appropriate Sony support page, but I don't see any downloadable BIOS (original or update), or specifications there.
http://fm.no-ip.com/Tmp/Linux/Xorg/Nv/ is where I've been collecting Xorg logs, journals, lsmod, xrandr, inxi, and anything else trying to figure this thing out over the past three days. The filenames are chosen to try to make evident their content, such as kernel cmdline parameters tried, or OS from which generated.
Operating systems exhibiting similar/same trouble are openSUSE Tumbleweed, 15.1, 15.0; Knoppix 8.2 & 8.6, Linuxmint 19.0 and possibly Debian Buster. Newest kernel is TW's 5.2.11, oldest Knoppix's 4.15 and 15.0's 4.12 backported equivalent supposedly to 4.19.
Most obvious clue seems to be that 'hwinfo --monitor' produces null output whether or not KMS is enabled and neither external HDMI port nor external VGA port are connected, though hwinfo apparently works for the rest of the hardware. Video is normal when VESA is used in tty framebuffers or VESA or FBDEV are used in Xorg. Maximum resolution is 1024x768 in either X or ttys. To me this suggests absent required firmware, but I'm having no luck finding any relevant to NVidia that is not already present.
KMS kick-in point triggers black screen on ttys if vga= or video= are included on cmdline, even when video= attempts to enable or disable any of the crtcs. With the
older kernels, video= parameters scramble video output on the X screen unless nomodeset is also used.
These are some other errors that as yet have produced no fruit from web searches:Code:vaio kernel: pci 0000:01:00.0: BAR 6: no space for [mem size 0x00020000 pref]
vaio kernel: platform regulatory.0: Direct firmware load for regulatory.db failed with error -2
[ 56.460] (EE) [drm] Failed to open DRM device for pci:0000:01:00.0: -19
[ 56.460] (EE) open /dev/dri/card0: No such file or directory
[ 56.461] (EE) Unable to find a valid framebuffer device
[ 56.461] (EE) open /dev/fb0: No such file or directoryAll suggestions other than discarding laptop welcome.
https://www.sony.com/electronics/sup...ies/vgn-ar730e seems to be the appropriate Sony support page, but I don't see any downloadable BIOS (original or update), or specifications there.
http://fm.no-ip.com/Tmp/Linux/Xorg/Nv/ is where I've been collecting Xorg logs, journals, lsmod, xrandr, inxi, and anything else trying to figure this thing out over the past three days. The filenames are chosen to try to make evident their content, such as kernel cmdline parameters tried, or OS from which generated.
Operating systems exhibiting similar/same trouble are openSUSE Tumbleweed, 15.1, 15.0; Knoppix 8.2 & 8.6, Linuxmint 19.0 and possibly Debian Buster. Newest kernel is TW's 5.2.11, oldest Knoppix's 4.15 and 15.0's 4.12 backported equivalent supposedly to 4.19.
Most obvious clue seems to be that 'hwinfo --monitor' produces null output whether or not KMS is enabled and neither external HDMI port nor external VGA port are connected, though hwinfo apparently works for the rest of the hardware. Video is normal when VESA is used in tty framebuffers or VESA or FBDEV are used in Xorg. Maximum resolution is 1024x768 in either X or ttys. To me this suggests absent required firmware, but I'm having no luck finding any relevant to NVidia that is not already present.
KMS kick-in point triggers black screen on ttys if vga= or video= are included on cmdline, even when video= attempts to enable or disable any of the crtcs. With the
older kernels, video= parameters scramble video output on the X screen unless nomodeset is also used.
These are some other errors that as yet have produced no fruit from web searches:Code:vaio kernel: pci 0000:01:00.0: BAR 6: no space for [mem size 0x00020000 pref]
vaio kernel: platform regulatory.0: Direct firmware load for regulatory.db failed with error -2
[ 56.460] (EE) [drm] Failed to open DRM device for pci:0000:01:00.0: -19
[ 56.460] (EE) open /dev/dri/card0: No such file or directory
[ 56.461] (EE) Unable to find a valid framebuffer device
[ 56.461] (EE) open /dev/fb0: No such file or directoryAll suggestions other than discarding laptop welcome.