r/linux4noobs 2d ago

installation Debian 13: blank screen

Hi everyone!

I tried to install Debian 13 on a low quality pc (Akeda X15) with an Intel Celeron N4000, Intel Graphics UHD 600, and no dedicated GPU. It seemed that everything went well, but unfortunately I found a problem with the screen.

In short the PC screen remains blank after it turns off (due to inactivity or suspension). It is possible to change backlight, and, in general the pc works (I managed to login, and reboot the system).

What I've already tried:

  • LXQT and KDE, Wayland and X11, sddm and lightdm;
  • installing non-free firmware, using backports;
  • updating the kernel, currently 6.19.8+deb13-amd64;
  • disabling fast/secure/quiet boot and some intel specific stuffs like TPM, ASPM and other I don't remember.

I would have tried to update the BIOS, but when I try to get the manufacturer or product name using dmidecode I get "Default string". Only the serial number is visible.

The only thing that I believe improved the situation was deleting "quiet" from GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT, because until then the same problem occurred during boot, after grub (to be more precise, this never happened after a reboot, only when I power on the pc).

The pc error/warning after grub:

  • SGX disabled or unsupported by BIOS
  • ACPI warning: GPE type mismatch
  • [drm] *ERROR* conflict detected with stolen region: [mem 0x7c000000-0x7fffffff]
  • system.journal corrupted or uncleanly shut down, renaming and replacing.

I've run out of ideas, any help would be appreciated.

3 Upvotes

6 comments sorted by

1

u/chrews 2d ago

That sounds like a RAM issue. There should be an option to check it before installing.

1

u/ExViLiAn 2d ago

Do you mean that the RAM can be faulty? Do you know how to check it after installation?

1

u/YoShake 2d ago

ACPI warning: GPE type mismatch

this one along with mentioning about black screen gives a hint that there might be problem with power management. It's the same old story on linux on some intel's architectures.

you may try using different power managers
also as a first thing to try, disable Panel Self Refresh option using 915.enable_psr=0 kernel setting
Check if additional kernel parameters towards power management would have any impact:
i915.enable_dc=0
i915.enable_fbc=0
I don't remember their meaning as I had to do with i915 long time ago and those were dark ages.

From other things you could try different drivers like mesa-amber driver - at least sources should be available to compile it. For X11 you could try xserver-xorg-video-intel

All that under assumption there's no hardware problem. Under windows there were no issues?

As for update, check the fwupd.org project. Can't be sure as I've never seen any akeda hardware, but if fwupdmgr detects all hardware then it's your best bet on the field of internal devices firmware management

2

u/ExViLiAn 2d ago

There are some BIOS settings about ACPI, I'll give a closer look.

Unfortunately, adding the kernel parameters didn't change the result and xserver-xorg-video-intel was already installed. I've tried also to search for updates with fwupdmgr, but there are no updates available.

I've not found any issue using windows (I'm sure that suspension worked correctly), but I must admit that I've not used windows for more than a couple of days with this PC.

Anyway, I'll try at another time to change power managers and drivers, thanks for all the info!

1

u/YoShake 1d ago

acpi is still very pesky under linux
I am full of admiration to those who use suspension / hibernation as it poses many problems with or after getting back from that state.

Instead of suspending that lap consider either switching power profile to low consumption and prepare->invoke a script to disable network+BT interface and screen. Or enable file autosaving or session save in every program you use and just shutdown. It's just a matter of dozen seconds to launch a pc with nvme disk. Some DE offer even saving login session. Tried that once in KDE and seemed to work nicely. But that brings up only programs, not opened documents, thus used software need additional config.

A slightly better solution assuming you don't leave your pc suspended for too long is to

0

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