HP ProBook x360 435 G7

[mwrsa]

Confirmed the other way around: It's working now (today as well) even before the firmware updates. I just installed them and I am waiting for a reboot to see how things are then.

[mwrsa]

Another update: Meh, must've been two lucky days. Same procedure every day: A variable number of black screen starts before I get to a working one. On warm reboot or shutdown and restart the whole thing starts anew.

I kinda ruled out IOMMU too, disabled virtualization in the EFI menu, same ol' (though I need virtualization for testing purposes).

[SMG]

Maybe the firmware updates caused a problem? If you ran Timeshift before the changes, maybe reverting back to an earlier snapshot and not doing the update might help?

Are there any crashes or errors showing in the System Reports app?

[mwrsa]

No, I tried that as well: Undoing the two crucial updates of that day (one kernel, one firmware package) didn't help either. Neither had I setup the Timeshift yet - I wanted to wait till the system is fully functional. Well... I did now, because who knows when this will ever happen?

The SysRep App shows absolutely nothing, but thanks to you pointing me there I a) setup Timeshift and b) realized there was Mint 20.1 out and after a snapshot I did a quick upgrade. All went absolutely smooth and well - but that didn't solve the problem either.

Anyway TY for pointing me there!

[inernet_explorer]

Having the same machine HP ProBook x360 435 G7 (but with ryzen 7 4700U) I was experiencing the same problem:

- kernel 5.4, no amd driver was used
- kernel 5.8, black screen on boot

Solved for me using the solution from this topic mentioned here already. Since I already had an UEFI installation, all that was needed was

BIOS Setup (F10) -> go to the Advanced tab and select Secure Boot Configuration -> select Legacy Support Disable and Secure Boot Disable

After that, I was able to boot with 5.8 kernel and have a 1920x1080 screen resolution without and warnings. This is the output of ixni -G:

Code: Select all

Graphics:  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Renoir driver: amdgpu v: kernel 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.9 driver: amdgpu,ati unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: AMD RENOIR (DRM 3.38.0 5.8.0-36-generic LLVM 11.0.0) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.2.6 

Note:
(1) did not try any of the steps mentioned in this thread, such as firmware updates
(2) after changing the boot configuration (Legacy Support Disable) I saw results immediately on a reboot – grub menu was rendered with higher resolution

[SMG]

Having the same machine HP ProBook x360 435 G7 (but with ryzen 7 4700U)...

Solved for me using the solution from this topic mentioned here already.

Welcome to the forum, inernet_explorer and thanks for contributing your experience.

The person in that topic had a Ryzen 7 4750U, so yours might be a closer match to that situation than the Ryzen 5 4500 in this thread. Renoir is an apu which means it is tightly coupled with the workings of the cpu. I'm not sure how the actual processor might make a difference, but that might be clue as to what is happening for mwrsa.

(1) did not try any of the steps mentioned in this thread, such as firmware updates

The firmware update (1.187.7) I mention a few posts back is the one which comes through in Update Manager for all Mint installs. It's not HP or AMD firmware update.

[mwrsa]

Thank you for your replies once more.

@inernet_explorer: I triple checked what you wrote - those options are already disabled. No luck so far.

What makes me think though: I compared your inxi-output with mine and have totally two differences (down to the version numbers):
One I can explain, I have an USB C Dock connected with two additional monitors (before you ask: yes, the boot problem persists with or without the dock, also with or without the DisplayLink driver for it), so under resolution I have a total of three.

What I am a little wondering about though is that for you modesetting is unloaded while it's under "driver" for me, aka loaded. Does this have to do with the two additional external monitors too, or does this have a different reason?

[SMG]

What I am a little wondering about though is that for you modesetting is unloaded while it's under "driver" for me, aka loaded. Does this have to do with the two additional external monitors too, or does this have a different reason?

The number of monitors does not affect the number of drivers loaded. While modesetting can be used on AMD graphics, usually the performance is better when amdgpu is used. What is the current inxi -SMCGx?

[mwrsa]

Here comes:

Code: Select all

System:    Host: myhostname Kernel: 5.8.0-38-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A Desktop: MATE 1.24.0 
           Distro: Linux Mint 20.1 Ulyssa base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:   Type: Convertible System: HP product: HP ProBook x360 435 G7 v: N/A serial: <superuser/root required> 
           Mobo: HP model: 8735 v: KBC Version 09.21.00 serial: <superuser/root required> UEFI: HP v: S80 Ver. 01.03.00 
           date: 10/27/2020 
CPU:       Topology: 6-Core model: AMD Ryzen 5 4500U with Radeon Graphics bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Zen rev: 1 
           L2 cache: 3072 KiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm bogomips: 28446 
           Speed: 1397 MHz min/max: 1400/2375 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1425 2: 1370 3: 1356 4: 1397 5: 1397 6: 1397 
Graphics:  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Renoir vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: amdgpu v: kernel bus ID: 04:00.0 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.9 driver: amdgpu,ati,modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
           resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz, 1920x1200~75Hz, 1920x1200~75Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: AMD RENOIR (DRM 3.38.0 5.8.0-38-generic LLVM 11.0.0) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.2.6 direct render: Yes

[SMG]

You currently have a newer version of the kernel than inernet_explorer. I can tell that by the renderer since it mentions the kernel version used. This is your information:
renderer: AMD RENOIR (DRM 3.38.0 5.8.0-38-generic LLVM 11.0.0)

Normally, X Server loads all those drivers and then unloads ones it will not be using. I do not know the criteria used, but amdgpu is loaded so I do not think it indicates a problem that modesetting is also loaded. Just because it is loaded does not mean it is being used. It just means it is available for use.

[mwrsa]

I have another thought to follow: Every now and then I am in an seemingly endles black screen loop - no matter how many times I reboot, it always ends up not working. Max was half an hour so far. However, when I unplug the Docking Station (HP USB-C Universal Dock Model HSA-B005DS) it boots coorectly most of the times at first try.
To make this D.S. work I had to install the latest driver found here:

https://www.displaylink.com/downloads/ubuntu

Now of course I wonder if this might be the cause.

[SMG]

I have been on a thread where a person was being logged out when using the 5.x kernel and the DisplayLink driver compared to when using with the 4.15 kernel. (That person was using LM19.3.) Because of that thread, I am familiar with the link you used for the DisplayLink driver.

I checked the HP site and noticed there has been an updated DisplayLink driver released for Windows (August 2020) since the Ubunut DisplayLink driver was released (May 2020). I am not familiar enough with the driver to know how it interacts with the kernel.