[SOLVED] Lenovo Ideapad330 AMD running without video hardware acceleration

[tknabe5]

Hi folks, long time reader, first time poster.

I have a Lenovo Ideapad 330 from 2018 with an quad core AMD Ryzen 5 2500U with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx processor and AMD Raven Ridge [Radeon Vega Series / Radeon Vega Mobile Series] for graphics. However, I can't seem to get a driver working for the graphics. Every time I boot I get a popup that says "Check your video drivers. Your system is currently running without video hardware acceleration. You may experience poor performance and high CPU usage." When I click the button at the bottom to Launch Driver Manager that runs and then has a check mark with the text "Your computer does not need any additional drivers." and does not list any options for me.

However, when I run

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inxi -Fxxxrz

The output is

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System:
  Kernel: 5.11.19-051119-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A 
  Desktop: Cinnamon 5.0.7 wm: muffin 5.0.2 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 
  Distro: Linux Mint 20.2 Uma base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 81D2 v: Lenovo ideapad 330-15ARR 
  serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 10 v: Lenovo ideapad 330-15ARR 
  serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: LENOVO model: LNVNB161216 v: SDK0J40709 WIN serial: <filter> 
  UEFI [Legacy]: LENOVO v: 7VCN24WW date: 06/15/2018 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 30.3 Wh condition: 30.6/35.0 Wh (87%) volts: 8.5/7.5 
  model: SMP L17M2PF0 type: Li-poly serial: <filter> status: Unknown 
CPU:
  Topology: Quad Core model: AMD Ryzen 5 2500U with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx 
  bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen L2 cache: 2048 KiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm 
  bogomips: 31943 
  Speed: 2254 MHz min/max: 1600/2000 MHz boost: enabled Core speeds (MHz): 
  1: 1735 2: 2233 3: 1436 4: 1491 5: 1435 6: 1407 7: 1380 8: 1386 
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Raven Ridge [Radeon Vega Series / Radeon Vega Mobile Series] 
  vendor: Lenovo driver: N/A bus ID: 03:00.0 chip ID: 1002:15dd 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: ati,vesa 
  unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,radeon resolution: 1920x1080~N/A 
  OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 12.0.0 256 bits) v: 4.5 Mesa 21.0.3 
  compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: AMD Raven/Raven2/Fenghuang HDMI/DP Audio vendor: Lenovo 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 03:00.1 chip ID: 1002:15de 
  Device-2: AMD Family 17h HD Audio vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel 
  v: kernel bus ID: 03:00.6 chip ID: 1022:15e3 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.11.19-051119-generic 
Network:
  Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter 
  vendor: Lenovo driver: ath10k_pci v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.0 
  chip ID: 168c:0042 
  IF: wlp1s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
  vendor: Lenovo driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 2000 bus ID: 02:00.0 
  chip ID: 10ec:8168 
  IF: enp2s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
  Device-3: Qualcomm Atheros type: USB driver: btusb bus ID: 3-2:3 
  chip ID: 0cf3:e500 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 238.47 GiB used: 23.94 GiB (10.0%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Micron model: MTFDDAK256TBN size: 238.47 GiB 
  speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> rev: N001 scheme: MBR 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 18.65 GiB used: 10.12 GiB (54.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 
  ID-2: /home size: 203.69 GiB used: 13.82 GiB (6.8%) fs: ext4 
  dev: /dev/sda3 
  ID-3: swap-1 size: 11.44 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 65.1 C mobo: N/A 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/cappelikan-ppa-focal.list 
  1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/cappelikan/ppa/ubuntu focal main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mozillacorp-mozillavpn-focal.list 
  1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/mozillacorp/mozillavpn/ubuntu focal main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
  1: deb https://mirrors.advancedhosters.com/linuxmint/packages uma main upstream import backport
  2: deb http://mirror.cogentco.com/pub/linux/ubuntu focal main restricted universe multiverse
  3: deb http://mirror.cogentco.com/pub/linux/ubuntu focal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
  4: deb http://mirror.cogentco.com/pub/linux/ubuntu focal-backports main restricted universe multiverse
  5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ focal-security main restricted universe multiverse
  6: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ focal partner
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sublime-text.list 
  1: deb https://download.sublimetext.com/ apt/stable/
Info:
  Processes: 249 Uptime: 1h 36m Memory: 7.38 GiB used: 2.80 GiB (37.9%) 
  Init: systemd v: 245 runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 9.3.0 alt: 9 Shell: bash 
  v: 5.0.17 running in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.0.38 

I've looked at other forums on this issue, the below are what I think have been the most relevant ones closest to this issue for me

• Black screen after suspend/No drivers installed (ryzen 5500u) - viewtopic.php?f=59&t=350546

• How to start video hardware acceleration - viewtopic.php?p=2020459#p2020459

They tell me that because in the inxi output it says driver: N/A and OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe that means that I do not have an appropriate driver in use. Based on the advice in the second linked forum post above, I tried installing the Ubuntu Mainline Kernel Installer https://github.com/bkw777/mainline to upgrade to the 5.11 mainline kernel to see if that would come with updated drivers, but it did not change anything. (I think that was for slightly different hardware)

I also took a look at this command to check for the Green Sardine firmware:

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ls -go /lib/firmware/amdgpu | grep green_sardine

That output is

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-rw-r--r-- 1 180736 Oct 20 07:29 green_sardine_asd.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1  36608 Oct 20 07:29 green_sardine_ce.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 111348 Oct 20 07:29 green_sardine_dmcub.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1  69376 Oct 20 07:29 green_sardine_me.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 268048 Oct 20 07:29 green_sardine_mec2.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 268048 Oct 20 07:29 green_sardine_mec.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1  85760 Oct 20 07:29 green_sardine_pfp.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1  38904 Oct 20 07:29 green_sardine_rlc.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1  17408 Oct 20 07:29 green_sardine_sdma.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1  33536 Oct 20 07:29 green_sardine_ta.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 457856 Oct 20 07:29 green_sardine_vcn.bin

I'm not familiar with that, and so I don't know if I need to do anything with those .bin files or if the fact that they're there means that they're installed.

The computer does run with high CPU usage as I'd expect, and when I go to suspend it, there's a high chance that it freezes on a black screen and I have to manually force a reboot. Any help or insight would be appreciated here. My expectation is that the drivers should be built into the kernel and so mint should just recognize and use them, however that's clearly not happening here. Thanks!

[SMG]

I have a Lenovo Ideapad 330 from 2018 with an quad core AMD Ryzen 5 2500U with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx processor and AMD Raven Ridge [Radeon Vega Series / Radeon Vega Mobile Series] for graphics.

Welcome to the forum, tknabe5.

I did a quick search on this forum for "330-15ARR" and found someone with the exact same computer. That person is running the 5.4 kernel and has graphics. However, that person left the computer in its native UEFI mode and did not switch to Legacy BIOS mode emulation.

I'm not sure why you used Legacy BIOS mode, but others have run into issue on computers with AMD processors/graphics with the graphics not always loading properly when using the Legacy BIOS emulation instead of using the computer's native UEFI mode. I've seen it happen multiple times where the person switched back to UEFI mode and the graphics loaded properly.

My recommendation would be to back up your data and re-install. Set up your drive as GPT with an UEFI partition and this time size your root partition to a more reasonable 30-50GB so you don't run into issues in the future.

Machine:
Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 81D2 v: Lenovo ideapad 330-15ARR
serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 10 v: Lenovo ideapad 330-15ARR
serial: <filter>
Mobo: LENOVO model: LNVNB161216 v: SDK0J40709 WIN serial: <filter>
UEFI [Legacy]: LENOVO v: 7VCN24WW date: 06/15/2018

Drives:
Local Storage: total: 238.47 GiB used: 23.94 GiB (10.0%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Micron model: MTFDDAK256TBN size: 238.47 GiB
speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> rev: N001 scheme: MBR
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 18.65 GiB used: 10.12 GiB (54.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
ID-2: /home size: 203.69 GiB used: 13.82 GiB (6.8%) fs: ext4
dev: /dev/sda3
ID-3: swap-1 size: 11.44 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5

The computer does run with high CPU usage as I'd expect, and when I go to suspend it, there's a high chance that it freezes on a black screen and I have to manually force a reboot.

That's because your system is running in software rendering mode. With no hardware graphics that puts an extra load on the CPU which probably also why your computer's CPU temp is higher than you would want it to be.

My expectation is that the drivers should be built into the kernel and so mint should just recognize and use them, however that's clearly not happening here.

They are built into the kernel, but I expect there are error messages in your logs that are similar to

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kernel: [drm:amdgpu_get_bios [amdgpu]] *ERROR* Unable to locate a BIOS ROM

Here is an explanation of why you would want to use UEFI. Earlier in that same topic you can see the error message I posted above.

Here is that person's subsequent topic [SOLVED] Can I change Legacy boot drive to UEFI? where they ended up re-installing and the final result was the correct graphics driver was loading every time.

[tknabe5]

Thank you so much! This was exactly it. I switched to UEFI, re-installed linux mint and now the gpu drivers work as expected. I had no idea that legacy BIOS would cause issues, I thought I was avoiding issues by not using UEFI.