Intel i3 2100T incompatible past 7.0.3

vinistois · May 31, 2017 at 7:06 AM

I have a good-working system built on an i3-2100T (2nd gen - sandy bridge) running 7.0.3.

I have tried upgrading to 7.95.x, 8.0, and 8.02. All of them seem to boot up fine *once* after the upgrade, but then will lock up and boot into blank screens after the libreelec logo. Sometimes i am able to get past the splash screen and the screen is all visually garbled up as shown in the attachment. It works for a few seconds then locks up. 8.02 boots into a blank screen every time. This causes a bit of a nightmare as the box isn't available via ssh when it locks up, which prevents me from restoring the backup, so I have to backtrack to 7.0.3 and restore from there.

I would really like to upgrade to the new versions due to the security upgrades, and I'd really like to get 4k youtube working and take advantage of the other new features, but I'm stuck here!

Any help is greatly appreciated. I did get some advice on the reddit forum:

"It might be due to DRI changes. Drop back to 7.95.2 and see if that works better (as mesa defaults to DRI3, whereas 7.95.3 mesa is built with DRI3 support but defaults to DRI2). It's getting harder to sustain a single image that works everywhere due to some inconsistencies in Intel's driver."

However, 7.95.2 had the same behavior as described above.

**Klojum** · May 31, 2017 at 7:33 AM Official Post

Just wondering... It probably has no different outcome, but all I see is upgrades/downgrades being done. Since you do have a backup, try installing LibreELEC 8.0.2 fully fresh and see what happens. Stranger things have happened.

There were problems at first with upgrading the MyAddons27.db file causing Kodi to get stuck during booting.

vinistois · May 31, 2017 at 3:31 PM

Sorry, forgot to mention that. I did try a fresh version of 8.02. It doesn't get anywhere at all past the Libreelec splash screen. To rescue my backup first I had to take out the hdd and load it up in a windows machine with software to mount the linux partition.

**chewitt** · June 1, 2017 at 6:33 AM Official Post

Code

wget http://chewitt.libreelec.tv/xorg.dri3 -O /storage/.config/xorg.conf && reboot

Run ^ that command against an 8.0.2 install and see what happens. It installs a custom xorg.conf that forces DRI3. It does remind me of some older Intel GPUs that don't play nice with DRI2 vs. DRI3.

vinistois · June 13, 2017 at 12:44 AM

ok, I can try that some day for sure. So I upgrade to 8.02, and run that command on first boot? Hopefully before it comes crashing down?

Is there any way to apply that command by default to an 8.02 image so that I can clean install it?

**chewitt** · June 13, 2017 at 9:08 AM Official Post

If the system boots up *once* fine as stated in the issue report you can SSH in and run commands before rebooting.

Is this an Intel device or something from another vendor?

Is it running the latest available BIOS/firmware?

btw, the DRI2/3 change will cause graphic mess on-screen but will not cause hard lock-ups in the OS. On second reading of the description it sounds more like a hardware issue.

vinistois · June 13, 2017 at 6:19 PM

It's just a simple MSI mini-itx motherboard with a i3-2100t on it. It has been stable for 4 years, on literally 24/7, and has served up thousands of hours of media without a hitch. It ran OpenElec, then transitioned to LIbreelec, upgrading through the versions during that time without issue.

Never had an issue until 7.95.x

If I upgrade, I seem to survive the first boot and everything is ok. Upon reboot, I get either graphical glitch (along with a freeze) or just freeze on the loading screen.

If I clean install, it never makes it past the loading screen. Rolling back resumes normal operation.

I don't see how this could be a hardware problem. There hasn't been a bios revision since the year the motherboard came out.

**chewitt** · June 14, 2017 at 11:19 AM Official Post

The major change between 7.x and 8.x will be things like mesa and the Intel GPU drivers. My gut feel says there's something in the Intel driver that dislikes the BIOS or firmware on your board, because it's honestly not something we've had reported before - at least not noticeably. LE has a large and vocal Intel userbase which isn't complaining. Have you tried a current Milhouse build? - aside from Kodi v18 (which is pre-alpha) this will have newer kernel, drivers, firmwares and mesa.