AMD Fusion A8-3850 APU "Llano" On Linux

[wizard69]

Please do report

.....
I know I know, demanding the impossible

The series is new, somebody all have something soon. The way I look at AMD has almost hit a home run with Llano. It is by far the best highly integrated chip you can buy if you need strong GPU performance.

For your application heat is an issue, but you are still farther ahead today with AMD. The only way to beat heat is to under clock or wait for the next die shrink. Do realize though that all that power is in one place, it isn't like you have separate GPUs to cool.

[Ex-Cyber]

The main problem for me isn't the heat itself, it's just that the stock cooler is a whiny little thing. I might be able to ignore it once the box is actually on the shelf ~10 feet away, though. Either way, it's nothing a larger/lower-RPM aftermarket cooler can't fix.

[crispy]

The series is new, somebody all have something soon. The way I look at AMD has almost hit a home run with Llano. It is by far the best highly integrated chip you can buy if you need strong GPU performance.

For your application heat is an issue, but you are still farther ahead today with AMD. The only way to beat heat is to under clock or wait for the next die shrink. Do realize though that all that power is in one place, it isn't like you have separate GPUs to cool.

Yes, i agree. I am now closer than ever. The A6-3800 I think its called is clocked slighty lower at 65W TPD which is listed as the max the case I have in mind can take, so maybe Im already there!

[curaga]

The early reports say the llanos underclock even better than the Athlons. Dropping 0.2v will surely help with cooling, especially when starting from the 65w editions.

[Ex-Cyber]

I swapped in a cheap low-profile Thermaltake cooler and am pleased with the results so far. I also put in an Antec TrueQuiet 120mm case fan instead of the old TriCool that I had stuck in there for testing, but I don't think that made a huge difference. The overall sound is still noticeable, but not nearly as annoying.

I didn't get very far with KMS in Gentoo. I'm not sure whether it was something in my kernel config (probably) or something screwy in userland. The SUMO microcode apparently got loaded, but unless I disabled modesetting all I got was a screen full of garbage when it turned on. Fedora 16 Alpha mostly works, but picks up and defaults to a phantom "Unknown" 1024x768 display (which may be a quirk of my TV). Ubuntu Oneiric Beta 2 is next on the chopping block.

I tried to do 5.1 channel audio over HDMI, but it didn't work (in either Linux or Windows), apparently because my cheap AV receiver only takes 5.1 if it's encoded in Dolby Digital or DTS.

[tom.higgy]

The early reports say the llanos underclock even better than the Athlons. Dropping 0.2v will surely help with cooling, especially when starting from the 65w editions.

Can confirm this. I've got my A8-3850 set to 1.175v in BIOS, rather than the default setting of around 1.4v. It's pretty stable at standard speeds, even running with full load for a number of hours.

Fedora 16 Alpha mostly works, but picks up and defaults to a phantom "Unknown" 1024x768 display (which may be a quirk of my TV). Ubuntu Oneiric Beta 2 is next on the chopping block.

I'm getting the same 1024x768 'phantom' display on Kubuntu Oneiric. It doesn't seem to make any different except KDM sometimes comes up at a lower resolution but is corrected after login. I'm using DVI, while the phantom is detected on VGA/D-sub.

I also get some messages occasionally in the kernel logs:

[ 8156.481154] [drm:radeon_dp_get_link_status] *ERROR* displayport link status failed
[ 8156.481159] [drm:radeon_dp_link_train_cr] *ERROR* clock recovery failed
[ 9494.026703] [drm:drm_mode_getfb] *ERROR* invalid framebuffer id

Not sure what's going on here. Using stock kernel (3.0.0-11-generic) + xorg-edgers.

[Ex-Cyber]

What's apparently going on is that the xorg radeon driver is kind of stupid about detecting connections on VGA outputs and tends to err on the side of caution (because hey, there are boardrooms out there that had VGA cable without DDC wires put in the walls 20 years ago, and those should be expected to work by default, right?). Anyway, I filed a bug on launchpad since I did eventually install Ubuntu and saw it there too.

[scjet]

re: AMD Fusion A8-3850 APU "Llano" On Linux:
So can anyone confirm if the HDMI out fully works with Linux/Ubuntu 11.10 ??? /whatever distro and driver ?
Basically i want to connect this via hdmi -> 50" 1080p HDTV.
I will only be running Linux on this, no Windoze.

Will I be able to do full 3D-Rendering/Acceleration,... 1080p,... with both 1080p Video/Audio streaming via HDMI ? if not then how about atleast HD Video thru the dvi out.
The main thing is just to run a nice 1080p Linux Desktop onto my 1080p HDTV.

[chithanh]

HDMI Audio on Llano is not yet supported with the open source driver http://wiki.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature. Also there are still bugs where no output is produced at all (https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=41569 and others)

With the proprietary driver everything should work.

[scjet]

Thanks for the replies, I normally use the DVI-out, and my audio card patched into the amp's. so hdmi is not extremely important.
1080p is very important though, with Llano connected to my HDTV.
I did see however support for that "Hybrid-Graphics" yukk , similar to that NVIDIA Optimus mess on the newer nvidia-based Laptops, (and ya I heard of the Bumblebee project). ... hence why I'm now seriously looking into AMD's Llano or Trinity.

I just hope and pray that AMD/ATI (be it Llano or Trinity) doesn't force people into that, or atleast offer a "user" switchable/power-management solution. I "want" to run my Video system at it's highest potential all the time.
Maybe Windows users won't notice or care, but Linux will.