Thinkpad R51 + xf86-video-intel-2.7.1_3 = lockup

[Chris Whitehouse]

Hello

I aquired an R51 model 2887 recently. It has the latest BIOS and the 
video chipset is 855GM. I am getting the same problem as mentioned here
<http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=991679+1008170+/usr/local/www/db/text/2010/freebsd-questions/20100829.freebsd-questions>

and here

<http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=453703+0+/usr/local/www/db/text/2010/freebsd-questions/20100829.freebsd-questions>

Loading X (with/without -retro) causes the machine to lock up with a 
black screen. I have to press and hold the power button to turn the 
machine off and Xorg.0.log is empty on reboot.

This occurs with xorg-7.5 and xf86-video-intel-2.7.1_3. With xorg_7.4_3 
and xf86-video-intel-2.7.1_1 it works.

Replacing the intel driver with vesa also works.

Other things I have tried are:

replace xf86-video-intel-2.7.1_3 in the xorg-7.5 setup with 
xf86-video-intel-2.7.1_1 from a package compiled with xorg_7.4_3 - works 
but lots of warnings of version mismatches when installing.

compile xf86-video-intel-2.7.1_1 with xorg-7.5 - failed to compile.

add Option "AccelMethod" "EXA" to xorg.conf (because 
xf86-video-intel-2.7.1_1 failed to compile with errors about uxa) - no 
effect.

remove a second instance of screen, device etc in xorg.conf which gets 
set up by X -configure - no effect.

One thing I haven't done is add Option "UseSIGIO" and  Option 
"NoTrapSignals" to xorg.conf as they both have warnings which I didn't 
feel competent to deal with.

I haven't included xorg.conf and dmesg as they are both virtually 
identical to the ones in the links above, but of course I can if required.

OS is 8.1-R

Any suggestions welcome.

thanks

Chris