nVIDIA card startup woes

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iskye81

nVIDIA card startup woes

Post by iskye81 »

Hi. Having big hassle with my recently installed 17.1 copy. My card is a GeForce 7200 GS. I know about the 'hack' to use the first time you run and are having problems with GeForce cards ('nomodeset' etc), and this gets me into Mint fine. However ALL of the drivers I try and use via the driver manager cause a freeze-up on restart. Basically once I'm past the boot screen I get the green Mint logo for a while, followed by a black screen and then the whole thing seems frozen with a garbled graphic. As I say, none of the drivers work. I've tried switching my monitor link from DVI to to VGA, but with the same results. Very frustrating. How can even the 'recommended' driver be so unstable?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
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roblm
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Re: nVIDIA card startup woes

Post by roblm »

I assume you tried installing the nvidia-304 driver in Driver Manager. Try using the "nomodeset" parameter as discussed in this topic:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=188049

If that doesn't work, then is there is an nvidia-173 driver in Driver Manager, and did you try installing it?
iskye81

Re: nVIDIA card startup woes

Post by iskye81 »

As I said in my original post, none of the driver packages work and cause the same freeze-up/garbled graphics on startup. I've now tried the nvidia-331 package via Synaptic - same result. I know about "nomodeset", it gets me in on extremely low res to install the drivers, but none of the drivers work!
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roblm
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Re: nVIDIA card startup woes

Post by roblm »

Just to be certain that there is no confusion. You need to add nomodeset to the GRUB boot config line after installing the Nvidia driver and rebooting.

The GeForce 7200 GS card is not supported by the nvidia-331 driver. The latest driver to support the GeForce 7xxx series is the nvidia-304 driver:
http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverRe ... 6748/en-us

So if you haven't already tried, then try installing the nvidia-304 and 173 drivers in Synaptic. If you have startup problems, then add the nomodeset parameter to the GRUB boot config line.
If that fails, then try these kernel parameters:
acpi=off
nolapic
nolapic acpi=off
noapic
pci=noacpi
pci=biosirq


To remove the Nvidia driver, at the GRUB boot menu select Recovery Mode. If no menu shows, then hold down the Shift key while starting. In the menu, select “root - drop to root shell prompt”. When asked for the root password, just type your user password. Then change the file permissions to read and write by typing:

Code: Select all

mount -o remount,rw /

Then remove the driver by using this command: apt-get remove nvidia-304 (or nvidia-173)
Then type “reboot”. You'll go back to the Recovery Mode menu. Don't click anything, just wait about 7 seconds for the reboot.

If all of that fails, then you can try installing the 304 driver downloaded from Nvidia's website, using the Updated Installation Instructions from this topic:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 20#p847465

Or try using Mint MATE or XFCE.

What is the output of using this command in the Terminal: inxi -Fx
iskye81

Re: nVIDIA card startup woes

Post by iskye81 »

Ok, I still don't understand the point of using nomodeset in this way. I've done as you say and added it to the config line after reboot. All it does is take me into the very low res software rendering mode again, and there are no editable hardware parameters in the NVIDIA X Server Settings config.

How and where do I edit kernel parameters?
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roblm
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Re: nVIDIA card startup woes

Post by roblm »

iskye81 wrote:Ok, I still don't understand the point of using nomodeset in this way. I've done as you say and added it to the config line after reboot. All it does is take me into the very low res software rendering mode again, and there are no editable hardware parameters in the NVIDIA X Server Settings config. How and where do I edit kernel parameters?
I'm not sure why but the nomodeset parameter is still needed even when using the Nvidia driver for some users because of their particular system configuration. Here are two topics that I was personally involved with in this forum:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 61#p848460
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=158434

This is just a test so you may not need it. The other boot parameters are tested the same way that nomodeset was tested, at the GRUB boot config line. If the Nvidia-Settings utility is empty, then the Nvidia driver was probably not installed. Did you use Synaptic for the 304 or 173 driver?

From reading your first post, it appeared that you were not able to get to the desktop with the Nvidia driver or the graphics were too messed up to clearly see anything. If you are now able to get to the desktop using nomodeset, then post the output of using these commands in the Terminal:
inxi -Fx
xrandr


Then open the “Xorg.0.log” file by typing: gedit /var/log/Xorg.0.log

Press Ctrl+A to select the entire file contents. Right click and select “Copy”. Don't save it to a file. Open the Mint Forum reply window and select “Code” in the menu. Paste the copied lines between the two code tags.

If you have problems posting that long file, then open LibreOffice Writer and paste the contents. Save the file with the name “xorg0log” as an
ODF Text Document (.odt). Below the Mint Forum reply window, click > Upload Attachment > Browse

If you still have problems posting the file, then use the pastebin program with this command, to upload the file to pastebin.com:
pastebin /var/log/Xorg.0.log

Post the URL link that displays in the Terminal window. Finally, what is the brand and model number of the monitor.

EDITED 1-29-15:
It's possible that the nouveau driver is not being disabled, even though this should be done automatically during the Nvidia driver installation process after rebooting. There should be a configuration file created that does this. Sometimes this file is not created or it may be created but the system is not updated for this change. To check if this is the cause, use this command in the Terminal:

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sudo update-initramfs -u
Then reboot but don't use nomodeset. If that doesn't work, then use this command to create a file named “disable-nouveau.conf”:

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gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/disable-nouveau.conf
Add these two lines to the opened file:

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blacklist nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0
Save the file. Then use this command in the Terminal and then reboot, but don't use nomodeset:

Code: Select all

sudo update-initramfs -u
iskye81

Re: nVIDIA card startup woes

Post by iskye81 »

I skipped straight to the suggestions in your edit as they seemed to be the more obvious solution. Anyway, creating the nouveau blacklist file worked! I'm back to proper resolution without having to use nomodeset and all options are available in the NVIDIA X Server settings. Thanks for your help.
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