Newbee w/Nvidia 210

[MintBEVO]

I decided to get my Linux feet wet and convert an OLD Window XP machine (A8N5X Motherboard) to Mint Cinnamon 17.2 64 Bit. Smooth install, w/XP dual boot. The initial video card was a Nvidia NX6200TC. It didn't work well at all, especially on video playback and was very unstable. I had an old Radeon X700Pro card that I put in it and it worked a little better, but the video was still bad (choppy, with wavy lines scrolling down). Not to be deterred, I eBay'ed a used Nvidia 210 (because it was cheap and I knew it had Linux drivers). However, when I put it in and tried to boot, the Computer would hang shortly into the boot process, screen would turn gray with the cursor (underscore) blinking in the upper left hand corner of the screen. I tried the Mint iso boot CD and it did the same thing about 10 seconds after the boot started. I can boot fine into XP and even downloaded and installed XP drivers for the 210. I put the X700 back in and it boots Mint fine, but in addition to crappy video, the system is unstable with that card.

Can anyone tell me what is happening with the Nvidia 210 and how to get it to boot?

Thanks
Gary

[karlchen]

Hi, Gary.

Windows converts in general and Windows XP users in particular seem to have a strong tendency of selecting a Mint edition that comes with the Cinnamon desktop. The reason is that Cinnamon looks so much like Windows, I assume.
In particular Windows XP users as a rule use pretty old machines. These machines frequently have not got sufficient resources in order to run Cinnamon, because Cinnamon requires a graphics card plus driver software which support 3D hardware acceleration.
In order to get an idea whether this might be the problem in your case, it would be helpful, if you could startup Mint, open a terminal window, run the following commandline and post the complete screen output here.

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz

(it is capital F, lowercase xz, because Linux is case-sensitive)

Cheers,
Karl

[Cosmo.]

I agree what karlchen wrote.

There is one things which makes it likely, that you choose the wrong Mint-version for the start: Your XP is (statistically) very most likely a 32 bit system and as you noted that it is an old (in capital letters) machine I guess that it has 2 GB or less RAM. So whatever comes out, you will most likely need a 32 bit version of Mint (even if your CPU is obviously 64 bit ready).

[MintBEVO]

Here is the requested information:

mint-gds@Slvrs22G ~ $ inxi -Fxz
System: Host: Slvrs22G Kernel: 3.16.0-38-generic x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.8.2)
Desktop: Cinnamon 2.6.13 Distro: Linux Mint 17.2 Rafaela
Machine: Mobo: ASUSTeK model: A8N5X version: 1.XX Bios: Phoenix version: ASUS A8N5X 0502 date: 11/08/2005
CPU: Dual core AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (-MCP-) cache: 1024 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3) bmips: 8865.86
Clock Speeds: 1: 2216.466 MHz 2: 2216.466 MHz
Graphics: Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] RV410 [Radeon X700 PRO] bus-ID: 01:00.0
X.Org: 1.15.1 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1920x1200@60.0hz
GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on ATI RV410 GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 10.1.3 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio: Card: MPU-401 UART driver: MPU-401 UART Sound: ALSA ver: k3.16.0-38-generic
Network: Card: NVIDIA CK804 Ethernet Controller driver: forcedeth port: b000 bus-ID: 00:0a.0
IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives: HDD Total Size: 82.3GB (6.6% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: HDS728080PLA380 size: 82.3GB
Partition: ID: / size: 36G used: 5.1G (15%) fs: ext4 ID: swap-1 size: 2.15GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap
RAID: No RAID devices detected - /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 43.0C mobo: 46.0C
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 1607 sys-1: 0
Info: Processes: 151 Uptime: 20 min Memory: 415.0/3953.5MB Runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.4
Client: Shell (bash 4.3.11) inxi: 1.9.17
mint-gds@Slvrs22G ~ $

I very much appreciate the response(s). I am confused about a few things and a clarification would be appreciated. First, the information above is being displayed with my X700Pro video card. This incident is relative to the Nvidia 210 that won't boot, so I cant provide the inxi -Fxz info with that card installed. As for 3D Hardware acceleration, I didn't see anything in the 210's spec's that would indicate that it does have 3D, although the features posted here:
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop ... 0/features
shows several types of HW acceleration. I assume you are saying that without 3D acceleration the system would not even boot. Its odd the two older cards (one an Nvidia) would have 3D acceleration and a somewhat later card not, but certainly stranger things happen.

Yes, I selected Cinnamon because of an article mentioned it is easiest to make the transition from MS Windows to Linux. And yes, the XP machine is a surplus machine that was built in 2006. So it is old but available. Not knowing if Linux was going to stick, I did not want much if any investment that couldn't be redeployed elsewhere in my environment if necessary. The machine does have 4GB ram and XP was indeed a 32 bit system. Are you saying the 64 bit version of Mint on my system is what is causing the choppy video and instability? Do you think it is also the reason the 210 won't boot?

Finally, I have no attachment to Cinnamon. Probably more attachment to the 210 video card since I paid money for it and it does have HDMI whereas the other video cards do not. So, if you can recommendation another version with more/better video card support, I would be glad to give it a shot. I assume I can just reload over my current Cinnamon install?

Thanks
Gary

[MintBEVO]

Well I have given up on the Geforce 210 video card. I can't get any iso to even boot with that card in. Further, 32 bit mint is not the answer either. That iso doesn't get far into the boot process before it dies as well. I did install the 17.2 64 bit Mint Xfce with yet a 3rd video card. While the install went fine and after doing all the app and system updates, it has been stable. However, the choppy video (youtube and others) is still there in both Firefox and Chrome. Worse in Chrome. Leads me to believe there is something I am missing relative to getting smooth video playback? Anybody?

Thanks
Gary

[Pjotr]

Well I have given up on the Geforce 210 video card. I can't get any iso to even boot with that card in. Further, 32 bit mint is not the answer either. That iso doesn't get far into the boot process before it dies as well. I did install the 17.2 64 bit Mint Xfce with yet a 3rd video card. While the install went fine and after doing all the app and system updates, it has been stable. However, the choppy video (youtube and others) is still there in both Firefox and Chrome. Worse in Chrome. Leads me to believe there is something I am missing relative to getting smooth video playback? Anybody?

Thanks
Gary

I have a GeForce 210 myself, which is humming along quite nicely on the nvidia-340 driver.

The Release Notes of Mint 17.2 have this to say about booting problems with Nvidia cards:

- At the boot menu of the live DVD/USB, press Tab to edit the boot arguments and add "nomodeset" at the end of the line.
- Remove "quiet splash --" from that same line.
- Append "nouveau.noaccel=1" at the end of the line.

Source: http://linuxmint.com/rel_rafaela_cinnamon.php
(section Known issues)

On first succesful boot, launch Driver Manager and install the nvidia-340 that it offers you. Then reboot and all should be well.

[MintBEVO]

Yes, I found that. Been there done that and unfortunately, I was never able to get a "successful" boot. I did download the 340 driver and have it on a USB drive, but have not discovered a way to get the iso to load it. While doing the tabs and providing custom arguments does produce more diagnostic info on the screen, the results are always the same, it hangs. I am sure the info produced is meaningful to some folks, but to a newbee such as myself, it doesn't help much.

Interesting though that you had no problems w/210. Did you build from a recent mint iso or have you upgraded form prior release(s)? AMD or Intel CPU?

Thanks
Gary

[Pjotr]

For me, it was a fresh install of 17.2....

However, maybe there's a surprisingly simple solution for your problem:
- without the Nvidia 210 in your machine, install the nvidia-340 driver for it anyway, by means of this terminal command:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install nvidia-340

- Shut down your computer and then disconnect it from power;
- Open the computer case, plug the Nvidia 210 card in your computer and connect your display with it;
- Boot normally. The Nvidia 210 should now use the nvidia-340 driver automatically and all should be well....

[MintBEVO]

Success! Pjotr, After your first post I got to thinking about the BIOS in my old Asus motherboard (duh). I went out and updated the BIOS to the latest version and was able to boot into Mint. I then used the driver update command you posted in your 2nd message, rebooted and all is good now. Video is much better, although not as snappy as under XP using the same card and XP drivers (dual boot). Most other functions that I have tried seem to perform well however.

Thanks much for you help. At least I am off and running now.

Gary

[Pjotr]

Excellent!

You can probably speed things up a bit by applying these tweaks:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/3