Replaced Motherboard Resulting in nVidia Problem

[LaneLester]

A friend sent me a motherboard/CPU/RAM (abbreviate as "MB" in this post) to upgrade my main machine, and I have it running in spite of some ongoing problems. The one for this thread is a video problem.

I had an old nVidia 5500 card which won't fit in the new MB. But the MB has an nVidia onboard chipset MCP61, which I think is like the 6600 card. Linux Mint (the current release) complained about the video and needed to run in a low rez mode. I was using the nVidia driver 173, so I upgraded to 180 without any good effect. I tried running nvidia-xconfig (I think that's the command the nVidia GUI program specified), but I still can't get the nVidia GUI config program to do its thing.

What make this particularly puzzling is that I booted to Ubuntu Jaunty on another partition, and it used the existing nVidia driver right away. The only thing I had to fix was the resolution.

What should I do so i can get back to running Mint?

Lane

[kane_of_nod]

HI, have you tried to boot up in 'Recovery Mode'

and when it boots, you can choose to repair the X Server..

After that, you will have a 2D acceleration desktop.

Then, go to Menu-> Administration -> Hardware drivers (whatever- I'm Portuguese, so i can't tell exactly)

And install the recommended one.. (if it's anything there)

=)

[LaneLester]

And install the recommended one.. (if it's anything there)

=)

Thanks, that did it!

It was kind of weird, because the default config had a vertical display much higher than my screen, and the menu/taskbar was not visible. I had to open a terminal (sure glad that's in the right-click desktop menu!) and run mintmenu to get a menu icon where I could see it. Then your procedure worked just right.

I'm glad to be back from the Orange to the Green!

Lane

[DrHu]

What make this particularly puzzling is that I booted to Ubuntu Jaunty on another partition, and it used the existing nVidia driver right away. The only thing I had to fix was the resolution

Good to hear it works, sometimes automatic installations are helpful

You don't say which OS you were running previously
--if it was Ubuntu, it would be no surprise if it worked with a newer version of that OS..
Its a 6100 chipset

• MCP61P chipset consisting of:
  * Northbridge: GeForce 6100 NVIDIA nForce 430
  * Southbridge: GeForce 6100 NVIDIA nForce 430

[LaneLester]

You don't say which OS you were running previously
--if it was Ubuntu, it would be no surprise if it worked with a newer version of that OS..
Its a 6100 chipset

• MCP61P chipset consisting of:
  * Northbridge: GeForce 6100 NVIDIA nForce 430
  * Southbridge: GeForce 6100 NVIDIA nForce 430

Thanks for the info about the chipset. I forget the name of the Linux Mint version, but it's the same as Ubuntu Jaunty. Since they're the same, it seemed a bit strange that they responded so differently to the change.

Lane

[kane_of_nod]

I use to install manually the nvidia driver...

I download it (the latest) and then rename it (because the filename is big and complex; I make it nvidia.run and move it to my /home)

Then I just press Ctrl+Alt+F1, and login as root,
I give the following command:

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/etc/init.d/gdm stop

then I browse to my user /home;

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cd /home/user 

Before running, I make sure that the file has the appropriate permissions to run

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chmod +x nvidia.run

and the last command:

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./nvidia.run

Then I accept the License (or whatever, and install the driver...)
At the end I use to reboot
Ctrl+Alt+Delete does it pretty well...

and then, I have the latest driver installed..

cheers