[SOLVED] Cinnamon very slow on NVIDIA NV36

[fletcher]

I am running Mint 13 Cinnamon.

Yesterday I completely unplugged my computer and put in a new graphics card, so that I can run dal monitors. I have not connected the second monitor yet, but the new graphics card is working, and became the default when I turned my computer on today.

But my desktop ayout has changed. I like the traditional panel at the bottom and have always had it set up that way. But this morning I have a split panel, top and bottom. In addition to that, I cannot find my quit menu to put the computer to sleep.

I checked my Cinnamon settings, and it still says traditional panel at the bottom. I even did a restart and made sure that I am logged into Cinnamon and not LXDE or Razor-QT. But the panel remains stubbornly split, and I do not like it. How can I correct this?

Thank you for any help that you can provide.

[xenopeek]

Are you actually running Cinnamon? Does the menu button have the word "Menu" next to it, or is it only the gear wheel icon? If it is only the icon, you are in fact running fallback mode. That happens when your graphics card driver (hint right here) doesn't support 3D hardware accelerated graphics, which are currently still needed to run Cinnamon. To provide other users with some info so they can help you, please share the output of the following command so there is some basic info about what graphics card you now have and with what driver.

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inxi -SGx

You can copy text to/from the terminal, see its Edit menu.

[fletcher]

Here is the output from "inxi -SGx:"

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Kernel: 3.2.0-23-generic x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.6.3) 
           Desktop: LXDE (Openbox 3.5.0) Distro: Linux Mint 13 Maya
Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA NV36 [GeForce PCX 5750] bus-ID: 01:00.0 
           X.Org: 1.11.3 drivers: nvidia (unloaded: nouveau,vesa,fbdev) Resolution: 1600x900@50.0hz 
           GLX Renderer: GeForce PCX 5750/PCI/SSE2 GLX Version: 2.1.2 NVIDIA 173.14.35 Direct Rendering: Yes

I got my regular panel back after downloading the recommended drivers for this graphics card, but now my computer is running glacially slow in Cinnamon. It is fine in LXDE, where I am now. Same OS, just running LXDE, which I installed alongside Cinnamon. But if I log into the default DE, the one that I prefer, it takes several minutes for anything to open.

Do I have a bad card? Something that is not quite compatible with certain Linux software? Maybe there is something else I should download?

I got this machine less than a year ago, so if I take it to the shop, I can still get free labor if I need a different graphics card. I really would like to be able to run dual monitors.

A big thank you to anyone who can help, and to all who read this thread but are, like me, not knowledgable enough to solve my problem.

[xenopeek]

I've updated your topic subject. Hopefully somebody with more experience with Nvidia drivers can pitch in on the problem you are having.

[zerozero]

fletcher,
that's an old card (2003) and i doubt that it has the power to run properly cinnamon now (specially if we see that cinnamon is very GPU demanding- the fact that LXDE runs smooth gives some indication of that)

furthermore, this

I really would like to be able to run dual monitors.

cinnamon is slow always or just in dual-display? or goes slower when 2nd monitor connected?
because i found this specs http://www.cnet.com/graphics-cards/evga ... 77704.html and it looks somehow limited what you can do with it.

[fletcher]

I haven't set up dual monitors yet. I think I will get a newer card first. The rest of the machine is less than a year old so I don't want a garbage card in there.

Thanks.

[AlbertP]

While it is old, it should be fast enough to run Cinnamon even on two monitors. It is not a low-end card. I see you already got the NVIDIA graphics driver working, then it should be fine.

It might well be caused by a slow CPU instead, since Cinnamon is mostly programmed in JavaScript which is quite CPU intensive (compared to compiled code). What CPU do you have? You can use inxi -C to post it.

[fletcher]

Here's my inxi -C:

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CPU:       Dual core AMD Athlon II X2 270 (-MCP-) cache: 2048 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4a svm) 
           Clock Speeds: 1: 800.00 MHz 2: 800.00 MHz

Could the fact that I block javascript on most web sites have anything to do with it? Although I do that in every OS I have, and LXDE is working fine, while Cinnamon was incredibly slow.

[AlbertP]

Your browser blocking JS has nothing to do with Cinnamon's JS code. I run Cinnamon myself on an Athlon II X2 250, which is fine, so the faster 270 should be fine too. This is probably a bug in the NVIDIA 173 driver, which is not maintained too well.

Did you try running Cinnamon without the NVIDIA graphics driver? You could also boot the Mint DVD to try that.

[fletcher]

When I tried it without the drivers on the installed version, the screen looked like Gnome 2.0, but it seemed like not all the apps showed up in the menu. For instance, there was no poewr option in the menu.

Just tried booting into the live disk, and it seemed to open just fine, and I got what appeared to be the right screen. But when I opened anything- web browser, power options, logout, menu -it just showed up as a blue screen with nothing showing in it. I could click on things in the browser and windows, but I had no idea what I was clicking on.

AlbertP, you said that an Athlon II X2 250 was working fine on your machine. Maybe I should try that. I am getting a little annoyed at this not working right. LXDE is working fine, so I have it set as the default right now, but I prefer Cinnamon and want to go back.

[fletcher]

I had the stupid thing taken out. I don't really need dual monitors. And the guy at the computer shop said that the onboard one is better than the one I had stuck in there anyway.