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[SOLVED] Nvidia Issues - see post 5

Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2013 10:59 am
by bobble
I'm having problems getting Mint 13 Mate and my Nvidia Geforce 6200 PCI card to play nicely.

After following the directions in this post: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=122257
I was able to get Mint 13 Mate installed and booted up using the "nomode xforcevesa" line added by editing at boot time. When I re-boot after installing or trying to install the Nvidia drivers, it seems that xorg.conf causes the boot to stop and I again have to add the "nomode xforcevesa" line to get into Mint 13 Mate.

My system is a Dell Dimenstion 2350 with:
-Integrated Intel ethernet and video chip (in the BIOS the ethernet is turned off to use a PCI ethernet card; the video is set to "Auto" [no option for "Off"] )
Here are the results of LSPCI

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$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE/PE DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface (rev 03)
00:02.0 Display controller: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 82)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL (ICH4/ICH4-L) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DB (ICH4) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)
01:04.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation NV44A [GeForce 6200] (rev a1)
01:06.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8169 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 10)
Results of INX query

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 $ inxi -Fc 0
System:    Host: gracie-2 Kernel: 3.2.0-23-generic i686 (32 bit) Desktop: N/A Distro: Linux Mint 13 Maya
Machine:   System: Dell product: Dimension 2350 version: A02
           Mobo: Dell model: N/A Bios: Mitac version: A02 date: 03/24/2003
CPU:       Single core Intel Pentium 4 CPU (-UP-) cache: 512 KB flags: (sse sse2) clocked at 1794.117 MHz 
Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA NV44A [GeForce 6200] X.Org: 1.11.3 driver: vesa Resolution: 1280x1024@0.0hz 
           GLX Renderer: N/A GLX Version: N/A
Audio:     Card: Intel 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller driver: snd_intel8x0
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: 1.0.24
Network:   Card: Realtek RTL-8169 Gigabit Ethernet driver: r8169 
           IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: 00:##:##:##:##:##
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 160.0GB (3.7% used) 1: /dev/sda WDC_WD800BB 80.0GB 
           2: /dev/sdb Maxtor_98196H8 80.0GB 
Partition: ID: / size: 14G used: 4.4G (34%) fs: ext4 ID: /boot size: 447M used: 26M (7%) fs: ext2 
           ID: /home size: 59G used: 1.1G (2%) fs: ext4 ID: swap-1 size: 2.05GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap 
Sensors:   Error: You do not have the sensors app installed.
Info:      Processes: 126 Uptime: 5 min Memory: 278.5/2012.5MB Client: Shell inxi: 1.7.33
Results for INXI Query before trying to install Nvidia driver

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$ inxi -SGx  
System:    Host: gracie-2 Kernel: 3.2.0-23-generic i686 (32 bit, gcc: 4.6.3) Desktop: N/A Distro: Linux Mint 13 Maya
Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA NV44A [GeForce 6200] bus-ID: 01:04.0 X.Org: 1.11.3 driver: vesa Resolution: 1280x1024@0.0hz 
           GLX Renderer: N/A GLX Version: N/A Direct Rendering: N/A
 
Results for INXI Query after installing the Nvidia driver from the Additional Drivers selection (version current-updates) and restarting

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$ inxi -SGx
System:    Host: gracie-2 Kernel: 3.2.0-23-generic i686 (32 bit, gcc: 4.6.3) Desktop: N/A Distro: Linux Mint 13 Maya
Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA NV44A [GeForce 6200] bus-ID: 01:04.0 
           X.Org: 1.11.3 drivers: vesa,nouveau (unloaded: fbdev) FAILED: nvidia Resolution: 1280x1024@0.0hz 
           GLX Renderer: N/A GLX Version: N/A Direct Rendering: N/A
After downloading the driver I'm told I need to restart the computer to activate the driver, but a restart results in having to enter the "nomode xforecevesa" line from the grub menu to get X to run.

What am I missing?

Thanks

Re: Nvidia Issues

Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2013 12:23 pm
by Flemur
I recently hassled with nvidia drivers, and here's what I'd do:

- Boot to "SINGLE" mode (command line only) as root.
- # apt-get update
- # apt-get install nvidia-current (might DL about 50 Meg)
- # apt-get install jockey-gtk (to get "jockey-text"; I was unable to use it without re-installing...version?)
- # jockey-text --list
- # jockey-text --enable=DRIVER (pick DRIVER from the list from the above cmd - the name might be a bit weird).
- # nvidia-xconfig
- # reboot

Re: Nvidia Issues

Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2013 3:35 pm
by bobble
Flemur,
Thanks for the suggestions.

To get to "Single" mode I had to select the "Recovery" option from the grub menu.
Then I had to select something about enable networks from the next menu, then I was able to select the Root option which gave me a terminal screen.
Before I did the above, however, I uninstalled all of the Nvidia drivers and utils that had been loaded.
Then I followed your steps as listed above.

I didn't see any errors go by and the only warning was the usual one about UTF-8.

Re-booted and the system still wouldn't go into a displayed X-window until I re-booted again and selected the "e" (edit mode) in the grub menu and once again inserted "nomodeset xforcesvesa" at the appropriate palce.

When Mint came up it told me there were "Additional Drivers" I could install. Which is what I've already gone through with no change to the ability to boot without having to manually add the "nomodeset xforcevesa" by editing grub.

Unfortunately, the edit is not persistent and has to be done each time I reboot. I think this ends up with me using the Nouveau driver, but even so, I still can't get back in after a re-boot without using "nomodeset xforcevesa" when booting.

UPDATE: I found a post at: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 57#p675357
that helped me get rid of the "Nvidia Black Screen of Death" by adding the "nomodeset" to a line in the /etc/default/grub file and then running "sudo update-grub".

Now if I could only figure out why I can't get any of the Nvidia drivers installed so they work.

Here's part of my dmesg file that shows something isn't working out right when trying to load the nvidia module.

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[   20.317322] nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
[   20.317331] Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint
[   21.202034] nvidia 0000:01:04.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
[   21.202047] NVRM: This PCI I/O region assigned to your NVIDIA device is invalid:
[   21.202050] NVRM: BAR1 is 0M @ 0x0 (PCI:0000:01:04.0)
[   21.202055] NVRM: The system BIOS may have misconfigured your GPU.
[   21.202070] nvidia: probe of 0000:01:04.0 failed with error -1
[   21.204209] NVRM: The NVIDIA probe routine failed for 1 device(s).
[   21.204216] NVRM: None of the NVIDIA graphics adapters were initialized!
[   21.424943] vesafb: mode is 1280x1024x32, linelength=5120, pages=0 

Re: Nvidia Issues

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 6:01 pm
by bobble
OK, I give up.
I've been trying to resolve this issue since before Christmas and can't seem to find anything that works for my particular system. I've searched Ubuntu forums, Nvidia forums, and other Linux forums trying to find something that works, but nothing I try seems to solve the problem. I did try PC-BSD 9.1 for a while and it doesn't seem to have a problem loading and using the 304.64 version of the Nvidia drivers. In PC-BSD I was able to run nvidia-xconfig and nvidia settings and everything worked OK.

But, I found PC-BSD kind of clunky to work with and there was an issue with getting it to run VueScan, which is the only Linux application that supports my Microtek i800 scanner.

So, for now I've loaded up Linux Mint 14 Maya and just using it in the default (Nouveau) mode. I think I must have wore out my Mint 13 DVD I installed Mint 13 so many times over the last month. :lol: :lol:

Maybe a new version sometime in the future will resolve the issues I've had.

Re: Nvidia Issues [SOLVED]

Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2013 5:42 pm
by bobble
bobble wrote:OK, I give up.
(snipped a whole bunch of stuff you can read above.
Maybe a new version sometime in the future will resolve the issues I've had.
Thought it was time to re-visit this issue today. I finally, I think found the solution. I was trying to use too much RAM in my old Dimension 2350.

The Dell spec says 1GB RAM Max, but I'd been running 2GB (two 1GB sticks) in Windows XP with no problems and I did get the Nvidia driver to work in PC-BSD. Today, I opened up the box and took out the two 1GB sticks and replaced them with my old Dell 512MB and 256MB modules. Than ran the install for the Nvidia experimental (304.48) drivers through Synaptic. It worked with no issues.

I than removed the 512 and 256 modules and used a 1GB module. Still worked. Then went to 1GB plus 512 and it continued to work. Tried both the 1GB modules again and got a low resolution screen and couldn't run Nvidia-configure. Went back to 1GB plus 512 and that's the way I'm running now.

Earlier I had thought there was something strange about the memory conflicts that showed up in the Xorg and dmesg logs, but couldn't figure it out. Today I did some digging and found that older BIOS often can't handle more than 1.5GB (or maybe it is 1.256 GB). Some operating systems have a built in work-around to resolve the issue. Others don't. Apparently, Ubuntu/Debian-based OS don't have the workaround.

Now that I've got the Nvidia drivers working, I'm not too impressed as glxgears appears to run about 25 times slower than under Nouveau, but real-time, I no longer have jerky scrolling and YouTube videos run a whole lot smoother now.