[SOLVED] Mint 19.1 long booting time after installing nvidia driver

[etharus]

This issue has been driving me nuts. I tried both Mate and Cinnamon. I am trying to dual boot Mint 19.1 with Windows 7. Installation went smoothly. However, the moment I reboot after selecting the nvidia driver from Driver Manager, the problem begins.

Problem
00:00 On computer boot up, selected Mint in grub.
00:32 A single beep is heard after 30 seconds of blank screen.
00:40 A low-res Mint loading logo appears.
03:32 Logo disappears but goes into a pattern of blank screen, black screen, blank screen with blinking cursor at top left.
14:00 I gave up after 14 minutes of waiting.

I did a hard reboot and the duration was shorter at a total time of 01:42 until I got on the desktop. But this is still way too long compared to the 10 seconds I can get into the Windows desktop.

Anomalies
- The Driver Manager won't load. I click on it and nothing happens. I can't even switch it back to nouveau!
- Cannot install any system updates. When I click Install Updates, it says "Could not install the security updates".
- The Quit functionality has Hibernate as one of the options. If I click on Restart or Shut Down, it logs me out instead. When I log back in and select Quit again, I do not see Hibernate anymore and Restart or Shut Down works as expected.

I tried using the nouveau driver for a while and all the anomalies did not occur. Boot time was fine. I was able to install all the system updates.

If you need me to do anything, just be aware I'm a Linux newbie.

Here's my information from

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz

System:
  Host: R2-D2 Kernel: 4.15.0-20-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc 
  v: 7.3.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 4.0.8 Distro: Linux Mint 19.1 Tessa 
  base: Ubuntu 18.04 bionic 
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: Gigabyte model: H97M-D3H v: x.x serial: <filter> 
  UEFI: American Megatrends v: F7 date: 08/03/2015 
CPU:
  Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i5-4460 bits: 64 type: MCP 
  arch: Haswell rev: 3 L2 cache: 6144 KiB 
  flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 25540 
  Speed: 898 MHz min/max: 800/3400 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 898 2: 898 
  3: 898 4: 898 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics 
  vendor: Gigabyte driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
  Device-2: NVIDIA GM204 [GeForce GTX 970] vendor: Micro-Star MSI 
  driver: nvidia v: 390.116 bus ID: 01:00.0 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.6 driver: modesetting,nvidia 
  unloaded: fbdev,nouveau,vesa resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: GeForce GTX 970/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 390.116 
  direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:03.0 
  Device-2: Intel 9 Series Family HD Audio vendor: Gigabyte 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 
  Device-3: NVIDIA GM204 High Definition Audio vendor: Micro-Star MSI 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.1 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.15.0-20-generic 
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
  vendor: Gigabyte driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: d000 bus ID: 03:00.0 
  IF: enp3s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 536.57 GiB used: 8.27 GiB (1.5%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Crucial model: CT256MX100SSD1 size: 238.47 GiB 
  ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Seagate model: ST3320620AS size: 298.09 GiB 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 39.12 GiB used: 8.25 GiB (21.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda4 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 29.8 C mobo: 27.8 C gpu: nvidia temp: 43 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A gpu: nvidia fan: 35% 
Info:
  Processes: 192 Uptime: 17m Memory: 7.65 GiB used: 1023.0 MiB (13.1%) 
  Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 7.3.0 Shell: bash v: 4.4.19 
  inxi: 3.0.27

[catweazel]

You might check your BIOS to see if there is any way to disable the onboard video, or to force the video to initialise the video sitting on the PCI bus first.

[etharus]

Thank you!! I disabled the onboard graphics in BIOS and Mint booted up normally. All the other anomalies seem to be gone as well!

This was so strange because I wouldn't imagine the graphics can affect the ability to install updates.

[catweazel]

Thank you!!

My pleasure.

[Valsodar]

Thank you!! I disabled the onboard graphics in BIOS and Mint booted up normally. All the other anomalies seem to be gone as well!

This was so strange because I wouldn't imagine the graphics can affect the ability to install updates.

Edit the title of your first post and add a "[SOLVED]" in front of it, so that if someone else finds this topic through Google search, they would know this topic might solve their problem as well. You have no idea how much the "[SOLVED]" thing helps when Googling for a problem.