[SOLVED]Nvidia RTX 3050Ti Driver Problems on Mint 20.2

[tjdia1]

Hello,

Please forgive my lack of experience with the inner-workings of linux, I've always had it installed on my laptops for years but this is the first time I've had actual issues with drivers that I just can't seem to resolve.

I got a Lenovo Legion 5
AMD Ryzen 7 5800H Processor
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050Ti

Installed Mint 20.2 Cinnamon, installation goes fine and on boot it tells me to switch to proprietary drivers, recommending 470. Using either driver 470 or 460 results in a black screen, like a terminal that's hung. Crtl+Alt+F1 brings me to a terminal where I can login fine, but doing startx just plays the startup sound and hangs the entire system.
I did try reinstalling Mint and instead using the 470 driver installer from Nvidia's site with the same results. I've searched through many topics here and elsewhere but they usually pertain to other cards and it's really hard to pinpoint the exact solution.

EDIT:
I feel really stupid, but live and learn I guess. The solution was a reinstall, let updates apply, select the latest Kernal from the update manager, reboot and then select proprietary drivers. It seems the 470 drivers don't like the older Kernal Mint ships with. Topic may be closed.

[kevso]

Hi tjdia1,
Thanks so much for your edit! I just ran into the exact same thing. I thought I was doing it the "right way" since I followed the order of things in the welcome screen: first Time Shift, then Driver Manager, which recommends a restart, then...black screen on boot.