nvidia-96: plymouth issue on Mint 9

[antikythera]

I run the proprietary nvidia-96 driver on my hp compaq nx9105 notebook. the native screen resolution is 1280x800. In NVIDIA X Server settings I have the resolution and refresh rate set to auto. The desktop and 3D acceleration work fine. However, during boot, instead of the Mint logo I get just the series of dots from underneath the logo which scroll across green and white.

However, if I install startupmanager and try to restore the full mint logo to the boot process by altering the screen resolution and colour depth of Plymouth it cripples the system after displaying the logo correctly. X Server fails to start and goes into a screen blanking loop while it tries to switch resolutions. I have tried a fixed screen size and refresh rate in xconfig too. It makes no difference.

Seems to be an issue in the nvidia-96 driver which prevents mode changes from Plymouth to X Server and full desktop resolution.

I have tried 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768 at both 16 and 24 bit respectively. Is there something I am missing here or an alteration I can make to the xconfig file or grub boot command? I have a working backup of the system and am willing to try any suggestions with knowledgeable explanations as to why they might work.

VGA compatible controller : nVidia Corporation NV17 [GeForce4 420 Go 32M] (rev a3)

Current Xconfig:

Code: Select all

# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings:  version 1.0  (buildd@palmer)  Fri Apr  9 10:35:18 UTC 2010

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    Option         "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    # HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "CMO Color LCD"
    HorizSync       48.0 - 50.0
    VertRefresh     59.0 - 61.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce4 420 Go 32M"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "TwinView" "0"
    Option         "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Edit: changed title to better reflect fact it isn't specific to LXDE

[antikythera]

I posted this under the hardware section. It got moved by someone to the LXDE section where it now sits unanswered. I was hoping to get an answer from someone in the hardware section who is knowledgeable with nvidia driver issues since it is not specific to LXDE. The same behaviour can be recreated when using GNOME or KDE as the GUI. Maybe I should have stated this from the outset. Hindsight is wonderful.

So could someone from the moderating team please move it back where it came from in the nvidia graphics issues subsection to the hardware section. Thanks.

[xenopeek]

Moved here by moderator, as per OP's request