Nvidia driver problem

[Kian]

Hello all. First time using pclinuxos, and everything seemed to be running great when i was running the LiveCD. Now i am a Newbie to linux, just to clear that up. Now to the problem. After i installed PCLinuxOS on to my laptop it say i need to restart of course, when at the first boot i have to make a user account and password at this moment on the top of my screen i get these weird RED blocks that are flashing and over time it will expand, then after the account is created it brings me to the log in screen. Once at this screen i cannot tough anything on my laptop, if i touch any key, or the touch-pad the screen starts to freak out. It looks like the matrix screen savers but it flashes with lines and then letters all in a pattern. I personally think it is a video driver problem, but i don't know. My laptop has a Nvida GeForce G105M graphics card.
Right now i am using the LiveCD to post this.

My 500GB drive is partitioned as following.
Fat32 - 243GB
under ext4 I have the following.
/ - 7.8GB
/usr - 8GB
/var - 7GB
/home - 191GB
swap - 8GB
I dont know if what i did was wrong or not.
 
Thank you
Kian

[timeth]

Hey Kian,

What's your screen resolution?

I had a similar problem with strange colours appearing all over the screen and couldn't even get to the login screen. It looked like it was heat affected and I thought the screen was dead, but it wasn't. I wonder if it's the same problem. My problem was that the vga mode was wrong in grub. Try this and see if it works.

1. Boot the computer and when it reaches the grub screen, hit F3 and then esc.
2. Move up or down with the arrows to select which OS you want to boot (when you move with the arrows, the boot options appear across the bottom)
3. In the boot options across the bottom, change the vga=xxx   to   vga=788
4. Boot into PCLinuxOS.

If it works, you then need to edit your boot menu.lst which can be done by going into PCLinuxOS Control Center and selecting boot, and then setup boot system.
At the first screen click on next, then select your PCLinuxOS install and click modify. Then click on advanced and choose 800x600 in the video mode. Then OK out of everything and then try re-booting to see if it works.

Good luck!



 

[Kian]

Hello timeth,
  Well when i tried that it was already set to 788, so i put it at xxx, and got an error. When i restarted it after the error, it was set back to vga=788.

#  Max Resolution  1366 x 768 ( WXGA ) 

[timeth]

Forgot to say WELCOME to the forum!!    

Ok. Yes, it might be the video drivers. Have you done a search of the forum for these problems? Search nvidia on the main forum page, there are a lot of posts. There are some nvidia experts around here somewhere. You might need to wait until one of them turns up here to help out.

Let's do this. Boot into your liveCD and in a terminal, type

Code: [Select]

cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf | grep Driver
and post result here.

Also, it might be a good idea to change the title of this thread to something like 'Nvidia driver problem'.

[Kian]

Thank you for the welcome. Ill do the search on the forum now.

Code: [Select]

[guest@localhost ~]$ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf | grep Driver
    Driver "nvidia"
    Driver "intel"
[guest@localhost ~]$

[timeth]

Another thing that might help us is if you copy the contents of your    /etc/X11/xorg.conf    file here. I've seen a few posts around the net having problems with this particular screen resolution, 1366 x 768.  You may need to modify your   xorg.conf   file but let's have a look at it here first. 

[Kian]

Code: [Select]

Section "ServerFlags"
    Option "DontZap" "False" # disable <Ctrl><Alt><BS> (server abort)
    #DontZoom # disable <Ctrl><Alt><KP_+>/<KP_-> (resolution switching)
    AllowMouseOpenFail # allows the server to start up even if the mouse does not work
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Disable "dri"
    Load "dbe" # Double-Buffering Extension
    Load "v4l" # Video for Linux
    Load "extmod"
    Load "glx" # 3D layer
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "monitor1"
    VendorName "Generic"
    ModelName "Flat Panel 1024x768"
    HorizSync 31.5-48.0
    VertRefresh 56.0-65.0
   
    # TV fullscreen mode or DVD fullscreen output.
    # 768x576 @ 79 Hz, 50 kHz hsync
    ModeLine "768x576"     50.00  768  832  846 1000   576  590  595  630
   
    # 768x576 @ 100 Hz, 61.6 kHz hsync
    ModeLine "768x576"     63.07  768  800  960 1024   576  578  590  616
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "monitor2"
   
    # TV fullscreen mode or DVD fullscreen output.
    # 768x576 @ 79 Hz, 50 kHz hsync
    ModeLine "768x576"     50.00  768  832  846 1000   576  590  595  630
   
    # 768x576 @ 100 Hz, 61.6 kHz hsync
    ModeLine "768x576"     63.07  768  800  960 1024   576  578  590  616
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier "device1"
    VendorName "nVidia Corporation"
    BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce 6100 and later"
    Driver "nvidia"
    Screen 0
    BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
    Option "DPMS"
    Option "DynamicTwinView" "false"
    Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier "device2"
    VendorName "Intel Corporation"
    BoardName "Intel 810 and later"
    Driver "intel"
    Screen 0
    BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
    Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "screen1"
    Device "device1"
    Monitor "monitor1"
    DefaultColorDepth 24
   
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth 8
        Modes "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"
    EndSubsection
   
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth 15
        Modes "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"
    EndSubsection
   
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth 16
        Modes "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"
    EndSubsection
   
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth 24
        Modes "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"
    EndSubsection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "screen2"
    Device "device2"
    Monitor "monitor2"
    DefaultColorDepth 24
   
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth 8
        Modes "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"
    EndSubsection
   
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth 15
        Modes "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"
    EndSubsection
   
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth 16
        Modes "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"
    EndSubsection
   
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth 24
        Modes "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"
    EndSubsection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier "layout1"
    Screen "screen1"
    Screen "screen2" RightOf "screen1"
    #Option "Xinerama"
EndSection
Thank you for your help by the way.

[venks]

Hi Kian,
there seems to be something different about your config.  If you are running PCLOS on a laptop then the laptop should have only one graphics card, which is nvidia as you have mentioned.

I noticed in your xorg.conf there are two device section, the second one being an intel graphics.  AFAIK there aren't any laptop with 2 graphics chip - my knowledge of these things might be limited though.

If you actually have only one graphics card, try to run the Graphics Setup wizard from PCC-->Hardware.  It should detect the correct hardware and setup the corresponding driver.

[everge48]

Hey Kian,
Welcome to the forum. Have you been able to boot up your install of PCLinuxOS?
If not give this a try..
At the Boot Screen choose "Failsafe" from the Menu and press <Enter>.
That will boot you to a black console screen. It will read like this at the top:

Give root password for maintenance
(or type Control-D to continue):

Type your root password and press <Enter> (the screen won't show anything when you type your password, that's normal).

Then type:
nvidia-xconfig  <Enter>

That's all. You're done. Time to reboot so type:
reboot  <Enter>

You should now be able to start enjoying PCLinuxOS.

[menotu]

AFAIK there aren't any laptop with 2 graphics chip - my knowledge of these things might be limited though.

I believe some laptops now have a discrete chip/card which allows the system to "switch" for better performance and back for power saving capabilities