Blank screen. Help!

[B3Nji]

Hi,

I have a Dell XPS gen 2 laptop. Wanted to have a play with linux. so i got the suse 9.2 dvd and installed it on a 10gb partition i have made. The installation went well with out a hitch. The problem is when it boots goes though the initilising hardware, detecting devices etc the screen goes blank ato what should be the login. All i can do is move the mouse, thats all i see. Have waited but i get no joy. I was wondering if it could be a graphics problem? Seeing as there is a few pixel artifacts on the black screen as you get when you overclock a graphics card and it cant take it.

Any sugestions?
Thanks for your help. I would love to compleatly swap to linux and get rid of windows FOREVER! Cheers.

[cayalee]

what graphics card is it?
what resolution did you choose in the setup?
are there any error messages at all on boot/during hardware detection?

[B3Nji]

My g card is a NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800 Ultra 256mb.
I didn’t choose the resolution; it kind of did it for me. Think it may be 1024x768?
I got no error messages when booting up.

[B3Nji]

Just thought i would bump this. Im really desparate to start playing with linux. it looks so dam cool!

[tp671]

If it were me I would throw the installation disc back in, reboot, and select the "repair installation option" and see if that helps. If not, I would wipe the drive clean and try the install again. I dont know what else you could do if your looking at a blank screen when it tries to boot. Here is a link with good information that helped me get started.

http://elibrary.fultus.com/technical..._en/cover.html

and yes, linux is very cool, you will be ready to drop win in no time.

[B3Nji]

you rule man.

I have already tried the reinstall to know avail.
But ill try wipeing it and doing it all again and use that guide when i get bak from work.

Hopefully be up and running tonight.
Cheers.

[rong]

When you are at the Boot menu type the number 3 which will boot you into Runlevel 3 which prevents the X window system from loading. This should put you in the text mode at the Command line. Login as root then type:

sax2

Sax2 will enable you to configure your graphics system. Before making any changes though be sure that you have all the relevant monitor and graphics card specifications. A common problem is the Monitor horiz and vertical sync rates. Be careful with these settings because if you set to them to rates that the monitor cannot handle you can damage your monitor.

If sax2 will not run try running

xf86config

which is the Text mode equivalent of sax2.

[drakebasher]

If you installed with no apparent errors or problems, a reinstall will not likely help. Sounds like the problem is in the configuration file for X windows. This is not an unusual or difficult problem to deal with. The file that needs to be looked at is /etc/X11/xorg.conf. At least that's correct for many distros. But how do you work with the system if you have no screen. I'd suggest booting to the command line until you have your graphics issues resovled. For that you need to change one number in one file. In this link I explain how to use the vi editor, so you can edit the file /etc/inittab. The line that needs to be changed is one near the top of the file and which looks like this:

init:5:initdefault:something else

The keyword is "initdefault" and when you change initdefault from 5 to 3, you will by default boot to the command line. Then you will have a working system so you can edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

If you boot to the dead graphics screen, you may be able to do ctrl-alt-backspace and get a command line, otherwise, you should use your install CD to boot into "rescue" mode.

[jesseakc]

I have the same problem. Although, after the screen when black during the install, I rebooted and linux poped up. Its works, just kinda off a little. However, now when I go to Video Card option in YaST, screen goes black again.

I think I have an ATI Radion7000. Its not that its a hudge problem, its just that I would like things to not only work, but work correctly. Any ideas on how to configure it to work?

Thanks again
Jesse

[drakebasher]

Any ideas on how to configure it to work?

That's a different matter. But a good start might be with searching these forums, because configuring X has been discussed alot. Search results for "Radeon" and "7000" are here . I saw one post that indicates the driver should be "radeon". First step is to access your file /etc/X11/xorg.conf and see what's there. The file is divided into "Sections" like "SectionDevice", SectionScreens", etc. The section headed "SectionDevice" will have the driver used for the video card. Getting that right seems to be the most common problem. I use a Radeon 7000 myself and I'd post my config if I were at home.... At least now you know where to start looking.