Find the answer to your Linux question:
Page 1 of 2 1 2 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 13
Hi gang, I just installed an nVidia driver for my Dell laptop running the latest flavor of Ubuntu (Lazy Lynx, or whatever it's up to). After it rebooted, the screen ...
  1. 09-12-2010 #1
    photoman
    photoman is offline
    Just Joined!
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Southern California
    Posts
    47

    Angry [SOLVED] Installed nVidia driver...lost all video

    Hi gang,

    I just installed an nVidia driver for my Dell laptop running the latest flavor of Ubuntu (Lazy Lynx, or whatever it's up to). After it rebooted, the screen came up black. I have no video. How do I get rid of this driver and get my video back???

    Mike
  2. 09-12-2010 #2
    Dapper Dan
    Dapper Dan is offline
    Trusted Penguin Dapper Dan's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    The Sovereign State of South Carolina
    Posts
    4,562
    Hmmm, that's weird. If you have an Nvidia card, you should be good to go. But for now put the Live CD in and boot it, mount your root partition. If root partition is at say... /dev/sda3 you'd do from a terminal as sudo:
    Code:
     mkdir /mnt/sda3
mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/sda3
    Once mounted, edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf:
    Code:
    gedit /mnt/sda3/etc/X11/xorg.conf
    Find the line under "Device" where it says:
    Code:
    Driver         "nvidia"
    ...and change it to:
    Code:
    Driver         "nv"
    If it still fails, try:
    Code:
    Driver          "vesa"
    If it threw you any error messages, post them here please.
    Linux Mint + IceWM Registered:#371367 New Members: click here
  3. 09-12-2010 #3
    Segfault
    Segfault is offline
    Linux Engineer Segfault's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Acadiana
    Posts
    855
    Older cards may require older drivers Gentoo Linux nVidia Guide - Compatibility
    What card you have?
    How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
  4. 09-12-2010 #4
    devils casper
    devils casper is offline
    Super Moderator devils casper's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    Chandigarh, India
    Posts
    24,316
    Post the output of this
    Code:
    lspci | grep -i vga
    It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
    New Users: Read This First
  5. 09-12-2010 #5
    photoman
    photoman is offline
    Just Joined!
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Southern California
    Posts
    47
    Quote Originally Posted by devils casper View Post
    Post the output of this
    Code:
    lspci | grep -i vga
    The results of that command are:

    VGA Compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV17 [GeForce 440 Go] (rev a3)
  6. 09-12-2010 #6
    photoman
    photoman is offline
    Just Joined!
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Southern California
    Posts
    47

    No joy on this command line sequence

    Quote Originally Posted by Dapper Dan View Post
    Hmmm, that's weird. If you have an Nvidia card, you should be good to go. But for now put the Live CD in and boot it, mount your root partition. If root partition is at say... /dev/sda3 you'd do from a terminal as sudo:
    Code:
     mkdir /mnt/sda3
mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/sda3
    Once mounted, edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf:
    Code:
    gedit /mnt/sda3/etc/X11/xorg.conf
    Find the line under "Device" where it says:
    Code:
    Driver         "nvidia"
    ...and change it to:
    Code:
    Driver         "nv"
    If it still fails, try:
    Code:
    Driver          "vesa"
    If it threw you any error messages, post them here please.
    Hi Dapper,

    I booted with my older Ubuntu CD, opened a terminal window, and I had no problems with the mkdir /mnt/sda3 line but the second line, "mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/sda3 didn't work because the /dev directory doesn't have a folder called sda3. I didn't get any further than that.

    Do I need to create a directory in the /dev directory?

    Thanks.

    Mike
  7. 09-12-2010 #7
    elija
    elija is offline
    Trusted Penguin elija's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2004
    Location
    Either at home or at work or down the pub
    Posts
    2,303
    When you boot to the black screen, do you get a log in prompt when you press Ctrl + Alt + F1?

    If you do log in as yourself and run the commands

    cd /etc/X11
    sudo nano xorg.conf

    and try Dan's suggestions about the driver line in there.
    If we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate! (Zapp Brannigan)


    My new blog. It's probably not as good as I think it is.
  8. 09-12-2010 #8
    Dapper Dan
    Dapper Dan is offline
    Trusted Penguin Dapper Dan's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    The Sovereign State of South Carolina
    Posts
    4,562
    sda3 was as an example... sorry if that wasn't clear. You are going to mount where your root partition is. If you don't know, do:
    Code:
    fdisk -l
    That's with a small "L" not a "one."
    ...and see if it clues you in. I'm presuming the black screen you say you have means you have absolutely nothing, not even a command line prompt. After booting from hard drive, try Ctrl + Alt + F1 and see if you can get a command line prompt. Then you can edit xorg.conf without having to mount from a live CD.

    Edit: elija faster on the draw...
    Linux Mint + IceWM Registered:#371367 New Members: click here
  9. 09-13-2010 #9
    photoman
    photoman is offline
    Just Joined!
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Southern California
    Posts
    47
    Quote Originally Posted by elija View Post
    When you boot to the black screen, do you get a log in prompt when you press Ctrl + Alt + F1?

    If you do log in as yourself and run the commands

    cd /etc/X11
    sudo nano xorg.conf

    and try Dan's suggestions about the driver line in there.
    Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!!! I was able to get a command line with CTRL+ALT+F1 and changed the xorg.conf file driver to read "nv" and then did a >sudo shutdown -r now and it fired right up!!

    Thanks so much for all of your help...ALL OF YOU!! Slowly but surely I'm learning this stuff (I keep a notebook full of notes and these posts are now in it too!).

    Now, that leads me right into what caused this problem in the first place and perhaps you can shed some light on this because it's the whole reason I had to post the original question. I opened up the System>Preferences>Appearance menu and it gives me three options: None, Normal, and Extra. It defaults to None. It's when I selected "Normal" that it looked for the driver and I asked it to install the nVidia driver it said I needed. Well, now I have the thing working again but I still can't get anything other than "None". When I try to select "Normal", it says the system is unable to do it. Any ideas on that one?

    Thanks.

    Mike
  10. 09-13-2010 #10
    devils casper
    devils casper is offline
    Super Moderator devils casper's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    Chandigarh, India
    Posts
    24,316
    Check Hardware Drivers in Administration Menu of Ubuntu. If it lists Nvidia Graphics card and suggests driver installation, go for it.
    "nvidia" driver works better than Linux native "nv" driver. In any case, you can set driver "nv" any time.
    It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
    New Users: Read This First
Page 1 of 2 1 2 LastLast
« Previous Thread | Next Thread »

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  

Forum Rules

...