10.04 LTS RC: Blank Screen at startup

[IcyPhoenix]

Hey, all. I've been using Ubuntu off and on since 6.10, but I am definitely a noob when it comes to troubleshooting this kind of stuff. All of my previous installs went flawlessly, so I guess I've been lucky so far. I finally decided that I would bite the bullet, and remove Windows altogether. No more dual-boot with XP or 7 for me.

I've been attempting to install the 10.04 RC all weekend, and it's been pretty frustrating. I decided I would start with my aging laptop, a HP Pavilion ze8500 that I custom-ordered way back in 2003. A few specs I know off the top of my head:

P4 (2.30 GHz)
512MB RAM
40GB SATA HDD

I burned the ISO to CD-R and started the install. When I boot from the CD, I get a purple screen which is blank other than two symbols at the very bottom. IIRC, one looked like a ruler or something, and the other looked sort of like a star in a circle? I think they were separated by an equal sign.

I have no idea what that meant, but I knew enough to hit F6 and that got the install menu to appear onscreen. The only way I could get through the installer without losing video was to use 'nomodeset'

I installed over top of Windows 7 RC with the default partition table settings and after the install finished, I got the dialog box telling me that a restart is necessary. I hit Continue, the CD tray ejected, and my laptop restarted.

So, assuming that the installation was a success, I see the BIOS screen, and then that goes blank, and where I would expect to see a boot screen or a Grub dialog, I see nothing at all.

After the first install attempt, I would hear a drum sound after the screen went blank.

I tried hitting 'Esc', along with 'Ctrl+Alt+F1', 'Ctrl + Alt + F2' or whatever else I could think of, and nothing seems to work.

I updated my BIOS, remembering that I forgot to do that, and then I reinstalled Ubuntu. Again, no display when Ubuntu boots. And now, I hear no drum sound at all.

I am certain I was using an ATI video driver with Windows, but other than that, I don't know any specs on the display off the top of my head.

Am I doing something wrong, or does anyone have any suggestions? I'd really love to get this working so I can finally ditch Windows for good on my other two computers.

[arterio]

I'm having the same problem.

My desktop, I just installed 10.04 RC x64 on it. I was using a USB stick to install from. I downloaded the 10.04 RC and put it on the USB stick with UNetBootin, rebooted and told the system to boot from the USB stick. It started to boot, and ended up in a blank screen.

I thought maybe it was an issue with the image so I decided to download 9.10 x64 and then upgrade to 10.04 RC x64. I installed 9.10 x64, and everything went perfect. Booted in for the first time and beyond not having the resolution set properly it seemed to be working fine. I started the upgrade process and once completed I rebooted the system. I get a black screen and just as the OP mentioned I can hear the welcome jingle, but the screen stays black and goes into power saving mode. Like there is no signal coming from it.

System specs:

Intel Q9450 @ 2.66Ghz
Asus Rampage Extreme
4GB G-Skill DDR3 2000
ATI Radeon 5870
Creative X-Fi

Any help would be appreciated. I'm interested in switching to Ubuntu as my primary OS, but if this can't be resolved then I will have to stay with Windows 7.

[Terry32]

Same issue here no video after the ubuntu logo and dots, system below:

Ubuntu 10.04 RC 32-Bit
Intel i7 920
6GB Ram
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 Motherboard
ATI HD 5970 2GB

It made it to the desktop because I was able to click the menu and see the disk access because it was in LIVE mode and I shut it down blind using keystrokes.

It sucked when I booted back into windows, both my ethernet ports were dead, no power it seemed, reboots didn't help, had to shut down and and unplug my power supply for a minute and boot back up.

[arterio]

From searching around it seems it is a problem with ATI cards.

However, that being said, I am writing this on a laptop with an ATI Xpress200M graphics chip in it and the 10.04 32-bit RC install went flawlessly.

Maybe something for the dev's to look into before the release in a few days. Newer ATI cards seem to be having problems after fresh install and after upgrades to 10.04.

[Terry32]

I finally figured it out, I switched the connector on the video card that my monitor was attached to, since getting the card I have had my monitor attached to the DVI connector farthest from the motherboard or better yet the one next to the screw on the bracket. I moved it to the other DVI connector booted up like that and I get video and no blank screen anymore.

I always wondered which one was the primary port because my card was not marked, I have a Sapphire HD 5970.

Good Luck!!!!!!

[arterio]

I tried switching connectors. Plugged into first DVI port and rebooted, no luck. Second DVI port, rebooted, no luck. HDMI port (using HDMI to DVI cable), rebooted no luck. DisplayPort (using DP to HDMI adapter), rebooted and no luck.

I have re-installed Windows 7 and will stick with that till a newer version comes out.

[Rasa1111]

I get a black screen and just as the OP mentioned I can hear the welcome jingle, but the screen stays black and goes into power saving mode. Like there is no signal coming from it.

same thing here, and thats not even installing it,
just trying to run from liveCD.

i dont get it....

good thing im happy with karmic! lol

[tgrigsby]

I gave up trying to install 10.4 on my Inspiron 8100. As I write this, I'm installing 9.10. When installing 10, I would get the same screen you say (I think the star is a little person in a circle, but I didn't recognize the other symbol). I would press the arrow keys to get a language menu, escape to go back, select "Install Ubuntu", and then watch the screen go blank. And not just blank; it would go white and then fade out toward the edges. Not a cool fade, more like a graphics-chip-freaked-out fade. And that was the last thing I saw. I could tell from messing with keys and watching the disk light that things were still happening in the background, but nothing more.

Okay, so now I'm finishing up the 9.10 install, and it looks fine. I know that if I go into the upgrade manager it will upgrade me to 10, and that worked fine before (this is a reinstall with a new SSD HD).

If Ubuntu is slacking on older hardware support, that would be a Bad Thing. I rely on the various flavors of Linux to power hardware that Microsoft has forgotten, and to do it better than Windows ever could. I figure I'm not alone in this.

Okay, the install finished, I'm rebooted, and Ubuntu is waiting for me to come and play. Good luck with your machine!

[Paul41]

I gave up trying to install 10.4 on my Inspiron 8100. As I write this, I'm installing 9.10. When installing 10, I would get the same screen you say (I think the star is a little person in a circle, but I didn't recognize the other symbol). I would press the arrow keys to get a language menu, escape to go back, select "Install Ubuntu", and then watch the screen go blank. And not just blank; it would go white and then fade out toward the edges. Not a cool fade, more like a graphics-chip-freaked-out fade. And that was the last thing I saw. I could tell from messing with keys and watching the disk light that things were still happening in the background, but nothing more.

Okay, so now I'm finishing up the 9.10 install, and it looks fine. I know that if I go into the upgrade manager it will upgrade me to 10, and that worked fine before (this is a reinstall with a new SSD HD).

If Ubuntu is slacking on older hardware support, that would be a Bad Thing. I rely on the various flavors of Linux to power hardware that Microsoft has forgotten, and to do it better than Windows ever could. I figure I'm not alone in this.

Okay, the install finished, I'm rebooted, and Ubuntu is waiting for me to come and play. Good luck with your machine!

I gave up trying also but it isn't just a Ubuntu problem. I tried fedora 13 and it has the same problem. Maybe it's something with the new kernel? I ended up installing Debian.