HOWTO: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 PCI over Intel 845 onboard graphics

[mstralka]

Wow, I finally got my NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 PCI to work properly. My PC has onboard Intel 845GV graphics so whenever I tried to switch to the NVIDIA, my computer would freeze on bootup at the hotplug section. Even though I disabled the onboard graphics in the BIOS, agpgart would still try to load the onboard graphics instead of my NVIDIA. After beating my head against the wall for 2 days, here's what I did to finally make it work. Please note this may not work for everyone.

Here's my system:
Ubuntu 5.04
Kernel: 2.6.10-5-686
Compaq SR1210NX
512 mb Ram
Intel Celeron D 330 - 2.66 GHZ, 256kb L2 Cache, 533 Mhz FSB
80 GB Hard drive
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...name=c00063244


PREWORK: Configure Linux to boot into text mode by default - not X. I'm not sure of an easy way to do this with Ubuntu (because I used Webmin), but you basically don't want X to but up in runlevel 2, in case something goes wrong, you'll at least get to a login prompt easily.
You can try using update-rc.d to reconfigure gdm to boot only in 3, 4, and 5 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=20583

1. Figure out what PCI port your NVIDIA card is on (Mine is PCI:1:9:0)

lspci -X

Here's mine (yours will look different)

mstralka@ubuntu:~ $ lspci -X
PCI:0:0:0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE/PE DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface
PCI:0:2:0 Display controller: Intel Corp. 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device
PCI:0:29:0 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1
PCI:0:29:1 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2
PCI:0:29:2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3
PCI:0:29:7 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB 2.0 EHCI Controller
PCI:0:30:0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801 PCI Bridge
PCI:0:31:0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBL (ICH4/ICH4-L) LPC Bridge
PCI:0:31:1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBL (ICH4/ICH4-L) UltraATA-100 IDE Controller
PCI:0:31:3 SMBus: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) SMBus Controller
PCI:0:31:5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller
PCI:1:9:0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5500]
PCI:1:12:0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+

Your card may show up as an "unknown device" if it is not in /var/lib/misc/pci.ids. You can look yours up at the official source: http://pciids.sourceforge.net/iii/?i=10de, then add it to /var/lib/misc/pci.ids in the appropriate place, or download pci.ids from that website and replace /var/lib/misc/pci.ids


2. Follow the Ubuntu 5.04 Starter Guide instructions to install the NVIDIA drivers http://ubuntuguide.org/#installnvidiadriver - here's the important part

sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx
sudo apt-get install nvidia-settings
sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf_backup
sudo nvidia-glx-config enable

3. Add nvidia to /etc/modules so it will load at startup

sudo gedit /etc/modules

Add to the end

nvidia

4. Add agpgart and intel_agp to the hotplug blacklist so they won't load at startup

sudo gedit /etc/hotplug/blacklist

Add the following to the end:

agpgart
intel_agp

5. Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf (after backing it up)
-In Section "Modules", be sure to comment out GLCore and DRI, but make sure glx is enabled.
-Modify the Section "Device" appropriately for your system. Mine looks like this:

Section "Device"
        Identifier "NVIDIA Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5500]"
        Driver "nvidia"
        BusID "PCI:1:9:0"
        Option "NvAGP" "1"
        Option  "RenderAccel" "true"
	Option "NoLogo" #This is optional - it will hide the NVIDIA splash screen
        #0 : Disable AGP
        #1 : use NVIDIA's internal AGP support, if possible
        #2 : use AGPGART if possible
        #3 : use any agp support (try AGPGART, then NVIDIA's AGP)
EndSection

6. Reboot and enter the BIOS Settings. Disable the onboard video
7. Unplug your monitor from your onboard video card and plug it into the NVIDIA card
8. If it hangs at hotplug, do a hard-reboot, and when it gets to hotplug again, press CTRL-C and adjust settings.
9. Try to start X

sudo gdm

10. If that doesn't work you may have to reconfigure X

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg