PDA

View Full Version : [ubuntu] 9.04 display problems and can't login



5circles
July 2nd, 2009, 07:09 PM
I'm trying to install 9.04 on a machine (Dell XPS500, 512Meg) that was previously running 7.10.

It completed the install OK, but when starting up showed the splash screen, attempted to set up the display, and then the screen went blank.

The symptoms seem similar to others I've seen on the forum, but I can't login to try the changes suggested. CTRL-ALT-F1 doesn't work after the screen has gone blank. Although it does seem that I can login from the GUI - I just can't see anything. I can ping the machine, but can't access via SSH.

When I try recovery and netroot, I can get to a prompt. It doesn't look like SSH is enabled, so it is a bit difficult to move things around.

I tried running dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg. This generated a new xorg.conf file that worked (sort of) when I ran startx, but the same blank screen occurred when I rebooted. Sort of means that the display is working, but the system seems stuck with errors about User Switcher quitting unexpectedly.

lshw -C video shows that the adapter is a 3DFX voodoo 3 (I can't seem to mount a flash drive to copy the file.

I'm unsure what to try next.

Thanks
Mike

RJARRRPCGP
July 2nd, 2009, 08:21 PM
lshw -C video shows that the adapter is a 3DFX voodoo 3

That's strange, because a Voodoo 3 isn't even compatible with anything higher than the first gen and second gen AGP!

The Voodoo 3 cannot support AGP 8X, because even the AGP slots before PCI-E came out, has a different voltage spec!

The first gen AGP is a 3.3V slot and the second gen AGP slots can also run at 3.3V

While the latest AGP spec is 1.5V or 0.8V! (That was before there was even PCI-E, thus, the Voodoo 3 was abandoned a long time ago!)

Unless you have a legacy PCI one. LOL.

That's an old school favorite video card, but I dunno if Linux can even support the Glide API and 3DFX went under about 8.5 years ago and it looks like Nvidia axed the Voodoo family about 8.5 years ago, thus, WILL NOT support PCI-E!

5circles
July 3rd, 2009, 10:25 PM
That's strange, because a Voodoo 3 isn't even compatible with anything higher than the first gen and second gen AGP!

The Voodoo 3 cannot support AGP 8X, because even the AGP slots before PCI-E came out, has a different voltage spec!

The first gen AGP is a 3.3V slot and the second gen AGP slots can also run at 3.3V

While the latest AGP spec is 1.5V or 0.8V! (That was before there was even PCI-E, thus, the Voodoo 3 was abandoned a long time ago!)

Unless you have a legacy PCI one. LOL.

That's an old school favorite video card, but I dunno if Linux can even support the Glide API and 3DFX went under about 8.5 years ago and it looks like Nvidia axed the Voodoo family about 8.5 years ago, thus, WILL NOT support PCI-E!

Well, I checked out the card by opening the box, and by checking against an online identification database.

It is AGP, and it is 3DFX Voodoo3. It appears to be an OEM card for Dell.

Next, I tried installing Ubuntu 8.10 - partly because there is an upgrade path to 9.04. 8.10 installed in graphical mode with no problems, and then operated fine after restart.

I backed up everything on to another drive with sbackup, then tried to upgrade to 9.04. (I should have saved the 8.10 install on a separate partition, but that's another story).

The update manager didn't see an online upgrade, but I was able to perform the upgrade from the CD. However, after a restart I'm still back at the same place - blank screen after the boot sequence.

Then I started with the netroot terminal. The upgrade had preserved the old xconf.org, so I thought everything would be fine. But no such luck - copying it over didn't help.

I'm about to see if I can find another graphics card that will work, but that's a cop-out. Why are Ubuntu upgrades always harder than they should be?

Mike

5circles
July 5th, 2009, 05:01 AM
Cop out or not, changing displays worked. I moved to an even older Matrox Millenium, and it worked!

It is still frustrating that a graphics card that worked fine in a previous version wasn't automatically detected.

Mike