10.04 Install + Nvidia = hard hang

[TheTampaSaint]

Hi all,

I have been running 9.04 on my supermicro X7DVL-E. My setup includes a3Ware 9550SX raid card, 12 gig ram, some old soundblaster card, and Nvidia GeForce 6200. It works perfectly.

I can't install 10.04 (clean install not an upgrade) or even boot the installation CD. I have narrowed this down to the nvidia card and replaced it with a 9400 GT - same results.

If I pop the card and use the onboard video, it boots normally.

I tried booting with kernel mods nomodeset and/or nouveau.blacklist=true, same results.

Everything starts normally, a bunch of kernel messages flash by. The last thing I see is something about the USB drives.

Then it hard hangs with a black screen and a cheap blinking underline cursor, all disk activity stops, and I have to power cycle.

I have googled and googled but not seen any helpful clues.

Hope someone has an idea!

[byStanderone]

...if my thoughts are not all mixed-up (lol), i think you'd have to disable raid.

[TheTampaSaint]

Thanks, no I don't think thats related in any way. We have about 10 of these servers and they all run the same raid card no problems on 10.04. And as I said, if I pop the nvidia out its fine.

Its definitely nvidia thats causing the problem.

[Dopski]

Sorry...I can't help you. My situation is very similar to you...that is 10.04 + Nvidia and it just hang with no activity at all.

[ptn107]

Why not let it use the nouveau driver at least until you get Ubuntu installed.

[dino99]

Hope someone has an idea![/QUOTE]

boot without "quiet splash" to know where/when it hang

[TheTampaSaint]

Just to be clear it doesn't boot the CD in any way, using the stock ubuntu kernel and drivers. I also tried the alternate cd which yields an install, but the booted disk hangs in the same place.

Previous tries without quiet and splash show a normal boot and it seems to hang after some usb stuff, but it flashes by so fast I couldn't say for sure.

[TheTampaSaint]

Why not let it use the nouveau driver at least until you get Ubuntu installed.

Isn't that what happens by default?

[byStanderone]

...hit the pause/break key, hope you catch that note on the screen for some hint on the problem.

[ptn107]

Can you get it to a command line in any way?

[TheTampaSaint]

Can you get it to a command line in any way?

It appears to hard hang, all disk activity stops, and I haven't figured any way to get to a command line. The kernel messages that flash by are all normal boot messages and unrelated to nvidia.

When I boot my old installation on another partition, there are no log messages written to the 10.04 disk either.

I've spent about a month on and off pulling cards one by one and tried multiple nvidia cards and not made any progress. In desperation I have ordered an ATI workstation graphics card that I'll get next week to see if I can get past this issue.

[ptn107]

You may just want to consider installing 9.10 and upgrading. Either that or wait until 10.04.1. It will have an updated installer. Personally I have never ever had a problem with the upgrade process.

[TheTampaSaint]

You may just want to consider installing 9.10 and upgrading. Either that or wait until 10.04.1. It will have an updated installer. Personally I have never ever had a problem with the upgrade process.

Thanks, interesting idea. The 9.10 cdrom won't even boot. It brings up a menu, but amazingly hangs even if you do a media check. 9.04, as I said, works perfectly and this is my main workstation I use all day.

I have about 10 other servers running 9.04 fine all on the same server chassis and one running 10.04 server edition, and the only difference is the nvidia card. The rest use onboard video.

Back when 9.10 came out I tried upgrading to it. That did work fine, and the system booted, but it broke the audio and I didn't feel like troubleshooting it, so I restored a backup image and have been using 9.04 since.

[TheTampaSaint]

Well that beats all. The ATI card arrived. (Finding a quality dual DVI card when you only have PCI ain't easy.)

It crashes in exactly the same spot.

To summarize 9.04 + any video card = good.
10.04 + any video card = bad, but pop the card and the onboard video is just fine.

I tried a maverick beta cd and that crashes too.

This isn't some old junk pc, its a dual processor qual core clovertown.

[TheTampaSaint]

Solved I will update the thread title.

This board has a bios setting to disable the onboard vga. It is not needed with 9.04 and the setting doesn't matter in any case with Centos or Ubuntu up to 9.04. It WAS set to disable it.

However there is also a hardware jumper to disable the onboard video. Turns out with 10.04 you must set that to disable the oboard video. Possibly the bios setting did nothing.

Otherwise at some point during the boot process it hangs (which I now realize may just have switched to the dead server VGA port).

Feeling sheepish it took so long, but relieved.