NVIDIA driver problems

[cconner94]

BicyclerBoy
Did you completely remove the nouveau graphics driver (in synaptic) ?

The nouveau kernel driver component can still be loaded & block the nvidia driver from starting.

The nouveau problem can require a blacklist entry in a .conf file.

Search for nouveau nvidia blacklisting.

If you install the nvidia driver by nvidia installer it will be broken with each kernel update.
This can be avoid by using the package manager/jockey or 3rd party ppa.

I had uninstalled all nouveaux packages via Synaptic (basically by searching for nouveaux and completely removing related packages). I also had blacklisted nouveaux by adding the following to the bottom of blacklist.conf:

blacklist vga16fb
blacklist nouveau
blacklist rivafb
blacklist nvidiafb
blacklist rivatv

Inexplicably, my laptop booted normally this morning with no safe mode. But, this has happened before during this 2-month saga. Eventually (15 minutes to a couple of days - randomly), my graphics tend to freeze up and the computer is nonresponsive...no keyboard, mouse or other input is accepted. I have to shut down by holding the power key.

So...I'll hold my breath and see if this continues to work. Unfortunately, I have to carry around my Windoze machine because Ubuntu has become unreliable for me

I will re-post here if another lockup occurs. If I'm good for a week or so, I'll mark this as solved.

Thanks to this forum! I am constantly amazed at the unending "kindness of strangers" here.

[cconner94]

Also, for the first time in many (hundreds?) of tries, when I go to System > Administration > NVIDIA X Server Settings, I don't get the message "You don't appear to be using an NVIDIA driver"; the settings actually open! Hopefully this is good news.

[colobix]

Also, for the first time in many (hundreds?) of tries, when I go to System > Administration > NVIDIA X Server Settings, I don't get the message "You don't appear to be using an NVIDIA driver"; the settings actually open! Hopefully this is good news.

so how did you solve this problem?

[cconner94]

I honestly do not know which step fixed the problem, but I'll make my best guess for the set of steps that worked:
1) Removing all NVIDIA drivers by running both the drivers downloaded from the NVIDIA site and choosing uninstall, as well as removing them all via Synaptic
2) Blacklisting nouveaux, etc. as mentioned a couple posts up
3) Installing nvidia-settings and nvidia-common (from Synaptic or via the hardware driver settings, I don't recall)
Somewhere in there I went to System>Admin>Hardware Drivers and enabled nvidia restricted drivers.

I went through so many combinations and reboots that it's all a wash, and after a MONTH of being down (and having to use Windoze) I was desperately trying whatever I could find.

Sorry I can't be a more help, but I'd say the bottom line was that I cleaned everything up and started over with nvidia.

[colobix]

OH but you did help me
Thank you sooooo freaking much Damn that was a downer.
Seriously, Thanks a lot



OK so here's the guide:

1) Removi all NVIDIA drivers from synaptic (173, current etc)
2) Open up your blacklist.conf file with gedit from root (sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf), and paste in these lines at the end of the file:
blacklist vga16fb
blacklist nouveau
blacklist rivafb
blacklist nvidiafb
blacklist rivatv
3) Installing nvidia-settings and nvidia-common (from Synaptic)
4) Reboot
5) Go to Additional Drivers (System>admin), and there you will see 2 new driver choices. Enable the recommended one.
6) Reboot and everything works like a charm.

[cconner94]

My display driver quit AGAIN. I had been using the machine for several days without incident. Then I started seeing strange video artifacts on the laptop LCD. Next time I rebooted, there was the odd, dual-screen look (see other thread mentioned above for a screen shot), the "no screens found" error and an inability to get into Gnome.

I tried the "plug into a monitor using VGA connection" trick, and I was able to boot into failsafe graphics mode. Once again, the system does not recognize my NVIDIA driver as being in use.

Note: I changed no settings over the last several days, and I had rebooted and used the machine successfully after installing the latest updates.

Is there any way to run a diagnostic on my video card? I wonder if it or my laptop LCD are just wearing out? 3 1/2 years isn't a bad run with pretty heavy use, I guess.

Anyone have any thoughts?