Graphics Resolution- Upgrade /Blank Screen after reboot

[MAFoElffen]

First off thanks for the reply.

I'm at Step 2 right now... it gets stuck on "Stopping GNOME Display Manager." It seems to hang there, until I hit the enter key. At that point, I'm able to use CTRL-ALT-F1/F2 to get into the command line.

sudo service gdm start gives me gdm start/running then a process ID. CTRL-ALT-F7 brings me to the same screen though.

Also, I tried appending vga=318 but that did not have any effect.

In case this helps, after "Stopping GNOME Display Manager," it says:

Once again, thanks for the troubleshooting!

@emerick7-- I'm sorry if I missed it, but I don't see where you posted what video card you are using(?) ... also, you said you tried "vga=318"...

If you could post the results from

sudo hwinfo --framebuffer
or 
sudo hwinfo --framebuffer > ~/video_results.txt

Please insure that you highlighlight it and press the "#" button to wrap code tags around it. That will tell us what video you have and what modes are available to it.

[MAFoElffen]

I've got grub, but I don't seem to be able to even get a console. Following the instructions in the original post, I press e and can edit the info but I'm not entirely sure which line to edit. When entering " text " do I enter the quotation marks and what about the trailing space?

Thanks
Phil

LOL- Okay... I'll edit the first post today. Look for those additions/changes there fist post.

I will add some more "basic" explanations and examples. Someone told me it was on the verge of a geek-alert... Mmeaning it was fine as a highly technical article, but the technical level was in reality, a bit high for a new comer.. I'll try to broaden that level.

[taygan]

First of all, THANK YOU SO MUCH for an excellent troubleshooting thread. It helped me isolate my problem.

Clean install Natty 11.02 on a Gateway M-1625 with a ATI Radeon x1270 (RS690M). Note that this Radeon is no longer supported by fglrx (ATI Catalyst). After pulling my hair out for 24 hours, and trying every combination on the grub menu, I finally fixed my "blinking cursor/blank screen/fixing recursive fault but reboot is required" by downgrading the kernel to 2.6.37

First, the USB stick live desktop i386 booted to Unity fine, but Unity won't run installed (no 3D graphics??) - guess that's another issue. Next I tried installing over my 10.10 partition. It booted to rescue (recovery?) and low graphics most of the time. I thought it was a bad install so I formatted the partition and did a CLEAN install of Natty 11.04.

Grub always boots fine, it was hanging/black screen/sometimes blinking cursor after selecting the kernel. I tried many many combinations on the kernel boot line (pressing e from the grub menu): deleting everything ("quiet" "splash" and the "vt...7" thing) on the line after "ro" and trying different options (I always used "nosplash" to see what was going on - remember don't use the " when using options - it's just for reading clarity)

"nosplash text" + "nomodeset" or "radeon.modeset=0" or "xforcevesa" would SOMETIMES work, but would often hang at "fixing recursive fault but restart is needed" Other times it would hang after 3 lines, or after a few screenfuls, depending on the options, and sometimes changing with the SAME options. Grrr...

Finally, it looks like acpi is mucking things up with the latest kernel for me: The options "ro acpi=off nosplash text" can consistently get me booted to a terminal. Then from the terminal "sudo service start gdm" gets to the gdm logon screen. On the logon screen I must choose "classic (no effects)" and then I can get to gnome.

From there I downloaded the older kernel and installed it from the .debs found in the Ubuntu Kernel Mainline PPA,

If I select "older Linux Kernels" (I think that's what it says) from the grub menu and boot to 2.6.37 everything seems to work fine.

Older debs found here:

http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa....6.37.6-natty/

for 32-bit i386 download and install in this order:
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa...281005_all.deb
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa...81005_i386.deb
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa...81005_i386.deb

if you're running amd64, be sure to download the headers-all, headers-amd64, and image-amd64 - but I don't know if this workaround is needed with the 64-bit kernel.

Be sure to install (click on) the .debs in order: headers-all, headers-i386(amd64), and image-i386(amd64)!

Thanks to this blog post for the inspiration:

http://www.khattam.info/howto-instal...010-11-13.html

[emerick7]

@MAFoElffen... Here are my results of hwinfo --framebuffer:

02: None 00.0: 11001 VESA Framebuffer
[Created at bios.464]
Unique ID: rdCR.5WU5JOR4rxD
Hardware Class: framebuffer
Model: "Intel(r)915GM/910ML/915MS Graphics Controller"
Vendor: "Intel Corporation"
Device: "Intel(r)915GM/910ML/915MS Graphics Controller"
SubVendor: "Intel(r)915GM/910ML/915MS Graphics Chip Accelerated VGA BIOS"
SubDevice:
Revision: "Hardware Version 0.0"
Memory Size: 7 MB + 704 kB
Memory Range: 0xc0000000-0xc07affff (rw)
Mode 0x0305: 1024x768 (+1024), 8 bits
Mode 0x0317: 1024x768 (+2048), 16 bits
Mode 0x0318: 1024x768 (+4096), 24 bits
Mode 0x0312: 640x480 (+2560), 24 bits
Mode 0x0314: 800x600 (+1600), 16 bits
Mode 0x0315: 800x600 (+3200), 24 bits
Mode 0x0301: 640x480 (+640), 8 bits
Mode 0x0303: 800x600 (+832), 8 bits
Mode 0x0311: 640x480 (+1280), 16 bits
Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

If I use:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet i915.modeset=0 acpi_osi=Linux"

When I reboot it does not hang on a blank screen, but on the Ubuntu splash screen, the one with the 5 orange progress dots.

[neonman123]

Uh... The link you posted says your mobo has no onboard video, which means that you "are" using "some" type of video card... which you discribe as having VGA and svideo ports...

What Video card are you using?

it says integrated in the link and it is integrated, there is only one pcie expansion slot and it is being taken by another card. I'm definitely not using a video card. I'm not sure what video chipset it is, I do know that the Intel 945GT chipset is what the board is based around.

[MAFoElffen]

@MAFoElffen... Here are my results of hwinfo --framebuffer:

02: None 00.0: 11001 VESA Framebuffer
[Created at bios.464]
Unique ID: rdCR.5WU5JOR4rxD
Hardware Class: framebuffer
Model: "Intel(r)915GM/910ML/915MS Graphics Controller"
Vendor: "Intel Corporation"
Device: "Intel(r)915GM/910ML/915MS Graphics Controller"
SubVendor: "Intel(r)915GM/910ML/915MS Graphics Chip Accelerated VGA BIOS"
SubDevice:
Revision: "Hardware Version 0.0"
Memory Size: 7 MB + 704 kB
Memory Range: 0xc0000000-0xc07affff (rw)
Mode 0x0305: 1024x768 (+1024), 8 bits       # decimal--> 773
Mode 0x0317: 1024x768 (+2048), 16 bits     #                   791
Mode 0x0318: 1024x768 (+4096), 24 bits     #                   792
Mode 0x0312: 640x480 (+2560), 24 bits       #                   786
Mode 0x0314: 800x600 (+1600), 16 bits       #                   788
Mode 0x0315: 800x600 (+3200), 24 bits       #                   789
Mode 0x0301: 640x480 (+640), 8 bits          #                    769
Mode 0x0303: 800x600 (+832), 8 bits          #                    771
Mode 0x0311: 640x480 (+1280), 16 bits      #                    785
Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

If I use:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet i915.modeset=0 acpi_osi=Linux"

When I reboot it does not hang on a blank screen, but on the Ubuntu splash screen, the one with the 5 orange progress dots.

From the results you posted above from hwinfo--> Look at the numbers above in red... These are what are the decimal equivalents of the hex values that where returned. I remember you saying you thried to use vga=318... which should have been vga=792.
*** EXCEPT that there is an upstream Debian BUG that notes that using an "vga=XXX" in the kernel boot line with the 2.6.x of the kernel and your video driver (i915) will result in a black screen... It als notes that it can;t ise any framebuffer except it's own driver's, else it will also result in a black screen. So--

You could try adding this line

i915modeset=0

to /etc/modprobe.d/i915-kms.conf. What this option does is turns off KMS (kernel mode set), and uses the i915 driver and framebuffer....

If you've been getting this far, you can add that option to the Rescue mode item in Grub, start failsafe mode from there and get your cards recommended driver installed...

You could change also change GFXMODE=640x480 to:

GFXMODE=1024x768x24;1024x768x16;1024x769x8;800x600x24;800x600x16;800x600x8;640x480x24;640x480c16;640x480x8

or any of those alone.

[MAFoElffen]

it says integrated in the link and it is integrated, there is only one pcie expansion slot and it is being taken by another card. I'm definitely not using a video card. I'm not sure what video chipset it is, I do know that the Intel 945GT chipset is what the board is based around.

I see that now, but no-where do I see what video chipset it "is: using for that. There is an easier way to find out --> run hwinfo --framebuffer and post the reselsults here. Remember to highlight the results and press the "#" button to enclose is in code tags.

[emerick7]

@MAFoElffen: I added i915modeset=0 to i915-kms.conf (it was a new file), and also tried the GFXMODE options, with no luck. When I reboot, I'm getting the familiar black screen.

[neonman123]

I see that now, but no-where do I see what video chipset it "is: using for that. There is an easier way to find out --> run hwinfo --framebuffer and post the reselsults here. Remember to highlight the results and press the "#" button to enclose is in code tags.

I'm getting sudo:hwinfo:command not found when I type sudo hwinfo or sudo hwinfo --framebuffer or sudo hwinfo --framebuffer | more

[emerick7]

I'm getting sudo:hwinfo:command not found when I type sudo hwinfo or sudo hwinfo --framebuffer or sudo hwinfo --framebuffer | more

Try

sudo apt-get install hwinfo