NVIDIA newest 361.28 blob does not work with GTX 960

cardinal-biggles · 2016-03-18 21:26:29

After upgrading the NVIDIA driver, I rebooted only to be greeted with a black screen.

After going into recovery mode, disabling lightdm, and rebooting again, I tried starting X again with startx. It starts, I get a black screen, and it exits "successfully."

I ran dmesg and saw some very odd messages from nvidia-modeset:

[   70.301686] NVRM: Your system is not currently configured to drive a VGA console
[   70.301689] NVRM: on the primary VGA device. The NVIDIA Linux graphics driver
[   70.301690] NVRM: requires the use of a text-mode VGA console. Use of other console
[   70.301691] NVRM: drivers including, but not limited to, vesafb, may result in
[   70.301692] NVRM: corruption and stability problems, and is not supported.
[   70.313442] nvidia-modeset: Loading NVIDIA Kernel Mode Setting Driver for UNIX platforms  361.28  Wed Feb  3 15:15:17 PST 2016
[   70.314032] nvidia-modeset: Allocated GPU:0 (GPU-d0406274-213b-dd02-8743-1c954276e26c) @ PCI:0000:01:00.0
[   70.440355] snd_hda_codec_hdmi hdaudioC1D0: HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 5
[   70.910515] snd_hda_codec_hdmi hdaudioC1D0: HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 63
[   70.930430] snd_hda_codec_hdmi hdaudioC1D0: HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[   71.432977] nvidia-modeset: Freed GPU:0 (GPU-d0406274-213b-dd02-8743-1c954276e26c) @ PCI:0000:01:00.0

I've tried all sorts of things to get that VGA console message to go away--kernel parameters, changing the gfxpayload--and nothing seems to work. IIRC I've gotten that message with previous versions and there weren't any issues.

Then there's the messages "Allocated GPU:0" and "Freed GPU:0". That's the one that confuses me that most.

I heard about someone getting the same issue with a GTX 970M, but that's a different chip.

Looking at Xorg.0.log, I get a similar message right before X exits:

[    71.369] (II) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Deleting GPU-0
[    71.371] (II) Server terminated successfully (0). Closing log file.

Before the server exited, I did see messages saying that my monitor was detected by the NVIDIA driver correctly. Everything seems fine up to the point that my GPU was "deleted" and the server exited.

Maybe my solution is just to downgrade the NVIDIA junk and the Linux kernel, add the packages to "IgnorePkg" in pacman.conf, wait until a new version of the driver comes out, and upgrade it then. But I'd like to get to the bottom of this anyway, because other people have said that it's working just fine for them.

The graphics card in question is an MSI GTX 960 4GB.

Full text: Xorg.0.log / dmesg

wengole · 2016-03-30 12:38:31

I too am having this issue with a GTX970.

Unfortunately I haven't rebooted in a while, so I'm not sure what package versions I was on before. Downgrading thus far hasn't worked.

Did you manage to get this working? If so what versions did you downgrade to?

nstgc · 2016-03-30 15:38:27

By "the latest 361.28 blob" do you mean the package in testing? 361.28-5?

alexjj · 2016-03-30 16:24:34

nstgc wrote:

By "the latest 361.28 blob" do you mean the package in testing? 361.28-5?

nvidia-libgl 361.28-5 and nvidia-utils 361.28-5 are in extra, only nvidia 361.28-5 is in testing. So I don't know if having the -4 of nvidia and the -5 of utils and libgl was contributing to the issue?

brebs · 2016-03-30 20:00:04

You'll probably want to try the new newest nvidia version.

cardinal-biggles · 2016-03-30 22:27:54

nstgc wrote:

By "the latest 361.28 blob" do you mean the package in testing? 361.28-5?

I was running 361.28-4 (latest currently available in [stable]). New package versions haven't made any difference (i.e., I was having the same problem with 361.28-3).

wengole wrote:

If so what versions did you downgrade to?

358.16-3. It's working fine now. I'll try the version on NVIDIA's site and get back to you.

Last edited by cardinal-biggles (2016-03-31 04:29:01)

cardinal-biggles · 2016-03-30 22:56:54

Just upgraded to 361.42 from the site and everything is running perfectly. Not getting the issues with Source games that I usually do when I upgrade drivers. I think I might use this method next time I upgrade graphics drivers.

In case anyone's wondering, I'm using mesa-libgl to satisfy the libgl dependency, because nvidia-libgl would require me to install libglvnd and nvidia-utils as well. Seems to be working fine.

mrunion · 2016-03-31 13:07:18

Install from the regular repositories or AUR, but don't install from nVidia's site directly. If you do, you are asking for things to break later on. Arch's nVidia packages are the same stuff from nVidia, but repacked for pacman, AFAIK anyway.

Arch Linux

#1 2016-03-18 21:26:29

NVIDIA newest 361.28 blob does not work with GTX 960

#2 2016-03-30 12:38:31

Re: NVIDIA newest 361.28 blob does not work with GTX 960

#3 2016-03-30 15:38:27

Re: NVIDIA newest 361.28 blob does not work with GTX 960

#4 2016-03-30 16:24:34

Re: NVIDIA newest 361.28 blob does not work with GTX 960

#5 2016-03-30 20:00:04

Re: NVIDIA newest 361.28 blob does not work with GTX 960

#6 2016-03-30 22:27:54

Re: NVIDIA newest 361.28 blob does not work with GTX 960

#7 2016-03-30 22:56:54

Re: NVIDIA newest 361.28 blob does not work with GTX 960

#8 2016-03-31 13:07:18

Re: NVIDIA newest 361.28 blob does not work with GTX 960

Board footer