Arch Linux

CaptainKirk

Member

Registered: 2009-06-07

Posts: 391

New nvidia Broke my Dual Monitor Setup

I now have:

sudo pacman -Qs nvidia
local/nvidia 185.18.14-1
    NVIDIA drivers for kernel26.
local/nvidia-utils 185.18.14-1
    NVIDIA drivers utilities and libraries.

and now while nvidia-settings shows me both of my screens, no matter what I pick, the secondary screen never turns on. Nothing appears there.

Before today's update to the latest versions of the above packages, both screens worked fine.

any suggestions?

EDIT The system recognizes that the second monitor is there--if I unplug it and "detect displays" then it notes that it's gone. And I can drag a window (Xfce) onto that monitor--I just can't see anything there.

Last edited by CaptainKirk (2009-06-23 20:00:26)

CaptainKirk

Member

Registered: 2009-06-07

Posts: 391

Re: New nvidia Broke my Dual Monitor Setup

I tried to downgrade but I get:

sudo pacman -U nvidia-180.51-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz
Password: 
loading package data...
checking dependencies...
error: failed to prepare transaction (could not satisfy dependencies)
:: nvidia: requires kernel26<2.6.30
:: nvidia: requires nvidia-utils=180.51

That must be my old package because in /var/cache/pacman/pkg I see:

ls -l nv*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2592955 2009-06-08 15:32 nvidia-180.51-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  3071360 2009-06-23 17:52 nvidia-185.18.14-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 10455744 2009-06-08 15:32 nvidia-utils-180.51-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 10539196 2009-06-23 17:52 nvidia-utils-185.18.14-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz

But now that my kernel was upgraded I can't downgrade and I'm stuck with one monitor.

I filed a bug http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/15243

Is there anything else I could try? All of my packages are up to date

CaptainKirk

Member

Registered: 2009-06-07

Posts: 391

Re: New nvidia Broke my Dual Monitor Setup

As far as I know, my GeForce 8400 GS has two outputs, one DVI and one VGA. I have determined that the problem is the DVI output. I have a DVI-VGA adaptor (I think that's what it is) so I can plug in an old CRT monitor into that. Until today it worked, but now whichever monitor is in the VGA works and whichever is in DVI fails to show any image.

CaptainKirk

Member

Registered: 2009-06-07

Posts: 391

Re: New nvidia Broke my Dual Monitor Setup

Seems to be an nvidia bug for which there is yet no solution. Two other users reported the same issue here:

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthr … ?p=2035494

FrozenFox

Member

From: College Station, TX

Registered: 2008-03-23

Posts: 422

Website

Re: New nvidia Broke my Dual Monitor Setup

Try perhaps editing the current nvidia and nvidia-utils pkgbuilds to use the old 180.51 nvidia binaries and install from the resulting packages. If you don't know what I mean or how to do that, please see ABS in the Wiki. I'm not sure if they will work properly with the new kernel, but it couldn't hurt to try I suppose.

Alternatively, you could downgrade both your kernel and the nvidia drivers and whatever else nags that you need or don't wish to remove or whatnot. Previous packages are available at the Arch Rollback Machine site if you don't have something cached: http://arm.kh.nu/ .

Last edited by FrozenFox (2009-06-24 08:18:43)

CaptainKirk

Member

Registered: 2009-06-07

Posts: 391

Re: New nvidia Broke my Dual Monitor Setup

But if I downgrade my kernel will that render some other tools now no good? virtualbox-modules requires kernel26>=2.6.30 but I can do without that for now.

I'm just concerned that something else that I do need will break. Like something that lets the machine boot up perhaps. I prefer one monitor than none. I just want to be cautious now...

FrozenFox

Member

From: College Station, TX

Registered: 2008-03-23

Posts: 422

Website

Re: New nvidia Broke my Dual Monitor Setup

pacman -Qi kernel26

See "Required by"

I've downgraded my kernel many times before. The only things that usually give trouble about it are wireless drivers and the nvidia drivers, not the boot sequence itself. Besides, if something goes wrong, you can always boot into a livecd and just upgrade the kernel back to where it was from chroot. How to do so is in the wiki; I could link you to that or a post I made on the matter if need be. You should always have a functional graphical livecd of your choice available, such as ubuntu or system rescue cd or what have you, in case you need the internet. Or a second machine/laptop/whatever. On that note, an older virtualbox-modules is likely available on the aforementioned ARM website.

Also..

Do not be afraid of breaking things. That's just part of learning how to fix them and how to do it right in the future.

If you are on a machine where breaking things would be a major problem, using a bleeding edge distro on it is ill advised.

EDIT: Damn I'm sleepy.. so many mistakes in this post I needed to fix.. Gn

Last edited by FrozenFox (2009-06-24 08:56:31)

CaptainKirk

Member

Registered: 2009-06-07

Posts: 391

Re: New nvidia Broke my Dual Monitor Setup

LiveCDs I have plenty.

how to upgrade a kernel from one I don't (yet) know. But a friend of mine gave me the answer to my immediate problem.

pacman -Ss nvidia and you will see that there are three nvidia
versions, previous official one is 173xx

You can try to fall back to 173, falling back to previous
official repo driver fixed my problem once. You can try to install this
and it is easy to go back to 186.. if 173 fails.

pacman -S nvidia-173xx of course 

He was right. I did it (had to then reboot) but now I am back to where I was.

Thank you for your help.