Arch Linux

bodysativa

Member

Registered: 2012-11-04

Posts: 17

[solved] Graphics card not supported anymore?

I've been using Arch on HP EliteBook 8540w since ~5 years and everything worked well. Until I've updated the system today.

First issue is that sddm/gdm enters unlimited loop on boot. After doing some troubleshooting I've discovered that even 'startx' won't work, because X can't find any screens. Then I've discovered that the 'nvidia' module hasn't been loaded like it always has.

My graphics card in this laptop is NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M.

After loading it manually I'm getting "modprobe: invalid argument" error. Dmesg mentions about module nvidia disagreeing with the kernel about the fput function.

I've remembered I had a similar issue several years ago when support for Quadro FX was moved from latest nvidia drivers (39x) to legacy branch (340). Back then I simply had to install legacy branch instead of main branch and X started to work again. I was using legacy (340) branch since then.

So I went to nvidia page to check if they haven't moved support to my chipset again, and there it is: my chipset now in the 304 branch instead of 340.

The problem is that Arch doesn't have support for this branch 304 of nvidia drivers.

I can't use nouveau because it kernel panics at random times (once a week), and I can't use gnome3 on it (gnome3 won't load, because "something strange happened" as the error box says).

What are my options here?

Last edited by bodysativa (2018-05-05 12:24:32)

bodysativa

Member

Registered: 2012-11-04

Posts: 17

Re: [solved] Graphics card not supported anymore?

Rubber duck debugging in action.

The problem was not about moving support to branch 304, because it seems that support for my chipset is both in 340 and 304. So I can stay on branch 340.

The problem is that the nvidia module can't be inserted into the -lts kernel, which I was using. (kernel disagrees about the version of function fput). After switching to standard kernel version (non-lts), nvidia module is working just fine.

Muflone

Package Maintainer (PM)

From: Italy

Registered: 2013-10-08

Posts: 106

Website

Re: [solved] Graphics card not supported anymore?

the same happened to me.

https://bugs.archlinux.org/index.php?do … k_id=58465
please click Vote to cast your vote

Last edited by Muflone (2018-05-05 15:04:52)