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#1 2019-08-04 18:50:38
- Cavsfan
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- From: USA
- Registered: 2015-07-08
- Posts: 101
[SOLVED] Trying to install Arch, characters on screen are unreadable
I have a new PC and was trying to install Arch on it beside Windows 10. But, below the first 3 lines everything was just garbage.
Unreadable lines and scribbles, etc.
Popped the same USB into my other computer and it booted into the installation process just fine. I got to the root prompt OK.
So, what could cause this weird behavior? Any pointer in the right direction would be much appreciated.
Last edited by Cavsfan (2019-08-18 19:59:16)
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#2 2019-08-04 21:44:23
- V1del
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- Registered: 2012-10-16
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Re: [SOLVED] Trying to install Arch, characters on screen are unreadable
Which graphics card, and how is the screen connected, did you check dmesg for errors?
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#3 2019-08-05 18:24:35
- Cavsfan
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- From: USA
- Registered: 2015-07-08
- Posts: 101
Re: [SOLVED] Trying to install Arch, characters on screen are unreadable
It is a Nvidia RTX 2060 and it seems to be a hardware problem. It initially was connected via HDMI but, troubleshooting the fact that it would not go into BIOS and straight into Windows while booting up led to no post at all.
I removed the CMOS battery to reset the BIOS and it was behind the video card so I had to remove that to get to it. Then it quit posting at all.
So, I was going to RMA the whole PC. Then noticed there was a display port on the monitor and tried that. It booted into BIOS no problem.
But, since there was a problem with the card, I should have known that caused this problem with the Arch installation.
I am RMAing just the card; I'll know in a few days for sure.
Thanks for the reply.
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#4 2019-08-05 18:45:03
- progandy
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- Registered: 2012-05-17
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Re: [SOLVED] Trying to install Arch, characters on screen are unreadable
This nvidia card may not play nicely with the open source drivers. You could try to boot with the "nomodeset" kernel parameter, install archlinux including the proprietary driver and then boot normally without nomodeset.
Last edited by progandy (2019-08-05 18:46:56)
| alias CUTF='LANG=en_XX.UTF-8@POSIX ' |
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#5 2019-08-06 03:45:23
- runninghorse
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Re: [SOLVED] Trying to install Arch, characters on screen are unreadable
I think this nvidia card may not play nicely with the open source drivers too
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#6 2019-08-08 23:00:17
- Cavsfan
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- From: USA
- Registered: 2015-07-08
- Posts: 101
Re: [SOLVED] Trying to install Arch, characters on screen are unreadable
Keep in mind I am talking about this happening while booting from an Arch installation ISO on a USB.
This morning it would not post via the display port; the video card is definitely bad.
The new card will be here Monday August 12th.
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#7 2019-08-08 23:12:36
- progandy
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Re: [SOLVED] Trying to install Arch, characters on screen are unreadable
Keep in mind I am talking about this happening while booting from an Arch installation ISO on a USB.
The 2D part of nouveau is part of the kernel package, so nomodeset can still be necessary if the driver doesn't work with your gpu.
Good luck with the new card.
Last edited by progandy (2019-08-08 23:14:20)
| alias CUTF='LANG=en_XX.UTF-8@POSIX ' |
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#8 2019-08-15 17:33:08
- Cavsfan
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- From: USA
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- Posts: 101
Re: [SOLVED] Trying to install Arch, characters on screen are unreadable
Cavsfan wrote:Keep in mind I am talking about this happening while booting from an Arch installation ISO on a USB.
The 2D part of nouveau is part of the kernel package, so nomodeset can still be necessary if the driver doesn't work with your gpu.
Good luck with the new card.
Thanks! It was definitely a bad card. I got the new one 3 days ago Monday August 12th and found it would not post with the display port cable.
So, I pulled the HDMI cable out, plugged it in and it booted up no problem. Could be a bad display port cable, I only have 2 computers and haven't tried it on the other one.
I wanted to give it a few days before trying Arch installation again and today it got the same thing - squiggly illegible lines.
So I tried it again and edited the first line prefixing it with "nomodeset". That worked perfectly, in fact better than normal as the words are very small normally but, they were bigger which was nice.
Thanks progandy! That solved my problem.
I am a little leery of installing Arch on a PC not even 2 months old. But, if the card holds up and nothing else happens, I may not be able to stop myself. 
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