[SOLVED] New arch install won't boot with fbdev=1 + nvidia drivers

Recursive Pineapple · 2025-01-05 02:42:41

I'm currently setting up a new arch install. Right now I'm setting up the nvidia drivers for my 970 and for some reason it refuses to work properly. Interestingly, the system boots but the GPU refuses to actually display anything. Once the system reaches the Graphical Interface target, it just shows the UEFI splash screen. I can turn the pc off normally without having to hard reset it - it's not freezing. I can't switch to another TTY, so I'm guessing the GPU is getting frozen without crashing the system.

It boots properly with nouveau and I was just using this system with linux mint yesterday, so I doubt it's a hardware problem. As far as I know, I haven't enabled any desktop environments, though I have installed hyprland. It should be booting to the command line.

Here's a rough outline of what I did (I didn't write anything down, so I don't have an exact list):

1. Install arch + grub

In the chroot:
2. Mount the EFI partition
3. pacman -Sy
4. pacman -S nvidia nvidia-settings nvidia-utils linux linux-firmware (reinstalled these several times for good measure)
5. Edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf to remove kms (tried with and without early loading the modules, no change either way)
6. Edit /etc/default/grub to add `nvidia_drm.modeset=1 nvidia_drm.fbdev=1` (tried to disable fbdev and add nomodeset, no change)
7. Blacklist nouveau by adding /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf: (after nothing worked)

blacklist nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0
install nouveau /bin/false

8. mkinitcpio -P
9. grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.conf
10. Reboot (and double check that I was booting with the right kernel)

I've tried every variation of every option that I can find, and for some strange reason it just refuses to work.

Let me know if I should post any other logs or files, I'm not sure what else I should check.

journalctl for one of the latest boots (with fbdev=0 and nomodeset set, but otherwise with these instructions):
https://pastebin.com/7zU0JB1Q

Last edited by Recursive Pineapple (2025-01-06 01:20:31)

seth · 2025-01-05 09:59:35

The nvidia-utils package blacklists nouveau anyway.
The journal doesn't indicate any GUI/nvidia related issues, the main/only thing is

Jan 04 20:54:41 my-pc kernel: usb 1-7.1: new full-speed USB device number 5 using xhci_hcd
Jan 04 20:54:41 my-pc kernel: usb 1-7.1: device descriptor read/64, error -32
Jan 04 20:54:41 my-pc kernel: usb 1-7.1: device descriptor read/64, error -32
Jan 04 20:54:41 my-pc kernel: usb 1-7.1: new full-speed USB device number 6 using xhci_hcd
Jan 04 20:54:41 my-pc kernel: usb 1-7.1: device descriptor read/64, error -32
Jan 04 20:54:41 my-pc kernel: usb 1-7.1: device descriptor read/64, error -32
Jan 04 20:54:41 my-pc kernel: usb 1-7-port1: attempt power cycle
Jan 04 20:54:41 my-pc kernel: usb 1-7.1: new full-speed USB device number 7 using xhci_hcd
Jan 04 20:54:41 my-pc kernel: usb 1-7.1: Device not responding to setup address.
Jan 04 20:54:41 my-pc kernel: usb 1-7.1: Device not responding to setup address.
Jan 04 20:54:41 my-pc kernel: usb 1-7.1: device not accepting address 7, error -71
Jan 04 20:54:41 my-pc kernel: usb 1-7.1: WARN: invalid context state for evaluate context command.
Jan 04 20:54:41 my-pc kernel: usb 1-7.1: new full-speed USB device number 8 using xhci_hcd
Jan 04 20:54:41 my-pc kernel: usb 1-7.1: Device not responding to setup address.
Jan 04 20:54:41 my-pc kernel: usb 1-7.1: Device not responding to setup address.
Jan 04 20:54:41 my-pc kernel: usb 1-7.1: device not accepting address 8, error -71
Jan 04 20:54:41 my-pc kernel: usb 1-7.1: WARN: invalid context state for evaluate context command.
Jan 04 20:54:41 my-pc kernel: usb 1-7-port1: unable to enumerate USB device

some usb device (attached to the same hub as two external HDDs) acts up.

tried to disable fbdev and add nomodeset

Try "nvidia_drm.modeset=1 nvidia_drm.fbdev=0 nvidia.NVreg_EnableGpuFirmware=0" but that's a wild guess - there's really nothing wrong in the journal (maybe still remove the external drives and whatever else might be attached there)

Recursive Pineapple · 2025-01-06 01:19:28

It looks like it was caused by fbdev. I had assumed that removing the option would turn it off, but that isn't the case due to nvidia-util's default. Setting nvidia_drm.fbdev=0 fixed everything, though this breaks wayland (which is unfortunate because I wanted to use hyprland).

The problem seemed to be that the nvidia driver wasn't setting up the drm framebuffer properly, causing TTYs to not work at all. The TTYs existed, but when I switched to them the displays turned off (except for the first one, which inherited the splash screen image from the UEFI). I discovered this by setting loglevel=7. It would freeze immediately after the 'Initialized nvidia-drm 0.0.0 for 0000:07:00.0 on minor 0' line. Display managers worked fine (I tested lightdm), which also hinted that it was a TTY problem and not a general GPU/driver problem.

With fbdev=0, everything works fine. Curiously, fbdev=1 works fine on my arch system with a 3060ti, so I think this is either a motherboard or 970-specific problem.

seth · 2025-01-06 11:24:51

The fbdev performance "gut-feels" generation dependent from what I've seen, yes.

V1del · 2025-01-06 13:48:27

If you keep modeset=1 that should suffice for hyprland and Wayland.

Recursive Pineapple · 2025-01-07 16:21:45

I updated my 3060ti setup last night to the latest drivers and it's behaving the same, with the same fix. This might just be a bad driver/kernel combination.

Arch Linux

#1 2025-01-05 02:42:41

[SOLVED] New arch install won't boot with fbdev=1 + nvidia drivers

#2 2025-01-05 09:59:35

Re: [SOLVED] New arch install won't boot with fbdev=1 + nvidia drivers

#3 2025-01-06 01:19:28

Re: [SOLVED] New arch install won't boot with fbdev=1 + nvidia drivers

#4 2025-01-06 11:24:51

Re: [SOLVED] New arch install won't boot with fbdev=1 + nvidia drivers

#5 2025-01-06 13:48:27

Re: [SOLVED] New arch install won't boot with fbdev=1 + nvidia drivers

#6 2025-01-07 16:21:45

Re: [SOLVED] New arch install won't boot with fbdev=1 + nvidia drivers

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