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#1 2008-08-13 19:02:39

Robstar
Member
Registered: 2008-08-12
Posts: 33

nVidia, Xorg and _ Freeze[SOLVED]

I had recently built and machine and instead of installing Gentoo, which I really want to avoid, I went fore Arch. I have to say, it is a lot of fun with Arch, but nVidia lets me down. So far I have:
    Updated nvidia drivers from 173.14.12-1 to 173.14.12-3. All from pacman.
    I have played around with xorg.conf settings
I think that is all I can do.

After I start Xorg all I get is '_'. I read a few threads on this, but there seems to be no soultion.

Card:  GeForce 8400 GS, PCI-E

I want to get my resoultion of 1440x900 as well. Widescreen.

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"
    RgbPath         "/usr/lib/X11/rgb"
    ModulePath      "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load           "dbe"
    Load           "extmod"
    Load           "freetype"
    Load           "glx"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "SendCoreEvents" "true"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
    Option         "Buttons" "6"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "keyboard"
    Option         "CoreKeyboard"
    Option         "XkbRules" "xorg"
    Option         "XkbModel" "pc105"
    Option         "XkbLayout" "gb"
    Option         "XkbVariant" ""
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "Unknown"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 130.0
    VertRefresh     50.0 - 100.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Card0"
    Driver         "vesa"
    VendorName     "nVidia Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce 8400 GS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Card0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
        Modes      "1024x768"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Last edited by Robstar (2008-08-19 20:59:27)


32-bit Gentoo -to- Arch64
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edit your first post and add to the title '[SOLVED]'.

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#2 2008-08-13 19:05:53

skottish
Forum Fellow
From: Here
Registered: 2006-06-16
Posts: 7,942

Re: nVidia, Xorg and _ Freeze[SOLVED]

Back up your xorg.conf file and as root run nvidia-xconfig and see how that does. It's usually easier than the other way. Be warned though, it may create an old style XFree file. Just rename it.

Last edited by skottish (2008-08-13 19:06:47)

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#3 2008-08-13 19:07:24

kett
Member
Registered: 2008-04-21
Posts: 104

Re: nVidia, Xorg and _ Freeze[SOLVED]

In the Device section, the driver should be "nvidia" and not "vesa".  Otherwise it's not using the nvidia drivers.

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#4 2008-08-13 19:10:11

Robstar
Member
Registered: 2008-08-12
Posts: 33

Re: nVidia, Xorg and _ Freeze[SOLVED]

My bad, I knew I forgot something.
I just did a copy and past of my current xorg.conf. Normally I would change the vesa to nvidia.
And I have already done nvidia-xconfig.

Last edited by Robstar (2008-08-14 14:41:09)


32-bit Gentoo -to- Arch64
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#5 2008-08-15 13:14:32

Robstar
Member
Registered: 2008-08-12
Posts: 33

Re: nVidia, Xorg and _ Freeze[SOLVED]

Is there any other suggestions?


32-bit Gentoo -to- Arch64
If you could be so kind, but when you found the solution,
edit your first post and add to the title '[SOLVED]'.

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#6 2008-08-15 13:26:01

bwalk
Member
Registered: 2007-03-21
Posts: 177

Re: nVidia, Xorg and _ Freeze[SOLVED]

Monitor connected via DVI? This might help.

        Option      "UseEdidDpi" "false"
        Option      "UseEdidFreqs" "true"

If you want 1440x900 then use it in the file. What does /var/log/Xorg.0.log say? How do you start xorg?

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#7 2008-08-15 14:23:21

Robstar
Member
Registered: 2008-08-12
Posts: 33

Re: nVidia, Xorg and _ Freeze[SOLVED]

It is connected through VGA, but I did try your Options, in Monitor and Card, as you did not specify which section.
I cannot use 1440x900, because my screen goes dead if I do. I know that nvidia can do it, so I blames the vesa drives. I also read vesa only does 4:3 resoultions.

When using nvidia drives, no Xorg.0.log file is created. (I removed it and then started Xorg).
I start Xorg by comman, 'startx'.


32-bit Gentoo -to- Arch64
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#8 2008-08-15 14:50:19

bwalk
Member
Registered: 2007-03-21
Posts: 177

Re: nVidia, Xorg and _ Freeze[SOLVED]

If it's possible, try using DVI, it is less painful. Your screen goes black because your modeline is unknown to the card. Try this in the monitor section

  # 1440x900 @ 60.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 55.92 kHz; pclk: 106.47 MHz
  Modeline "1440x900_60.00"  106.47  1440 1520 1672 1904  900 901 904 932  -HSync +Vsync

But I _highly_ recommend DVI and my settings above in the first post. They go in the device section.

If you want nvidia, use the nvidia module (which should of course be loaded, see with lsmod). It is capable of everything you want. If you use startx, you can change to your console with CTRL-ALT-F1. Check for errors.

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#9 2008-08-15 15:14:10

Robstar
Member
Registered: 2008-08-12
Posts: 33

Re: nVidia, Xorg and _ Freeze[SOLVED]

Sadly I'm using second hand equipment. Even though the card is a modern one, it only has a VGA. It seems that I didn't care to mention another problem (This is bad), it freezes up with the _. I cannot get any Xorg log or anything. I have to do a hard reboot. It was a problem from 173.14.12-1 and it was suppose to be fixed in 173.14.12-3, but it hasn't for me.

The nvidia module, is loaded.

Thanks for the modeline.


32-bit Gentoo -to- Arch64
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#10 2008-08-15 17:12:59

SiB
Member
Registered: 2008-07-03
Posts: 38

Re: nVidia, Xorg and _ Freeze[SOLVED]

I had a similar problem on my laptop running a nVidia 8600M GT. With previous version of the driver [173.xx.xx - 173.14.12-1]. The freeze happened randomly on startup. Since 173.14.12-3 everything seems fine... Hope it stays this way smile

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#11 2008-08-15 18:43:15

SiC
Member
From: Liverpool, England
Registered: 2008-01-10
Posts: 430

Re: nVidia, Xorg and _ Freeze[SOLVED]

Try downloading hwd and see if that helps things at all, it should do a reasonable job of configuring things for you.

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#12 2008-08-15 21:50:11

Robstar
Member
Registered: 2008-08-12
Posts: 33

Re: nVidia, Xorg and _ Freeze[SOLVED]

Looks like I am one step ahead again. I have downloaded hwd and used that to set up my xorg.conf as well, but it doe not do nvidia (nvidia-xconfig).


32-bit Gentoo -to- Arch64
If you could be so kind, but when you found the solution,
edit your first post and add to the title '[SOLVED]'.

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#13 2008-08-17 09:26:54

Robstar
Member
Registered: 2008-08-12
Posts: 33

Re: nVidia, Xorg and _ Freeze[SOLVED]

Is there anything else I should care to mention?


32-bit Gentoo -to- Arch64
If you could be so kind, but when you found the solution,
edit your first post and add to the title '[SOLVED]'.

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#14 2008-08-17 20:06:51

azolotko
Member
Registered: 2008-04-25
Posts: 5

Re: nVidia, Xorg and _ Freeze[SOLVED]

I recently had a similar problem. The reason was a low AGP aperture size in BIOS. I had only 32MB. Increasing the aperture size to 128MB solved my problem.

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#15 2008-08-19 08:57:55

Robstar
Member
Registered: 2008-08-12
Posts: 33

Re: nVidia, Xorg and _ Freeze[SOLVED]

I had mine set to 64MB, so I moved it to 128MB. I got the same error, a blank screen with a '_' in the corner.
I also had another one 256MB, so I tried that. Still nothing.


32-bit Gentoo -to- Arch64
If you could be so kind, but when you found the solution,
edit your first post and add to the title '[SOLVED]'.

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#16 2008-08-19 10:13:02

bwalk
Member
Registered: 2007-03-21
Posts: 177

Re: nVidia, Xorg and _ Freeze[SOLVED]

Boot a livecd and (if it works) use this xorg.conf and other confs as a start.

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#17 2008-08-19 14:39:09

azolotko
Member
Registered: 2008-04-25
Posts: 5

Re: nVidia, Xorg and _ Freeze[SOLVED]

What is "dmesg | grep nvidia" output?

Try to setup "nvidia-96xx" package instead of "nvidia". Does it work?

Last edited by azolotko (2008-08-19 14:40:49)

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#18 2008-08-19 20:59:08

Robstar
Member
Registered: 2008-08-12
Posts: 33

Re: nVidia, Xorg and _ Freeze[SOLVED]

Turns out, it did not reconise my card was nvidia.
I went out on a limb and got another graphic card. It reconized immediately.


32-bit Gentoo -to- Arch64
If you could be so kind, but when you found the solution,
edit your first post and add to the title '[SOLVED]'.

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