Asus GT630-SL-2GD3-L Graphic Card Not Recognized (Ubuntu 13.04)
 

I installed the Asus GT630-SL-2GD3-L graphic card. However, upon booting the computer simply went to a low resolution default mode. When I checked the monitor (display) if did not detect the monitor at all. Furthermore, since this video card is Nvidia based, I exptected to see a list of proprietary/open source drivers for it. No such list appeared.

The card does work correctly when I boot into Windows 7. As an additional experiment I also installed the card in another computer that already had the Nvidia drivers loaded. In that case, the video display was at the high resolution and the monitor (display) correctly reported the name of the monitor. Based on that information, it would seem that the Nvidia drivers would need to be manually downloaded and preinstalled since their absence was not automatically detected.

I went to the Ubuntu software center and downloaded the Nvidia current driver. Unfortunately that did not resolve the situation and made things worse. I now have a blank (black) screen after Ubuntu loads. (The programs still appear to be working, but I have to use terminal mode). I did use apt-get to reload the desktop, to reload xorg, and to reload Unity. I have also gotten an error message that a monitor was detected but that there was no suitable configuration. None of those actions worked.

I have been reduced to Ubuntu simply booting into the command line with the video card installed. I get the error message:I just removed the Asus graphic card so I am back to the on-board video with a blank screen, but using the terminal.

I now have two issues to resolve. One how to get the Ubuntu desktop back. Second how to get the Nvidia drivers manually loaded for use.

Any sugestions?

I ran accross this website How To Reset Compiz And Unity In Ubuntu 12.10 Or 13.04. Executed the unity-reset command. Rebooted. The launcher/icons were restored. This reset was based on using the on-board graphic port. Alas it was not to stay that way.

After what appeared to be an intitial success following the installation of the temporary card; it failed. I got the temporary card to work at the 2560x1440 resolution with the launcher and icons visible in Computer A. Replaced the temporary card with the Asus GT630 and everything failed again in computer A. I put the temporary card back into Computer A, but the screen is once again blank, but I do have the full resolution of 2560x1440. :rolleyes: Now if i can just get the unity-reset command to work again.

What I will probably do is once again is to back-track and take out the video card from computer A and go back to the on-board video and see if I can resolve the blank screen issue once again.

I've installed the Asus GT630 in Computer B. Guess what, it loaded right up and the monitor seems to be a bit crisper than when the other (temporary) card was in it. Maybe that is a sign of desperation. I may just end-up leaving the Asus GT63 card in Computer B. That's it for tonight.

If your computer BIOS is set to 'use onbaord' (or similar, eg 'onboard + PCIe video') and you have a non-nVidia onboard video chip/GPU, the system can have issues loading the nVidia drivers.

Try going into your BIOS and setting video to 'PCIe', saving that, then rebooting and chnage the video cable from the onboard port to the video card.

Good suggestion. As usual, there will be a significant after work time delay.

Well, the launcher/icons, when using the motherboard on-board video were (once again) restored very late last night. A tired yeah :(. The issue may be related to compiz (based on the scrolling error messages). I removed compiz, deleted the compiz configuration files in my home directory and re-installed compiz. Since, I have been doing numerous tweaks, I can't say with certainty that re-installing compiz "solved" the disappearing launcher/icons.

I hope that my posts have not become too incoherent, since they involve numerous hardware swapping/configurations.

Plan of Action:

1. The Asus GT630-SL-2GD3-L video card is currently installed in computer B and for all apparent purposes it works correctly with a 23" monitor at the 1920 x 1080 resolution. I'll move the new Asus PB278Q to computer B to see if it works correctly at the 2560x1440 Resolution. The PB27BQ did (previously) work correctly at the 2560x1440 Resolution with the Gigabyte GeForce 210 graphic card on computer B. So if all the new stuff works with computer B, at least we know that the ever elusive something is out of place with computer A.
   
2. I will look into the BIOS PCIe setting on computer A. Computer A uses the Asus P8B75-M LX Plus motherboard.
   
3. Since the launcher/icons seem to disappear after rebooting with a graphic card installed in the PCI slot of computer A, I am contemplating using the 23" monitor first since it would not result in a resolution change from the on-board video (computer A).
   
4. If the 23" monitor works as expected with the Gigabyte GeForce 210 graphic card (computer A) then I will try the Asus PB278Q monitor once again. Previously, on computer B, the gigabyte video card and the Asus PB278Q did work correctly.

I may not post back for a while, pending how fast I get through the hardware swapping configurations. Fortunately, we have a long weekend. Can't think of a better way to spend the weekend!! :rolleyes:

The short answer; the user .compiz-1 and .dconf files seemed to have been corrupted when playing with the video cards. The solution, I found is here Reset Unity and Gnome to default values [duplicate]

Here are the instructions provided by Zta.
As a very wild stab in the dark, I asked myself what would happen if I disabled the autologin and logged into my wife's account. Presto, the screen was normal. I then looked-up how to reset a user's default set-up. Which is the solution above. So a solution was found and the motherboard does recongize the Asus GT630SL2GD3L and the Asus PB27BQ monitor now works at full 2560x1440 Resolution.

This step was completed successufly.

Playing with the BIOS PCIe setting had no effect.

This step failed. Installing the card Gigabyte GeForce 210 graphic card and hooking it up to the 23" monitor failed in the sense that the screen went balnk (black). At this point, I went ahead and reinstalled unity/xorg/compiz all to no avail. I then moved the Gigabyte GeForce 210 graphic card and 23" monitor back to computer B, where everything worked. I reinstalled the Asus GT630SL2GD3 graphic card and the PB278Q monitor on computer A and rebooted. The screen, of course, was blank (black). After contemplating that situation, I decided to see what would happen if I logged into a different account. The screen appeared normal, which made re-setting my account the solution. Hoepfully this solution "sticks".

BIOS-> Advanced-> System Agent Configuration-> Graphics Confiuguration-> Primary Display. Set this to 'PCIe'.

Reboot, change video cable from onbaord to the PCIe card (if needed), then rerun jockey and get the 304.XX drivers.

@cascade9: Thanks. All is well. Now I've got figure out what do with my newly found free time. :)

Working now? Good. Enjoy! :D

Upgrading to Ubuntu 13.10 knocked-out the Asus GT630-SL-2GD3-L graphic card, so that I got the black/blank screen. The issue can still be considered "resolved" as I "fixed" it by switching graphic cards, a less than optimal solution. The purpose of this post is just to leave a "paper" trail for when I re-tackle this issue in the future and for others should they have the same issue.

In researching this issue it appears:

a) Nvidea cards appear to be slow in being recognized by Ubuntu.

On computer(B) the Nvidia drivers are shown as being available for the GT630SL2GD3 and graphic card(B) in settings. However, on computer(A), the computer with the problems, no driver options are shown for either video card.

The issue may be limited to my graphic card/motherboard(P8B75-M LX PLUS) combination since swapping cards resolved the situation. I will wait a while, then experiment again with the GT630SL2GD3L installed.

b) Evidently the Intel graphic chip set has "issues".

See this Nixie Pixel U-tube Video Ubuntu Black Screen of DEATH - Howto Fix It. Since the "black screen of death", in my situation, appears late in the boot process, I don't know if that would resolve the issue, but it is worth a future experiment.

Fix Slow Graphics Performance on Ubuntu 13.04 + Intel GPU. I followed the advice. No improvement noted with graphic card(B). Eventually, I will put the GT630SL2GD3L back into computer(A) and see what happens.

As an aside: one post that I ran across recommended removing any graphic cards before running an upgrade. Then re-installing the graphic card after a successful upgrade.

Install NVIDIA GeForce driver in Ubuntu 13.10 / 13.04 / 12.10 / 12.04 using PPA

herakles_14 posted the link below. Assuming that Unity is the issue, herakles_14 post may have some relevance to recovering from the black/blank screen issue.
How to completely remove Unity, and replace it with Cinnamon?

The 'ubuntu hardware drivers tool doesnt recognise that an nVidia card is installed or offer any drivers for it'is a long standing problem with ubuntu. Its not common, but it has happened on and off for years.

Far more likely to be some unity issue than intel video drivers problem.

IMO your do better to use a DE that is more commonly used with ubuntu (eg Lxde, Xfce, KDE).

Its far simpler than messing with ^%*%^* PPAs. There are even terminal commands for how to change a ubuntu install into kubuntu (KDE) xubuntu (xfce) or lubuntu (Lxde).

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/purexubuntu

Its just a pity that the psychocats.net site appears to not have directions for how to change ubuntu 13.04 to xubuntu/lubuntu/kubuntu 13.04. The 12.10 directions should work, but there could be a couple of pakages that the 12.10 directions doesnt remove with 13.04.

Thanks for following this thread. Since everything is currently working, I may not do any graphic card swapping and experimenting for a while. I may even wait till when Ubuntu 14.04 is released and experiment once again. :)

Good tip and something to be considered in the future.


Agree. Considering the Intel video drivers (even if improbable) is just one of those issues that need to be examined in finding a solution.

Success. :D. Once again, the Asus GT630-SL-2GD3-L graphic card successfully works with computer "A".

Since today is a three day weekend, I decided to take another stab at this. It appears that an associated, but unknown, Nvidia program may have been causing the problem by "locking" the computer "A" display to the nvidia 3.04 driver. I noticed in computer "B" that the nvidia driver was version 3.19. I took a more aggressive approach in removing everything nvidia on computer "A". The initial re-boot on computer "A" (video) failed, but in the subsequent reboot the video worked.

Under Ubuntu's systems settings; Computer "A" still does not show the nvidia proprietary drivers. However issuing the command below (from the terminal) does show that the nvidia 3.19 driver is now in use.
In researching this issue, I noticed a lack of information on how to actually use jockey from the command line. The options for using jockey can be displayed by using the code below.
Also many posts suggested the following sequence of commands issued in the terminal when upgrading/changing the video drivers.