Monitor keeps blinking to black

DJOtaku · 03-14-2009, 10:09 PM

I'm using Fedora 10, nvidia legacy drivers, twinview dual monitor setup. My left monitor keeps blinking to black. My right monitor is behaving 100% perfectly. This just started today (or at least today's the first time I ever noticed it. Sometimes it'll go minutes without blinking and something it'll blink three times in 3 seconds. I swapped out the VGA cable and it's still happening. I also dusted out my computer today, so it's not dust on the graphics card.

How can I figure out if it's happening because of the drivers? Or some kernel upgrade or something like that. Of course, I still have to try another monitor in its place to see if it's the monitor.

To be clear, the power isn't going off, the screen just turns black and my right monitor somewhat blinks as if Linux is saying - switch to just using this monitor. Then it goes back to displaying what it should be.

Thanks,

DJOtaku · 03-15-2009, 08:46 AM

I am now pretty sure it has to do with the nvidia driver and/or xorg.conf. When I switch to a virtual terminal I don't have any problems whatsoever.

DJOtaku · 03-15-2009, 08:54 AM

I deleted my xorg.conf and rebooted. Fedora 10, like Ubuntu 8.x will automatically generate a new xorg.conf for you. Unfortunately, it only generated a one-monitor xorg. So far it appears to be working sans flickers. So, thankfully (money-wise), it's just a software issue. I will post my old/new xorgs in case someone can offer up a suggestion. Also, I will try nvidia's generate an xorg.conf feature to try and bring back twinview.

DJOtaku · 03-15-2009, 11:19 AM

old xorg:

Code:

# Xorg configuration created by livna-config-display

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

Section "Files"
	ModulePath   "/usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/nvidia"
	ModulePath   "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
	Option	    "Xinerama" "0"
	Option	    "AIGLX" "on"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    # generated from default
	Identifier  "Mouse0"
	Driver      "mouse"
	Option	    "Protocol" "auto"
	Option	    "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
	Option	    "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
	Option	    "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# keyboard added by rhpxl
	Identifier  "Keyboard0"
	Driver      "kbd"
	Option	    "XkbModel" "pc105"
	Option	    "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "Monitor0"
	VendorName   "Unknown"
	ModelName    "LCD L17LCD2"
	HorizSync    30.0 - 83.0
	VertRefresh  55.0 - 75.0
	Option	    "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "Videocard0"
	Driver      "nvidia"
	VendorName  "NVIDIA Corporation"
	BoardName   "GeForce FX 5500"
	Option	    "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
EndSection

Section "Screen"

# Removed Option "metamodes" "CRT-0: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, CRT-1: nvidia-auto-select +1280+0"
	Identifier "Screen0"
	Device     "Videocard0"
	Monitor    "Monitor0"
	DefaultDepth     24
	Option	    "TwinView" "1"
	Option	    "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "CRT-0"
	#Option	    "metamodes" "CRT-0: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, CRT-1: 1280x1024 +1280+0; CRT-0: nvidia-auto-select +0+0,CRT-1:  NULL"
	Option "metamodes" "CRT-0: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, CRT-1: nvidia-auto-select +1280+0"
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
	Option	    "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

new xorg:

Code:

# Xorg configuration created by livna-config-display

Section "Files"
	ModulePath   "/usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/nvidia"
	ModulePath   "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
	Option	    "AIGLX" "on"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "Videocard0"
	Driver      "nvidia"
	Option	    "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
	Option	    "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

DJOtaku · 03-15-2009, 05:59 PM

interestingly - glxgears runs very, very slowly now - 4 FPS. What does this tell me? I know the nvidia driver is loaded becausae I did an lsmod | grep nvidia.

John VV · 03-15-2009, 06:54 PM

DJOtaku , how did you install the driver ?
did you use the 173 kmod in the fedora repos or did you install the nvidia.run ?

DJOtaku · 03-15-2009, 08:24 PM

I used the fedora RPM fusion repos. I have the akmod rpm that's supposed to produce the latest version if it hasn't been released yet.

John VV · 03-15-2009, 09:11 PM

and it is this rpm
akmod-nvidia-173xx-173.14.16-1.fc10.i686.rpm

Code:

rpm -qa | grep nvidia

and you still get 4 fps using the old xorg.conf or is that with using the new xorg.conf

? that "new " file it was made from running " livna-config-display " ?

DJOtaku · 03-16-2009, 04:06 AM

Code:

$ rpm -qa | grep nvidia
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-173xx-libs-173.14.16-1.fc10.i386
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-173xx-devel-173.14.16-1.fc10.i386
kmod-nvidia-173xx-2.6.27.12-170.2.5.fc10.i686-173.14.16-1.fc10.i686
kmod-nvidia-173xx-2.6.27.15-170.2.24.fc10.i686-173.14.16-1.fc10.1.i686
akmod-nvidia-173xx-173.14.16-1.fc10.i686
kmod-nvidia-173xx-2.6.27.19-170.2.35.fc10.i686-173.14.16-1.fc10.2.i686
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-173xx-173.14.16-1.fc10.i386

Code:

$ glxgears 
27 frames in 5.1 seconds =  5.334 FPS
27 frames in 5.1 seconds =  5.247 FPS

I deleted my xorg.conf and that new one was auto-created for me.

John VV · 03-16-2009, 11:57 AM

the only thing i can think of would be add a few lines to the old xorg.conf
[code]
Section "Files"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/nvidia"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
EndSection

# and with two screen sections these go here
Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce FX 5500"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
Option "UseEvents" "False"
Option "RenderAccel" "True"
Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "True"
Option "NVAGP" "3"
EndSection

DJOtaku · 03-16-2009, 12:01 PM

ok, I'll give that a shot when I get home from work. Did something change in Xorg or Xrandr or something? Those lines weren't in there before and it was working fine.

John VV · 03-16-2009, 12:34 PM

these are the options i have gotten through the nvidia README for installing the nvidia driver
in the set up and configure section

http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_d...173.14.18.html

Quote:

STEP 3: Install
....
Instructions for those wishing to edit their X config file by hand can also be found in the README.

the nvidia README
http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree8...DME/index.html

DJOtaku · 03-16-2009, 02:48 PM

OK, before switching to your options I tried glxgears again; mysteriously, glxgears is now reporting in the 1400 fps range.

However, with your options, my situation isn't any better.

I did notice something I forgot to mention. Previously, both my monitors would be at the same resolution. Right now my right-most monitor (the one that doesn't flicker) is at 800x640 or something huge like that. They don't match up anymore. I wonder if that's a clue as to what's going wrong?

Also, if I leave it flickering for too long, it dumps me back to GDM - I guess basically the graphics driver is crashing.

DJOtaku · 03-16-2009, 02:52 PM

sometimes, however, running glxgears freezes the screen and i have to control-alt-backspace

DJOtaku · 03-16-2009, 03:40 PM

Tried running a liveCD of Mandriva. They loaded the nvidia 173 drivers and it crashed when running glxgears.

Sometimes (back on my Fedora box) X.org has been taking up like 90% of the CPU.

Does it sound like perhaps my graphics card or some other bit of hardware is failing? What could I check to confirm this?

Thanks!