Monitor shuts off when I try to boot live disk
 

I have no idea why, but whenever I try to boot a live disk - I have tried Manjaro and Funbuntu (the newest of both) - the monitor turns off, as if it's asleep and I can't get it turn back on without hitting the reset button and then the whole thing just repeats.

Does anyone know why this is happening, and what I can do to use my live disks? Without the ability to use a live disk I can't even install a new OS if something goes wrong with one of my hard drives, so I consider this a very serious problem.

I have a Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT video card and I'm using nvidia-current driver, from my repository.

My desktop OS are both Linux Mint - 10 and 14, respectively. I mostly use 14.

You don't say much about the monitor.
/begin technobabble
This was a common issue with CRT monitors not the flat ones. The problem was: the horizontal frequency was too high; So the EHT (The 25kV for the front of the tube) went too high, which was very problematic - the width would be too wide, and stuff would be running over rated voltages; so the beam current (Cathodes to phosphor in the tube) was over the limit. This can burn the phosphor on the tube, and leads to rapid tube degratation. Also too much current was needlessly flying around.Even if you don't damage the phosphor, the tub e will go in a year or two. To prevent this, there was/is as beam limiter circuit which switches off the monitor high voltage section. You have to power down the monitor usually to reset.
/end technobabble
Bottom line - it's being driven too &@$£*! fast. choose a lower resolution, lower speed, text option, or something.

I guess you could try to enable ssh or telnet to see if it is really on or off.

Try to use alternate screens. Some sequence of ctrl-alt and 1 or 2 or such. (you'd think I'd know that by now)


Might try vesa mode at boot.

I don't exactly get the live cd and the nvidia from your repo. Is this a custom live cd?

Thanks for responding!
 

I have a ASUS VB172 15' monitor. The live disks chose a lower resolution that makes everything huge. my resolution on my installed OS is 1280x1024 with a 75 refresh rate. The new Live disks get it wrong every time, and the refresh rate is usually 60, which causes the screen to jump. I don't know how to lower the resolution and speed of the monitor. How do I do that?

How do I enable ssh or telnet while using a live disk that won't boot past the initial screen? I only have one monitor, and considering how small my home and workspace is I don't think we could fit a 2nd monitor in there. When you say "screens" are you referring to different monitors or the same monitor? Also, how do I use vesa mode at boot? I've never seen anything mentioning vesa.

Sorry, if these sound like stupid questions but I really just don't know. I've had my monitor for almost four years now but I've never really given it much thought. This is the only problem I've ever had regarding it. And I only have this problem with Ubuntu based distros. Dreamlinux 5 Live DVD, Fedora and OpenSUSE live disks work fine, except for the jumping because the resolution and refresh rate are off.

Try to add this option to the kernel line in the bootloader:That should fix the issue.

Thank you, but how do I add it when I can't see anything past the initial loading screen? Wouldn't I have to do something to the disk itself for that to work? Is it possible to alter the live disks' iso files before burning them?

Nearly every live cd has a boot loader in there. Hit tab or the letter e as it's loading. In the latter case, it might offer you the boot line. Hit e again and you're in some crude editor, and can add stuff.

Okay. Thanks a lot! I'll try that.

DIdn't work
 

I tried adding video=1280x1024@75 to bootloader on every disk I had this problem with, and even the new Linux mint 15 Olivia didn't work. Monitor still went dead.

Is it possible that my monitor is too old for the new Ubuntu type distros? I tried all my old disks and even the new fedora and Opensuse and they worked fine with my monitor. My monitor never shut off using those. This includes Pear 6, which is supposed to be based on Ubuntu.

Is there a text option to install on any of these distros? At the boot prompt type There can be other issues, e.g. graphics cards. I had an early SiS6326 and it refused to install. It transpired there are 16 modes software developers rely on being there in each card, and they were not in the SiS 6326. PCChips took them over, and the quality has gone up since then.

I have a Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT, which is easy to find drivers for. Ironically, my motherboard (Intel made by Intel) comes with a built in video card, but I installed the Nvidia because I would have an easier time with graphics drivers. Until now, that was true.

Question: After I type in "linux text" I add the video=1280x1024@75, or does it just tell me what is wrong?

If there is a text mode option, you enter some half-assed and ugly looking ncurses environment, but it gets around your graphics paoblems. Nvidia drivers are not standard issue on any distro that I know of.

You may be best using the basic GPU supplied by Intel while you're trying stuff, and get the Nvidia out of the picture temporarily. I'r running on a hd4000, and while it's not a gamer's gpu, it's fine for everything else.

It worked!
 

You were right! I switched to the onboard video card and the live disk works. Unfortunately, gnome no longer looks or works right. I was surprised, because I thought it was the CPU that determined whether Gnome 3 worked or not.

In any case, I consider the problem solved. Thank you for all your help, business_kid! :hattip:

One more question before I close the thread: Do you think I could install Linux Mint 15 OS using the intel video card and then use it with the NVIDIA video card, or would the installed OS have the same issue that the live disk has?

Yes, you can do that. Install the nvidia drivers, & reboot.