managed to get linux installed which is fine. then tried to boot the system and it works until just after the first green [ok] then the screen goes black and displays a message saying 'unsupported'. have done further investigation and it seems that the display is transmitting beyond the frequency that my monitors (i have tried it on two monitors and one TV) are capable of.

I am using an onboard videocard nvidia geforce7. the big problem is that the display cuts out before i can do anything - can anyone offer any suggestions?

I will try and plug in an alternate video card which if it works means I could install the correct drivers/fiddle with the settings which should hopefully fix the problem.............

has anyone heard of this issue before?

Googling and/or using the search function on this site would get you loads of information.

You fail to mention what distro you've installed.

Boot your system with a LiveCD, edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file on your installed system. Find the line for the video card driver. Change the driver to "vesa" to get your system up and running. Then you can go through the steps needed to install the correct NVidia driver.

Yes:
Knowing which Linux you are using would help us give precise advice.
What you need to do is boot in single user mode, you do not need to go downloading other distributions if not necessary. If I knew which distribution you're using I could probably tell you how as they are different from one to the other.
All Linux systems come with a generic Nvidia driver.
Most Linux distributions will install a default editor which you can use to edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to change the driver in the "device" section to "nv" if it is using something else. If it is using "nv", try "vesa" as previously mentioned.

You can also just go to Nvidia web site and get the latest proprietary driver for your card in the Linux drivers section, download into your home directory, install linux-kernel-headers or kernel-devel packages etc with package manager app.(depends on which Linux you are using), which should also install all necessary packages for compiling modules. Navigate to your home directory from command line in single user mode and issue these two commands to install:
You would have to change the second command to reflect the actual name of the Nvidia package you downloaded.
Towards the end of the process it will ask if you want it to configure the xorg.conf file, say yes. When you are returned to a command prompt, you can either start graphics at this point or issue command: reboot to reboot into graphics mode.

thanks!!

I have booted from the live cd and logged in as root - i have also downloaded the latest file ~(which apparently has a self-extractor - I have saved it on a flash stick [should also complicate things as to how i end up accessing it!!!! :P]) form nvidia - all i've got to do now is find out how to naviagte from the live cd to my local directory and edit the xorg.conf and/or change the nv. I've got some books on this so i'll have to do my research - any tips on how to access my xorg.conf from the live cd?

by the way, i'm using fedora 9 x86_64.

many thanks.........

Although I'm still only on Fedora 7, the best way to install Nvidia in Fedora was to enable the livna repository and issue command:
The command is a little different in Fedora 9, check out this wonderful tutorial on setting up Fedora 9.
This is way easier than the previous suggestion, and because Fedora's kernel is always changing, doing it this way will automatically update your Nvidia packages also. Using the driver from Nvidia's site will require you to re-install after every kernel update...which is often.
Now you know the importance of mentioning your distribution in the first post. You should put it in your profile and people can figure it out if you forget again.

To boot into single user mode (Fedora 7).
Boot it up and hit any key when the grub boot splash appears, type a to edit kernel parameters before booting (stop and read what yours suggest to edit the kernel boot parameters), at the end of the kernel boot parameter line will be the cursor, hit space bar to add one space and type 1 and hit enter. This will put you in single user mode (as root) where you can issue necessary commands while the x-window-system is not running.
Normally you cannot install packages on a hard drive Linux installation from a live CD. You may be able to do it if you mount the hard drive installation in a chroot.

all good - i have managed to log into single mode and try out some commands - however - it seems that my computer cannot find the internet address - please bear in mind that my os hasnt booted fully yet so in my newbie opinion i recon it hasnt configured the internet yet - do you think this might be the case (the cable is plugged in, LEDs are on and i have used the cable without any changes right before switching to linux)?

yep - ran netstat -i and /sbin/ifconfig and both state that there is a lo but no eth devices! i guess that means that my onboard ethernet device isn't connecting. like i said before i havent logged into the GUI yet as i need to resolve the display issue - anyone got any tips how i can get the computer to regognise that the internet is plugged in and that it can access them updates it needs!!!??????

In single user mode you have to load the module for the ethernet card manually and then start networking manually.

If you simply edit xorg.conf to use the vesa video driver you can boot into a fully functional system and then do whatever you need to do. And Junior Hacker is correct about enabling the repository and using YUM to install the correct NVidia driver. Fedora get's touchy about installing things manually. They also upgrade the kernel pretty often, in which case you would have to manually reinstall the driver as opposed to having it done automatically for you.

i tried to use ed to edit the xorg.conf file and it told me that the directory wasn't valid!