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Dell C840 nVidia GeForce 440 Go video broke after -current upgrade

yes, it's me, the resurrector of old laptops. I need clues on this one though...new install and slackpkg upgrade of 14 with kernel 3.2.29 and the machine worked fine...upgrade-all to current with 3.7.1 and it goes TU. As soon as nouveau loads, the screen starts glowing like an alien has possessed it. I can't get at a console to do anything because I can't see anything but a milky, glowing screen. I didn't make a USB boot disk because the BIOS doesn't allow booting from USB...yep, it's old. Simple answer is to just re-install to downgrade to 3.2.9, but can anyone point to some good reading on this?
cheers

It may be possible that the driver has problems to find the correct resolution for the display. Try it with the kernel option

Code:

video=AAAAxBBBB

where you replace AAAAxBBBB with the native resolution of the display, for example

Code:

video=1366x768

Quote:

Originally Posted by TobiSGD (Post 4873780)

It may be possible that the driver has problems to find the correct resolution for the display. Try it with the kernel option

Code:

video=AAAAxBBBB

where you replace AAAAxBBBB with the native resolution of the display, for example

Code:

video=1366x768

yes I guess the driver is having a problem finding the correct resolution...but as I am using slackpkg to upgrade from 14 to current, where in that process would it allow me to insert a kernel option such as this? would I echo this data to some file prior to running lilo after upgrade has finished? or am I going to need to compile a custom kernel? cheers

When the system starts, at your Lilo bootscreen press the Tab-key and enter this into the commandline

Code:

Linux video=1366x768

Of course you have to change the resolution to your needs. If that lets you boot successfully you can add that option to your lilo.conf.

thanks Tobi, I've tried every common resolution from 1600x1200 down to 640x480 and still get nothing but a milky, white screen. I'm just going to re-install fresh from the 14 disks and then upgrade everything but the kernel. Then I'm going to do some reading to learn where things might be broken in 4.7.1

I just got this working yesterday. I'll probably have to post more tonight, if you're still interested, but I added a file '/etc/modprobe.d/nouveau.conf' with the contents 'options nouveau modeset=0'. It boots.

With no further configuration X will start, but it uses the VESA driver and so gets a max res of 1024x768. I did _something_ else, I can't remember what right now (I'm at work) and got the nv(?) driver to be used, with a res of 1400x1050.

While that is less than the max res of 1600x1200, it works.

BTW, to get it to be usable _right_now_ hit tab at LILO and add 'nomodeset' to the boot line.

Posting from my Dell C840. I have no xorg.conf, but I do use xorg.conf.d.

I got some options for nv from, as root, 'X -configure', which creates xorg.conf.new. I cut and pasted from there.

Here's my nouveau.conf:

Code:

test1@tellus:~$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/nouveau.conf 

options nouveau modeset=0

test1@tellus:~$

And here's my devicenv.conf:

Code:

test1@tellus:~$ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/devicenv.conf 

Section "Device"

        ### Available Driver options are:-

        ### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",

        ### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz",

        ### <percent>: "<f>%"

        ### [arg]: arg optional

        #Option    "SWcursor"                  # [<bool>]

        #Option    "HWcursor"                  # [<bool>]

        #Option    "NoAccel"                    # [<bool>]

        #Option    "ShadowFB"                  # [<bool>]

        #Option    "UseFBDev"                  # [<bool>]

        #Option    "Rotate"                    # [<str>]

        #Option    "VideoKey"                  # <i>

        #Option    "FlatPanel"                  # [<bool>]

        #Option    "FPDither"                  # [<bool>]

        #Option    "CrtcNumber"                # <i>

        #Option    "FPScale"                    # [<bool>]

        #Option    "FPTweak"                    # <i>

        #Option    "DualHead"                  # [<bool>]

        Identifier  "Card0"

        Driver      "nv"

        BusID      "PCI:1:0:0"

EndSection

test1@tellus:~$

Here's an lspci -vv for the video:

Code:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV17 [GeForce4 440 Go] (rev a3) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

        Subsystem: Dell Device 00d5

        Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop+ ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-

        Status: Cap+ 66MHz+ UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-

        Latency: 32 (1250ns min, 250ns max)

        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11

        Region 0: Memory at fc000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]

        Region 1: Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]

        Region 2: Memory at dff80000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=512K]

        Expansion ROM at d8000000 [disabled] [size=128K]

        Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2

                Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)

                Status: D0 NoSoftRst- PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-

        Capabilities: [44] AGP version 2.0

                Status: RQ=32 Iso- ArqSz=0 Cal=0 SBA- ITACoh- GART64- HTrans- 64bit- FW+ AGP3- Rate=x1,x2,x4

                Command: RQ=1 ArqSz=0 Cal=0 SBA- AGP- GART64- 64bit- FW- Rate=<none>

I hope this helps you get it sorted.

looks good jamesf...will give this a try on Monday am when I get back to the lab
cheers!

Happy to help! If you need anything more just ask. Don't feel bashful about sending me a PM and I'll reply back in the thread in case I miss a post here.

Also, I found a thread about a similar problem. The guy there said that booting with the lid closed and an external monitor worked with the nouveau driver (IIRC, lost the link).

I'm not in a position to try that and it isn't really a fix for a laptop, IMHO.

My C840 Nvidia driver works now...

Howdy!

I, too was vexed with graphics card problems until I spent some time searching Google for my specific problem.

The nouveau driver package works great with my distro (PCLinuxOS), but I wanted the proprietary NVidia driver.

I downloaded and installed the driver and it appeared to load and run, but I got a blank screen. It is a simple issue of the external VGA port being selected over the onboard display. To fix it, go to http://jdgamble.blogspot.com/2009/11...with-dell.html and follow the few easy steps.

I am still tweaking my xorg.conf file to get the default resolution I want, but it works!

Give it a try. By the way, I do love my old C840. I have upgraded the RAM to 2GB, the wifi card to a b/g/n model and a 160GB HDD. I just installed a 64MB 440 Go graphics card in place of the 32MB version that came with the machine. So far, so good!

Hope that helps!

Are you using vga=normal in your lilo.conf? If not, try that. There have been problems with starting KMS after first starting a VESA mode for quite a while (the 14.0 installer even warns that anything other than vga=normal possibly won't work).