Driver for nVidia 6800 GT on debian 10.2 "Buster"
Hi there,
this Linux box needed an upgrade. Debian 10.2 installed fine but didn't get the graphics driver right automatically. We have here an nVidia 6800 GT. With nouveau, the colours are weird, psychadelic, wrong. Where there should be a smooth gradient, we get clearly visible stripes of a lot less colours than 24 bit should be able to produce. Orange turns light blue, white stays white. There's a lot of gray on this site (which should be some blue, IIRC), which makes reading the black text impossible without highlighting it. from /var/log/Xorg.0.log: Code:
(II) [drm] nouveau interface version: 1.3.1 Starting with the kernel option nomodeset, we get correct colours, but the resolution cannot get over 1024x768, which is undesirable on a FullHD screen. Creating new modelines with cvt works but they cannot be added through xrandr because there are no output names, just "+default". The nVidia proprietary driver doesn't seem like an option atm. Buster provides nvidia-legacy back to 340, but the 6800 GT is last supported by 304. I tried adding stretch to /etc/apt/sources.lst, but nvidia-legacy-304xx won't install due to dependencies which apt says are impossible to install. Is there some configuration for nouveau, which can mitigate the colour problem? |
What made it "need" an updgrade? Was everything working well no longer? Upgrade from what? How was it upgraded? If upgrade rather than fresh installation, do any remnants of any NVidia driver remain in /etc/X11/xorg.con* or /lib/? They well can prevent proper FOSS DDX operation.
Try purging xserver-xorg-video-nouveau. The much newer modesetting (upstream) default DDX should then automatically be used. It works for me using NVidia GPUs both newer and older than yours. Nomodeset is a troubleshooting tool, intended only for temporary use. The marked line is no issue. Lines with (EE) should be the only ones of a serious nature. (WW) warnings usually are non-serious. EE lines reporting "Failed to load module" can be ignored as long as any appropriate module loads and stays loaded. |
It was a MythBuntu 12.04 based on (you guessed that) Ubutnut 12.04 and therefore long out of security update time.
MythBuntu doesn't exist any longer, so I did a fresh install. I'll try that modesetting thin I've never heard about until now. Thanks. |
^ so it's SOLVED through reinstall?
|
Not yet.
When trying to purge the nouveau driver, this is what apt tells me: Code:
root@hostname:/home/user# apt-get purge xserver-xorg-video-nouveau But those last four packets are troubling me. Will X still work after "task-xfce-desktop" has been removed? A few hours ago, I have been here, done that already. The NIC stopped working and I don't know what else. So I re-installed debian 10 from my CD just now. Have a completely ootb system now. |
Quote:
|
Hi again!
I tried purging the package xserver-xorg-video-nouveau (which includes the 3 other packages mentioned above) and rebooted after that. But that didn't work out as expected. Colours are still distorted. There still seems a nouveau to be running somewhere in the system: Code:
user@host:~$ lsmod | grep nouveau |
You can blacklist nouveau.
Do you have an appropriate video driver to take over, or do you just want to use the fallback driver? |
I'm trying to follow mrmazda's advice to use the "modesetting (upstream) default DDX".
|
Blacklisting the nouveau kernel driver will defeat both DDX, nouveau (xserver-xorg-video-nouveau) and modesetting (upstream default, provided by server package). Without any installed proprietary driver, the blacklisting forces use of either the fbdev or vesa driver, both of which are very slow, and limited in available modes, usually to only a small selection of low resolution 4:3 aspect modes.
Strange colors behavior is typical of hardware failure, either a cable connector, cable, or the RAM or one or more capacitors on the gfxcard. Possibly removing and reinserting the 6800GT in its slot could help. That the colors problem goes away when nomodeset forces use of a generic fallback driver suggests to me the problem is more likely failing/failed gfxcard RAM, or an overheat failure from a failed fan. A 6800GT comes from an era when capacitor longevity was a common problem. My much newer 8600GT was such a victim, but I was able to replace its bad caps, so it's still in service using the modesetting DDX. Badcaps.net describes the caps problem with example images, and possible replacement solutions. |
We can rule out the hardware problem because booting either MythBuntu 10.04 or SystemRescueCD (don't know what version atm) from CD results in perfectly fine image, both resolution and colours.
|
Quote:
|
I recommend trying the proper legacy proprietary driver for this.
How to find the proper one. |
Quote:
Quote:
|
Do you have space available to install Stretch? That should enable installation of legacy 304 so that at least you could find out if it's any better, and should be supported until more than two years at least from now.
|
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 11:36 PM. |