Crash on OpenSUSE 12.3 after changing graphics card from ATI to NVIDIA
 

Hi all,

On my work computer I replaced my video card from an older, unsupported (by ATI) video card to a new NVIDIA GeForce 210 which should be supported. However, after booting, the system hangs with garbage. I see messages from nouveau with some numbers (don't have a screenshot available here, but I can make one tomorrow).

After turning the machine on and off I receive a kernel panic just after trying to start. The only way I can get the machine to boot a bit further, I need to unplug the power cord and wait for a minute. After plugging it back in, the first situation comes back. So I cannot boot into X.

I know I should be able to boot into a single user mode but can't find out how to so. I pressed "e" to modify the boot options and added "1" after the line that starts with "linux". However, this doesn't seem to work, I still get the garbage and the "nouveau" numbers.

Can anyone help me out? I'm wondering how to get into a shell to replace the nouveau drivers with NVIDIA's drivers.

Did it try to boot into runlevel 1 and fail or did it not do it? Try runlevel 3 too (e to edit at grub and then 3...), that shouldn't start the display drivers either.

If the system is essentially up but you can't see anything would it be possible to ssh into it and install the nvidia drivers? The drivers can be installed via Yast, enable the Nvidia repro and then look for Nvidia in software-manager.

By garbage, do you mean messed up X chunks everywhere?
I haven't tried 12.3, but i used 12.2 on two nvidia machines for a while, and i had Nouveau do what i described (messed up X chunks) on both machines. for some reason, i found that when Opensuse displayed its boot splash screen, if i pressed Esc, to hide it and watch the boot messages instead, it would boot fine afterwards. Try it, and if it manages to boot X, then you can install the Nvidia drivers once booted.

Boot to level 3 and run sax2 I think maybe??

Well, I put the old graphics card back in, and removed the splash boot screen. I prefer the text boot anyway, and after that, I found the nouveau messages. It is just a bunch of numbers and in the left top of the screen some weird characters, each time with a different background color.

Anyway, I didn't think of installing the nvidia drivers after putting back in the old graphics card, I'll try that later (it's a work pc and my boss gets mad if I spent the whole day trying to replace video cards ;)). I'll kick this topic once I have more information.

Btw: The booting to runlevel 1 worked exactly like I didn't put the 1 after the "linux" line, it simply booted, tried to load the nouveau driver and crashed again..

Strange... from your post I think you put it in the correct place. Try "init X", where the X is the number you want, see if that makes it do it.