Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT PCI-Express issue

morbius · 06-08-2005, 05:42 AM

I have a Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT PCI-Express video card and I have recently installed suse 9.3. Every time i try to install the official nvidia drivers, they will not initialize properly and all i get is a corrupted display image and the only thing to do is to kill the X server. oh, and while the display is corrupted i can't swith to any console (1 to 6). have any ideas?
I have a 64-bit intel processor, 1GB ram, 2 SATA disks and a IDE disk, a dvd-writer, LCD monitor, and the above-mentioned video card.
Please help out, anything would be usefull at this point...

LinuxVB · 06-09-2005, 11:45 AM

The suse kernel has framebuffer support built in.

I suspect that's why you get no consoles.
I have the same problem with a 5200 PCI card.
Turn off that framebuffer by setting
vga=normal like in the GRUB failsafe configuration and see if the consoles are useable.

I'm unsure what to tell you about the driver not working, though, other than:
ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Li...36/README.IA64
Says the ia64 driver only supports 2.4 kernels newer than 2.4.13 and not any 2.6 kernels.

In general:
1) Kernel sources must be installed and configured. Usually this means
installing the 'kernel-source', 'make' and 'gcc' packages with YaST2.
Update it - if not already done - via YaST2 Online Update (YOU).
Then
cd /usr/src/linux
make cloneconfig
make prepare-all

2) Use the nvidia installer for 1.0-5336. (Make sure it's the ia64 driver)

modprobe agpgart
sh NVIDIA-Linux-ia64-1.0-5336-pkg1.run -q

3) Configure X.Org with

sax2 -m 0=nvidia (0 is a digit, not a letter!)

You may not be able to modprobe agpgart successfully with PCI Express.
Try the different settings of NVIDIA agpgart from
/usr/share/doc/NVIDIA_GLX-1.0/README

by editing the xorg.conf file after Sax2 writes it.

Option "NvAGP" "integer"

Configure AGP support. Integer argument can be one of:

Value Behavior
----------------------------- -----------------------------
0 disable agp
1 use NVIDIA's internal AGP
support, if possible
2 use AGPGART, if possible
3 use any agp support (try
AGPGART, then NVIDIA's AGP)

Please note that NVIDIA's internal AGP support cannot work if AGPGART
is either statically compiled into your kernel or is built as a
module, but loaded into your kernel (some distributions load AGPGART
into the kernel at boot up). Default: 3 (the default was 1 until after
1.0-1251).

kak · 06-09-2005, 06:21 PM

Actually with PCI-express you don't need agpgart.

Here is my xorg file's relevent sections (I have a 6800gt PCI-Express driving my Samsung 930b LCD):

Quote:

**********************************************************************
# Monitor section
# **********************************************************************

# Any number of monitor sections may be present

Section "Monitor"

Identifier "930B"

# HorizSync is in kHz unless units are specified.
# HorizSync may be a comma separated list of discrete values, or a
# comma separated list of ranges of values.
# NOTE: THE VALUES HERE ARE EXAMPLES ONLY. REFER TO YOUR MONITOR'S
# USER MANUAL FOR THE CORRECT NUMBERS.

HorizSync 30-81

# HorizSync 30-64 # multisync
# HorizSync 31.5, 35.2 # multiple fixed sync frequencies
# HorizSync 15-25, 30-50 # multiple ranges of sync frequencies

# VertRefresh is in Hz unless units are specified.
# VertRefresh may be a comma separated list of discrete values, or a
# comma separated list of ranges of values.
# NOTE: THE VALUES HERE ARE EXAMPLES ONLY. REFER TO YOUR MONITOR'S
# USER MANUAL FOR THE CORRECT NUMBERS.

VertRefresh 56-75

EndSection

# **********************************************************************
# Graphics device section
# **********************************************************************

# Any number of graphics device sections may be present

# Standard VGA Device:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Standard VGA"
VendorName "Unknown"
BoardName "Unknown"

# The chipset line is optional in most cases. It can be used to override
# the driver's chipset detection, and should not normally be specified.

# Chipset "generic"

# The Driver line must be present. When using run-time loadable driver
# modules, this line instructs the server to load the specified driver
# module. Even when not using loadable driver modules, this line
# indicates which driver should interpret the information in this section.

Driver "vga"
# The BusID line is used to specify which of possibly multiple devices
# this section is intended for. When this line isn't present, a device
# section can only match up with the primary video device. For PCI
# devices a line like the following could be used. This line should not
# normally be included unless there is more than one video device
# intalled.

# BusID "PCI:0:10:0"

# VideoRam 256

# Clocks 25.2 28.3

EndSection

# Device configured by xorgconfig:

Section "Device"
Identifier "6800GT"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "NoLogo" "true"
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
#VideoRam 262144
# Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
EndSection

# **********************************************************************
# Screen sections
# **********************************************************************

# Any number of screen sections may be present. Each describes
# the configuration of a single screen. A single specific screen section
# may be specified from the X server command line with the "-screen"
# option.
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen 1"
Device "6800GT"
Monitor "930B"
DefaultDepth 24

Subsection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
EndSection

Make sure it states

Quote:

Load "glx"

in your xorg.conf file.
Also make sure you use the correct Horz & Vert rates for your LCD.
I am on Xorg 6.8.2 using the Nvidia 7664 driver.