ok i'll admit that i'm a noob but i am learning fast.

i installed the nvidia drivers following the instructions here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...icle&artid=113

and edited the XF86Config-4 file as given

when i started X again the screen imediatly went blank (as normal the screen goes black when X loads) but then it turned itself off.

the startup sound in KDE played so i knew that it had all loaded. so i figured i'd follow the help information in the nvidia guide. (incidently doing any debugging is made 10 times harder when the screen doesn't work) i had to use the mandrake recovery to mount drives and boot into console then with some tips from a friend use Vim (anyone else think this isn't a program for noobs?) to alter my /etc/inittab file so that i booted to a command prompt to work from (where i could use emacs).

there are no error messages in the error log

and proceded to change the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file back from the "nvidia" to the "nv"

once that was done i ran startx x loaded fine (kde apps threw up errors for some reason but this i will look into after sorting graphics as the graphics possably causes this). so i figured i was saved and that i could at least use my computer just without the 3D stuff working properly.

however for some reason every time i reboot my /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file is reset to use the nvidia driver and the screen turns itself off. meaning i have to edit it every time i reboot the computer.

this is linked slightly to a thread here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=179304

primaraly i'd like to have the 3D working but most importantly id like to be able to use my computer without having to edit a text file every time i turn my computer on.

my computer is:
AMD 2200
RAM: Samsung 1 x 512
motherboard: Abit KX7-333R
grpahics card:
ASUS V8460/V8440 TD (VGA + DVI-out + TV-out)(numbers from documentation that came with the card, i'm not sure which it is but i can pull my computer appart to have a look if it makes a difference)
graphics chipset: Nvidia GeForce4 Ti4600/4400 GPU featuring nFiniteFX engine
128 DDR memory

I have managed to short term solve the problem by running the command

NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6106-pkg1.run --uninstall

and resetting my /etc/inittab and /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 files

and now X loads and i am happy in the short term but obviously i'm back where i started. can anyone help solving the 3D problem?

The screen goes blank because the signal from the graphics card is out of range for the monitor. Don't panic I had this problem, tell me what type of monitor do you have (CRT or DFP) and which graphics card connection are you using?

the monitor is a CRT
CTX VL950/VL950T

i tried testing it at different resolutions with XFdrake but that didn't work

I'll assume you using a vga connection. In your X config file you should have something similar to what I have listed below. The first line in bold tells the driver that the connected monitor is a CRT, the second bold line tells the driver which types of display to ignore.

Section "Device"
Identifier "device1"
VendorName "nVidia Corporation"
BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce FX (generic)"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "DPMS"
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "CRT"
Option "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "DFP, TV"
EndSection

An easier way to boot up into text mode is to press ESC at the boot prompt and type "entry init 3" without the quotes and where entry is the text you select to boot into linux, its most probably linux. That will save you having to edit your inittab file.

sorry for the slow response. too much work and no time to play. thanks for the suggestion but it didn't work. a friend mentioned it could be something to do with the signal being out of range of the monitor but that would cause the monitor to come up with a message saying "out of range"

any ideas?

i'm also now getting an error message:
Failed to load module "GLcore" (module does not exist, 0)

Well an out of range signal would be followed by your monitor turning itself off. You might want to try changing the values of the lines HorizSync and VertRefresh in your X config file to those of your monitor.

In the nvidia readme it states:
You should also remove the following lines:

Load "dri"
Load "GLcore"

So to get rid of the error message remove the Load "GLcore" line

Just an update

I can only attribute this problem to my card as it has remained consistent with all distros using the 2.6 kernel and xorg combinations. so I'm stuck with 2.4 kernel and XFree86 (It could be worse)

Thanks all for your help though