I've been having a problem with my old 32-bit PC, but that's not what I want to ask about. After trying some software fixes, I decided to see if it was my video card causing the problem. I pulled out the nVidia GeForce FX5200 card I was using, leaving me the GeForce MX2 graphics built into the motherboard. It's possible I was using the motherboard graphics when I installed Slackware 13.37, then installed the FX5200 sometime later, and after that installed Slackware 14.1. It's the latter version of Slackware that is giving me a new problem.

After removing the graphics card and connecting the monitor to the motherboard, I could no longer see anything on the screen after some of the boot messages appeared (probably when the modesetting occurred) except a big, purple sign that said "OUT OF RANGE", if I recall correctly. Maybe "OUT OF LIMITS". It's a Princeton Ultra 72 CRT monitor, and in some xorg.conf files I had formerly used with it I had hsync set up for 30.0 - 72.0 and vertrefresh at 50 - 160, which I probably copied from the back of the monitor since I don't have the manual. Slackware 13.37 still boots fine, and it loads the nouveau driver in the console, but I black-listed nouveau on 14.1 just in case. 14.1 booted fine after that. I boot to the command line before I run X manually, and it was some of the boot-time messages that disappeared while the nouveau driver was loaded.

Once I was able to log in, I tried running X. All I got was a black screen, and it seemed as though the keyboard was no longer responding. It didn't seem to have created a new /var/log/Xorg.0.log file. As root, I ran "Xorg -configure", but it said it failed at some point, although it created xorg.conf.new. I didn't look too closely at that file, but it does have three Screen sections. I took one of my old xorg.conf files I had used in 13.37 and modified it for the motherboard graphics chip using the nv driver and X works now, or at least hasn't given me problems in maybe a dozen sessions.

Enough background (I hope). Can anyone explain why the nouveau driver works fine, before running X, on 13.37 but not 14.1? Is it something that was set up during installation that requires that graphics card that I pulled? Before this I had been booting without any xorg.conf, letting X figure things out for itself and letting the nouveau driver load automatically. The man page for nouveau says it supports the motherboard graphics chip, an nVidia NV11.

Thanks for any advice you can offer me.

you can try building yourself a previous-version kernel: I personally had similar problems with the latest kernels and nouveau in console and X on some old hardware (it was some years more recent than yours, though) and I solved it reverting to kernel 3.2.x.

i have a antique gforce 2 mx 400
Nouveau did not run it
the fan NEVER turned on !!!!

the last 96 nvidia.run works just fine
ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/96.43.23/
--NVIDIA-Linux-x86-96.43.23-pkg1.run --

BUT ,and it is a big one
xorg 1.12 is the very LAST update you can use

so you HAVE to have installed 1.12 or 1.11

xorg 1.13 and 1.14 will NOT work


i run ScientificLinux 6.5 on that machine
HOWEVER i have to DOWNGRADE xorg to the version in 6.3

There is a natural limit on how long you can upgrade old hardware with new software and your Geforce 2MX reached that limit with 13.37. The Linux kernel doesn't have a clean EoL policy, so antiquated in-tree FOSS drivers just break down and bit-rot instead of getting removed. Just look how long it took, until someone noticed that the 386 support was broken. The kernel development process has a deficiency here.

The GeForce 2 series is supported by the older "nv" driver... barely.

that old " nv" driver IS 2D ONLY , it has NO 3d code in it

downgrade xorg to 1.12
install the 96.run


the 96 driver is never going to support xorg greater than 1.12

The nouveau developers rarely test there drivers with cards that old, so it is possible that there is a regression here.
Possible solution: Add the video= option to your kernel-commandline in the bootloader configuration, for example to tell the nouveau driver to switch to a resolution of 1024x768 with a 60Hz refresh rate.
If that works you should file a bug-report, so that this can get fixed.

no kidding .I was never able to get the fan to work using the Nouveau driver
mainly there is no thermometer on the MOBO
and nouveau did not see the one on the card

5 min. then system force shout down do to overheating

now Nouveau did not have any issues with plymouth and the vga settings

Did you report that bug?

The Geforce 2MX doesn't have a really useful 3D unit anyway.

Yeah that chip was very crippled by comparison to the GeForce 2 Ti/Pro/Ultra/GTS series.

Looking back from today there is not much difference between a Geforce 2 and a 2MX: fixed-function pipeline, no programmable shaders, barely OpenGL 1.x compliant, ergo practically useless for 3D using Nouveau. Nv supports at least the 2D acceleration units of these antique GPUs, which can still do some scrolling and blitting in hardware.

i never had issues with the inexpensive gforce2 ( when it was newish )
it supported OpenGL 2.2 rather well for a card from 2001

There seems to be a lot of guesswork in the answers without using the proper troubleshooting practices, sorry!

First of all, your clue is in the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file. As soon as you start X, a log file must be created. If it is not created, X is not starting. When X is not starting it is useless to try and find the cause in the video driver. Because it is not even ever used.

So first thing: make sure you don't use anything beyond 80x25 text mode while booting. At this moment I don't exactly know how to accomplish this in Slack, but I am sure Google holds that answer.

Then after you booted, you might get a black screen, but you can use CTRL-ALT-F1 to get a terminal. Use it to look at Xorg.0.log.

If there is no error message at all, it might be that you monitor is sensed incorrectly and the refresh rates are set incorrectly. But Xorg.0.log will tell you exactly which mode has been chosen.

If it seems the "nv" driver is broken, use "vesa". It is horrible, but you'll get a picture and excludes hardware problems. You can also install the non-free NVIDIA driver. NVIDIA is very good at documenting which driver works up to which chip.

But before you suspect drivers, make sure it is a driver problem. Reading the log file will tell you.

jlinkels

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried it, and stopped black-listing the nouveau driver, but if the nouveau driver loads my monitor says "OUT OF RANGE" and that's all that displays.