Black screen after installing new NVidia linux driver

English Hardware
1

Hi,

I’m running 11.1 and it was stuck on Mesa drivers even though I had a recognised graphics card ( Nvidia 6600 ). So I decided to install the latest Linux drivers from Nvidia. I followed their instructions, added their repositories to the update list, updated using software management and rebooted my machine. Now I have a black screen instead of the login screen. The machine seems to hang and do nothing. Anyway to restore the machine short of reinstalling ?

Cheers,
Pascal.

2

Checking the NVidia driver site I noticed that I forgot to run the Xorg config command. Is there a way to start 11.1 in command line mode so that I can type it in ?

Cheers,
Pascal.

3

I’ve got a similar behaviour with my system. After updating my radeon drivers from the radeon update site the system cannot start the Xserver.

If you switch to runlevel 3 or just switch by typing <Ctrl>+<Alt>+<F1>, are you able to login in text-mode? Try to start the Xserver by ‘startx’ in root mode.

Is there anybody with similar problems? The Xserver caught signal 11 when trying to start it by startx. It seems that after one update the Xserver is not compatible to the Xserver and/or the radeon driver. I tried to compile it from scratch (radeon installation script) but it didn’t help.

I would post the startx output but I have to use another computer (no Xserver on my notebook). If it helps, I run openSuse 11.1 on a Lenove ThinkPad T400.

4

Thanks for your reply. I was able to login in failsafe mode but running “sax2 -r” just hangs after telling access is granted or something. I’m going to try to login in text mode as you suggest.

Cheers,
Pascal.

5

OK I was able to use the text login after using the failsafe mode and adding runlevel=3. The command run further and then tried to start the XServer and I got a black screen.

I couldn’t see an error message. Any other ideas ?

Cheers,
Pascal.

6

Also tried the alternative “sax2 -r -m 0=nvidia” and still got a black screen.

Don’t know what to do next now except repairing the installation.

Cheers,
Pascal.

PS : I’m on a DELL 4400 with GF6600.

7
  • TheOnlyDan wrote, On 04/05/2009 03:06 PM:
    > Also tried the alternative “sax2 -r -m 0=nvidia” and still got a black
    > screen.

Here’s what always worked for me:
Download the driver installer from the NVidia site. Make sure your chip is supported.
Boot Linux into runlevel 3, i.e., pass the option “3” to the kernel upon boot.
Login as root.
Copy the installer to root’s home, make it executable by issuing “chmod +x NVidiawhateverthenameofthedriveris”
If you haven’t done already, start “yast sw_single” and install the “Linux Kernel Development” pattern.
Run the installer.
Run “sax2 -r -m 0=nvidia”

HTH
Uwe

8

My problem is so odd. I cannot even get to the boot menu (F2 , F8) at the very beginning, no GRUB Loader. no nothing. just a black screen that is seems flashing. Any Idea

9

No grub loader shouts hardware, faulty disk, mainboard, graphics card etc…

10

so it is just an unlucky event that a $6,000 laptop that I got 5 days ago goes crazy just after I installed the NVIDIA Driver for Quadro FX 770m ?! This cannot happen