openSUSE 12.3 won't boot anymore

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hello!

I’m not sure how this happened but my installation won’t boot up anymore.
For a brief moment, the logo background appears, then it goes to text.

Some lines start writing out, and it ends with the line:

[OK] Reached target graphical interface.

(or something like that, i have to check).

Then it stops and nothing happens.

The system was beginning to act unstable before, the whole system was laggy, and it took forever to do anything. Amarok wouldn’t start, for example, and VLC couldn’t play videos anymore without halting the video (while the sound was still playing).

I have dual-boot and GRUB works fine. I can boot into Windows with no problems, but when i want to boot into Suse, it halts at that line.

Can this be fixed without reinstalling?
I don’t want to go through the million updates every 2 minutes, and i don’t want to have to set up my sound card again. It was a pain in the a** the first time.

2

Does “recovery mode” work? (under “Advanced options” at the boot menu)

What gfx card do you have and what drivers are you using? You may have to reinstall them after a kernel update.

3

I haven’t tried recovery mode. I’ll try it and let you know.
As for the GFX card, it’s an nVidia Geforce 9600 GT 512. I’m using the nVidia repository for drivers.
But i think the kernel got updated a few times but everything worked after that…

But the GFX card does behave weird under windows. I get the GFX driver has crashed and recovered message over and over again if my mouse cursor is not moving all the time.
However, it was running perfectly under linux. Now… Nothing works… :frowning:

I’ll try recovery mode and see if it works, although, i’ve never used it so i don’t know what i’m supposed to do there.
I’ll write back once i tried it.

4

Yes, if you use the driver from the repo it should work just fine even after a kernel update.

But the GFX card does behave weird under windows. I get the GFX driver has crashed and recovered message over and over again if my mouse cursor is not moving all the time.

So maybe your card is dying? Or maybe just overheating?
If you also have problems in Windows, it might very well be hardware related…

I’ll try recovery mode and see if it works, although, i’ve never used it so i don’t know what i’m supposed to do there.
I’ll write back once i tried it.

You’re not supposed to do anything special there.
It just uses a different (generic) graphics driver that should just work. (and it sets some kernel parameters differently to be more compatible)
I suggested that so you maybe get to a graphical system again.

5

Ok, the recovery mode is working. I’m writing this post from it.
What should i do now?

Can i maybe reinstall the graphic drivers? I never had to reinstall them so i don’t know how would i do that.

And yes, the graphic card is definitely dying, but i can’t afford a new one right now so i’ll keep this one as long as it’s going to work. One capacitor is broken on the card, but the card works ok despite that. :stuck_out_tongue:

But aside from the graphic driver issue in windows (which could be related to windows itself since this wasn’t a problem in linux) it’s all good…
I can play HD videos, youtube, and games with no problem just as long as i move my mouse all the time, or leave the video be. When i move my mouse the graphic driver resets and everything that was using the graphic driver stops… :confused:

I read somewhere that this could be a driver issue, and that windows is reading the graphic card response time wrong so it assumes it’s not responding and restarts the drivers. Which bugs everything out because the graphic drivers are working…

This never happened in linux. And the graphic interface in recovery mode works fine (although not at the correct resolution, but that’s normal for a recovery mode).
Anyway, i’m not sure what should i do now…

6

That won’t help in this case I think, see below.

And yes, the graphic card is definitely dying, but i can’t afford a new one right now so i’ll keep this one as long as it’s going to work. One capacitor is broken on the card, but the card works ok despite that. :stuck_out_tongue:

But aside from the graphic driver issue in windows (which could be related to windows itself since this wasn’t a problem in linux) it’s all good…
I can play HD videos, youtube, and games with no problem just as long as i move my mouse all the time, or leave the video be. When i move my mouse the graphic driver resets and everything that was using the graphic driver stops… :confused:

I read somewhere that this could be a driver issue, and that windows is reading the graphic card response time wrong so it assumes it’s not responding and restarts the drivers. Which bugs everything out because the graphic drivers are working…

This never happened in linux. And the graphic interface in recovery mode works fine (although not at the correct resolution, but that’s normal for a recovery mode).
Anyway, i’m not sure what should i do now…

Linux and Windows use the graphics card in different ways, so that’s maybe the reason why it did still work in Linux while you had problems in Windows.
And those broken capacitors may seem to work fine for a while, but they can change their conditions any time, from one day to the other. And they can cause interesting problems where the reasons can not really be found… :wink:
This is no driver issue then, sorry…

So what I would suggest to you now:

  • uninstall the nvidia drivers. They try to use your card to the fullest, which doesn’t seem to work anymore.
    You then will be using the nouveau driver.

If that doesn’t work either, try to add “nomodeset” to the kernel boot options, you will then use the generic video driver as in recovery mode:
Enter YaST->System->Boot Loader->Boot Loader Options and add “nomodeset” to the “Optional Kernel Line Parameter” list.
And set “Console resolution” to something different than the standard “Autodetect by grub2”, this should be carried over to the graphical system then.

You may be able to still use that card for a while, albeit without 3D support of course.

But you should really consider trying to find a different graphics card. Maybe eBay has something to offer what you can afford?

7

I recently bought a Geforce 210 with a gig of memory for $30+ shipping. Not a bad card it replaced an old 6800 plus card which way back when was a jigh end card. the 210 is about as fast and seems to work just fine but I don’t consider it a gaming card if you want to play high end games.

.

8

Ok, thank you, i’ll try that…

But i’m still puzzled by the fact that the card works fully well under windows (minus that restart driver issue), and linux just died overnight… :frowning:
I’ll try what you suggested and come back to write what happened.

And i might as well start looking for a new gfx card i guess… That capacitor has been broken for years, but i guess it’s starting to act up now. :stuck_out_tongue:

9

I’m sort of the same issue.
Was trying to change the hostname of my machine and after editing the HOSTNAME file and rebooting I got a GRUB console.

don’t know what do now. :
Any ideas?

10

This thread is three (3!) years old. Thus not very many people will watcvh it anymore.

This is about openSUSE 12.3. Arre you still running that version?

When you wnr to draw the attention of people to help you, you better start a new thread, with a good title that contains some keywords that communicate what your problem is about.

This thread is CLOSED.