Upgraded graphics card, getting a black screen

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Once again I’m getting the dreaded black-screen-instead-of-X11 on my OpenSuse 13.1 installation. This time after upgrading my GTX770 to a GTX970.

When booting to safe mode, the bootup messages said something that this graphics card is not supported by the nvidia driver. So I figured I’d updgrade the drivers from nvidia’s repository.

The nvidia driver I had installed, nvidia-gfxG03-kmp-desktop, didn’t seem to have any newer version. There was an nvidia-gfxG04-kmp-desktop available, which description suggests that it should work with this series. So I removed the former and installed the latter. Still a black screen.

So I was like doh, I have to run nvidia-xconfig first. I run it and… still a black screen. And nvidia-settings is still saying that X is not using the nvidia driver, and suggesting I run nvidia-xconfig. It doesn’t help.

I don’t know what else to do.

2

Please post your Xorg.0.log to see, what is going on.
Also post:

zypper se -si nvidia

uname -a

ls -l /etc/X11/

grep 'blacklist nouveau' /etc/modprobe.d/*
3

@Warp

Welcome to the openSUSE forum.

I remember back when 13.1 was released we had an issue with the black screen.
Please add “nomodeset” (without the quotes) to your kernel options.

I would recommend that you consider installing a newer version of openSUSE.
You should be able to install openSUSE 13.2 or Leap 42.1 to support your GeForce 970.

Stick with the G04 drivers as they support the newer cards such as your card.
The newer openSUSE distros provide newer versions of Xorg and Mesa for the GeForce 970.

4

Follow Up

You can add this updated Xorg repository to your Yast Software Repositories once you get logged in.

See: http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_13.1/

One rule of the thumb: Never mix Nvidia .run drivers with the ones provided by Yast.

If you installed a driver from the Nvidia site, you must uninstall it, reboot and install the G04 drivers provided by Yast.

5

FYI

Before installing the Nvidia driver make sure that you add the “video” group to your user.

6

OpenSuse updated the kernel as part of its normal updating process, and now everything is suddenly working ok! I don’t know why, but somehow the kernel update caused the graphics driver to start working all on its own, without me having to do anything.

The reason is a bit of a mystery to me, but I’m not exactly complaining.

7

That is great news.
Looks like the developers added code to the kernel update after the card went on sale.

You can expect it being supported from here on.