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Screen blacks out when startx is issued.

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by faradhi

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I have a Dell D630 with an Nvidia Quadro VNS 135M on which I am attempting to install Debian.

I have installed the Nvidia drivers per http://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers.

When I try to start the Gnome desktop, I get a blank screen. Even CTRL-ALT-F# will not work. Meaning the black screen persists.

I can tell the display is still on because the back light is still operating.

When I reboot into single user mode I get the cli just fine. Looking at /var/log/Xorg.0.log I see no errors just some warnings about fonts. I see where it is loading the NVIDIA drivers.

I do not know where to check from here to troubleshoot this issue.

I am now downloading the Debian LiveCD to see if I can get to the GUI there.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

14 replies

by robo_dev

Here's good faq
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/hosted/Dell-D630-Etch.html

by faradhi

That is with the Intel video chipset and I have the Nvidia chipset so unfortunately doesn't apply.

Thank you.

by jaqui

CTRL+ATL+Backspace, unless you enabled the "don't zap" in xorg.conf will kill the xserver and get you back to the cli.

but you could try manually running /usr/bin/xorgconfig and setting everything to lower than you would normally.. ie 1024 by 768 instead of a higher resolution, and 16 bit instead of 24 bit for colour depth.

by faradhi

When I try CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE the screen stays black. (I tried that and should have stated in the original post.)

I checked /etc/X11/xorg.conf for option "dontzap" "yes" and did not see it.

I did not have /usr/bin/xorgconfig command so I used dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg and selected 16 bit and less than 1024 by 768 as suggested and got the same behavior.

This is weird. I have had video trouble before but never the screen just blank.

One other thing I should have mentioned that just occurred to me as I run dpkg-reconfigure. When I allow dpkg-reconfigure to attempt to detect the monitor I get the same behavior. The screen blacks out.

Neither the xfce nor the gnome livecds work but that does not surprise me since I had to download the Nvidia drivers manually.

Thanks Jaqui If you have any other suggestions I would be greatly appreciative.

by dumphrey

And it came down to a conflict between the nvidia driver and beryl compiz. I had to remove all the "desktop effects" stuff, install the driver then reinstall the beryl compiz stuff. (which i the uninstalled again since I would not be using it).

When you have a plain vesa driver enabled, do you have any video issues?
Is your monitor non-standard? LCD or CRT?

by jaqui

My working xorg.conf, on a system with the proprietary nvidia drivers installed. :)
the bold line is the don't zap I mentioned earlier, it's commented out and allows the zap.
You may need to edit the path to match your system, as well as the specific monitor data.
[ generic laptop display would probably work best for you ]

This is a 1280 by 1024 at 24 bit colour depth config.

Section "Files"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/nvidia97xx"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"

# font server independent of the X server to render fonts.
FontPath "unix/:-1"

# minimal fonts to allow X to run without xfs
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc:unscaled"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
[b] #DontZap # disable (server abort)[/b]
#DontZoom # disable / (resolution switching)
AllowMouseOpenFail # allows the server to start up even if the mouse does not work
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "dbe" # Double-Buffering Extension
Load "v4l" # Video for Linux
Load "extmod"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx" # 3D layer
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard1"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbOptions" "compose:rwin"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "monitor1"
VendorName "NEC"
ModelName "NEC AccuSync 95F"
HorizSync 31.0-96.0
VertRefresh 55.0-160.0

# TV fullscreen mode or DVD fullscreen output.
# 768x576 @ 79 Hz, 50 kHz hsync
ModeLine "768x576" 50.00 768 832 846 1000 576 590 595 630

# 768x576 @ 100 Hz, 61.6 kHz hsync
ModeLine "768x576" 63.07 768 800 960 1024 576 578 590 616
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "device1"
VendorName "nVidia Corporation"
BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce FX - GeForce 7950"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "DPMS"
Option "SWCursor"
Option "RenderAccel" "false"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "screen1"
Device "device1"
Monitor "monitor1"
DefaultColorDepth 24

Subsection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"
EndSubsection

Subsection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"
EndSubsection

Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"
EndSubsection

Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"
EndSubsection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "layout1"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
Screen "screen1"
EndSection

by faradhi

Thanks for your help. I have a gui now. But I would like to get full resolutions.

I am using the laptop display. As for non-standard, I do not think so, but I am not sure what you mean by that.

Also, I am not sure what you mean by desktop effects stuff.

I really appreciate the help I have been banging my head for about a week and a half on this.

by dumphrey

that works with Beryl to provide some eye-candy to the desktop. If I remember correctly, you are running Debian, on a laptop. Open Synaptic Package manager, and search for Compiz in the search field. Check to have it completely removed. Then do the same with Beryl. I do not think ebian installs these by default, but none of my Debian MAchines has enough video to even consider installing such (all have 12 MB ati rage2's).

Some other options I found,
some people report needing an

option "UseDisplayDevice" "DFP"

under their video device config in Xorg.

And some other reported just diabeling the splash screen in grub did the trick (this I have doubts about).
Is where I found both listed. The DFP is most likely the cause (Digital Flat Panel, changes the signal). If this is the case, an external monitor should work (if xorg is configured to support it, but thats another story).
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-582256.html

by faradhi

Option "UseDisplayDevice" did not correct the problem.

Neither did any of the other settings.

Weird.

If you have any other suggestions, I would be appreciative. Thank you for all your help.

by dumphrey

if that doesn't fix it, then nothing will =)

But seriously, it could be any of a thousand things. It could be easily related to the power management, or any of the sleep functions. It could also have something to do with how the driver was loaded. Did you double check that the nvidia.ko module is being instealled (or manually modprobe nvidia?)

Copy your current xorg config to a backup and paste Jaqui's code here in as its replacement. Let us know if that works or not, it will at least eliminate the config being wrong.

by faradhi

I tried Jaqui's xorg.conf and got the same results. So, I decided to punt figuring that something I tried to correct the issue is now not allowing the NVIDIA drivers to work properly.

Thanks to Jaqui and Dumphrey for their help.

Here are the steps I took to resolve this just in case someone else needs it.

I reinstalled the OS so that I can start fresh.

I had tried the debian drivers using module-assistant and knew for whatever reason they did not work, so I used the NVIDIA drivers from the NVIDIA website here http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html.

The steps I used were adapted from here. http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2007/10/27/how-to-install-nvidia-video-card-drivers-in-debian-lenny/

I updated to debian to the most current version.

I installed build-essentials current linux header files.

I created a link to the current header files called linux in /usr/src. This is because the NVIDIA script looks for the headers in /usr/src/linux and will bomb if not found there.

I downloaded the drivers from NVIDIA.

I ran the installer.

I restarted X and boom! All is right with the world and life is sweet. Even the dual head is working. Now off to tackle the sound :)

by dumphrey

Its very frustrating that the package drivers fail so often, it really is....
Glad you got it up, once the sound is fixed, I would make an image of the system just to be safe =)

by vcdreves

Hello!
Well, I was having the same problem with my laptop and debian etch, I followed your instructions and everything worked perfectly...

Thank you again! I looked for the answer for hours!

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