Live-CD and Installed Ubuntu freeze on boot with GeForce 210 / Nouveau

[Martin O'Mahony]

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau

I bought a new graphics adaptor to replace my old ATI one. The model I chose is a Gainward GeForce 210 1024MB DDR2 HDMI.

Upon installing the new adaptor my Ubuntu 10.10 64bit system froze on reboot. I tried booting from the 64 and 32 bit CDs always producing the same result - freezing. It freezes right when starting to boot from GRUB - producing just a blinking cursor in the upper left corner of an otherwise empty screen.

This has not changed with the lastest alpha 2 CD of Natty, either.

After changing the grub command line options to "nouveau.blacklist=1" (as suggested somewhere on the web) I could boot my system and install the NVIDIA driver instead which works fine, however, I no longer get a bootsplash. Consecutively I made it a default in /etc/default/grub to keep my system from freezing.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nouveau.blacklist=1"

I did an lspic -vv, maybe it helps:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GT218 [GeForce 210] (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
 Subsystem: CardExpert Technology Device 1401
 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
 Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
 Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 32 bytes
 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
 Region 0: Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
 Region 1: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
 Region 3: Memory at c0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
 Region 5: I/O ports at 9000 [size=128]
 Expansion ROM at d1000000 [disabled] [size=512K]
 Capabilities: <access denied>
 Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidiafb

Anyway, I thought I might report this bug as a frozen system might be a real showstopper for any Linux newbies. I'd be grateful, if somebody could look into this.

I already reported this as an addition to bug #661235 but I was asked to start a new bug report as it seems to differ form the situation originally described there.

[Geoffrey McClinsey (geoffmcc)]

The cut and paste below was my comment on your other bug. So i just wanted to include it. This bug posting though explains exactly what was happing to me right down to the blinking _ in the upper left and freezing, however for me it also kicks off the display completely and am presented with a no connected device message on my screen.

The reason why there is nothing you can do to get out of it (exept powerdown the pc or wait as after a few minutes it will restart itself) is because at the time the display crashed it was also brining down your keyboard. The keyboard would normally be brought back up right after display did not load the keyboard did not boot up. You will notice when this happens by all the keyboard lights going out.

I came to this conclusion after realising in a working install environment the keyboard is brought down and back up right before gdm kicks in.

##### CUT/PASTE my comment on bug #661235 #####

You wouldn't by any chance have a dual display set-up or be using a non VGA connection are you. Even if your are not check your bios and see if dual display is enabled (Advanced Chipset in my bios).

I found if it is enabled and set to primary video AUTO or PCI-E and you are using a (in my case) HDMI connection the install will fail. Fails right after plymouth and just flashes a blinking _ in the upper left. Eventually displays Samsungs default NO Connection Msg.

My Setup is:
1 TV Plugged in threw HDMI
1 CRT monitor plugged in threw onboard VGA

BIOS / Advanced Chipset

1.)

Dual Display - Enabled // Primary Video - Auto ---> Will NOT work (displays on flatscreen)
Dual Display - Enabled // Primary Video - PCI-E ---> Will NOT work
Dual Display - Enabled // Primary Video - VGA ---> Works Everytime (if you also have a old CRT monitor connected)

2.)

Dual Display - Disabled // Primary Video - Auto ---> WORKS (displays on flatscreen)
Dual Display - Disabled // Primary Video - PCI-E ---> WORKS
Dual Display - Disabled // Primary Video - VGA ---> WORKS

* I recall one of the above 3 getting past install but then failing after restart with same black screen. I think it was auto. Unfortunately I forgot to document that one. But I have documented that PCI-E did work, so its not clear to me why auto would fail and PCI-E would work when they both were using the PCI-E connection. This might have just been a mishap but after trying to install so much once it got installed I did not want to try to recreate problem. Can someone verify?

3. (HDMI Connection and a VGA to DVI Adapter Connection)

Dual Display - Enabled // Primary Video - Auto ---> WORKS (displays on flatscreen)
Dual Display - Enabled // Primary Video - PCI-E ---> WORKS
Dual Display - Enabled // Primary Video - VGA ---> WORKS

So to me it appears this driver does not work properly with the BIOS having Dual Display Enabled.

[Geoffrey McClinsey (geoffmcc)]

Please let me know if you have Dual Display enabled in BIOS so I can confirm that that is the cause of the problem. That is what it took for me to recreate the problem on my nVidia Corporation GeForce 7100/nForce 630i USB (rev a1) setup

[Martin O'Mahony (graptemyshome)]

Hey Geoff,

Thank you so much for taking a look into this. I really appreciate it.

I have an Asus A8N5X motherboard whose BIOS does not seem to have any dual display settings at all. But I'll have a closer inspection again in a minute. If anything turns up, I'll add it to this thread.

I only have one display connected via VGA. The HDMI and DVI ports are presently not used, although I had intended to use DVI (a new display) and HDMI (LED TV set) in the future.

However, I think I should mention that my system freezes much earlier, a long time before gdm should even come up. I got the blinking cursor when the first UBUNTU splashscreen (with the dots) should have appeared. Aside from Ctrl-Alt-Del not working, a short tap on the power button (ACPI off) does not help, either. I really need to power down.

With my present Nouveau-free (!) setup I do not see any UBUNTU splashscreen at all. Ubuntu remains on the text console during the entire boot operation. Only when gdm comes up it starts in graphics mode using the proprietary nVidia driver.

I hope some of this information is helpful and I keep my fingers crossed that we will be able to resolve this issue. After all, it sure is a showstopper for Ubuntu newbies.

Best,
Martin

[Geoffrey McClinsey (geoffmcc)]

I agree this is a show stopper for a lot of people. I have never had any issues with my system using NVIDIA until I switched my setup to how I described above. Before that I was using a VGA to DVI converter but then i noticed the weight of the VGA plug was pulling down on the port and I couldn't allow that.

I was so sure I had found the culprit to all the black screen on install problems. But I still think I will find what I reported actually effects alot of people. Just not you.

not trying to stear you away from the open source drivers but im curious what the 270 nvidia drivers will do for you as you said you have issues with the ones immediately available to you threw ubuntu as well.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install nvidia-current nvidia-current-modaliases nvidia-settings

Then go to System > Administration > Hardware Drivers and make sure "Nvidia current" (you should already have this selected we are just making sure it is still. before we did the steps above it was using the 190 something version driver probably. Now it is using the 270 version. If current version is selected then restart

(this is driver I am using after all issues with install)

when pc comes back up you can check which driver is being used by running cat /proc/driver/nvidia/version
do you have any of the above issues with this driver? also please copy and paste the output of cat /proc/driver/nvidia/version

like i said im not trying to stear you away from the open source version. I just want to report if all issues are resolved using latest closed source driver.

[Martin O'Mahony (graptemyshome)]

Hey Geoff,

Thanks a million for your quick reply.

As for the nVidia driver, here is the output of /proc/driver/nvidia/version:

NVRM version: NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module 270.29 Wed Feb 23 16:18:35 PST 2011
GCC version: gcc version 4.4.5 (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.4.4-14ubuntu5)

So it seems to be running alright on the nVidia driver with Compiz etc. working just perfectly.

I only wish the Nouveau driver would work for me as well.

Best,
Martin

[Martin O'Mahony (graptemyshome)]

Just a quick update.

The problem still persists with Natty Beta-1. :-(

I shall add a screenshot taken when the system froze (grub options quiet/splash had been removed).

[actanner (aseatanner)]

I have this exact same situation with natty final release 11.04. I installed Kubuntu AMD64 version 11.04 from the live CD, with an ATI video card, and it installed and ran just fine. Then my video card died, and I replaced it with a Sparkle GeForce 210 card, and it wouldn't boot. I wiped the disk started over, and after selecting the "run Kubuntu" option, the screen turned black with the blinking cursor, and would not change until the computer was rebooted. This was true also with the i386 version of the CD, and also the alternate version. I do not have any dual video selection made in the BIOS. THen I changed the video card to an ATI Radeon 4670, and everything worked just fine again.
     It is clear to me that this is an installation bug, and it is very disturbing that this bug endured through several beta versions right into the final release. And I didn't know anything about the "nouveau.blacklist=1" option until I found this bug account. I have not tried that, but I did try the nomodeset option with no effect. Surely this is the type bug that can be easily avoided if the developers are willing to perhaps sacrifice a little "eye candy" and use an install screen that uses a very basic VGA video mode that EVERY video card can handle. I hate to say it, but Microsoft can do it. Why can't Linux???????

[Martin O'Mahony (graptemyshome)]

I wonder if the Nouveau developers actually receive this kind of feedback. How can I contact them directly?

@actanner: Well, it's not Linux' fault, it's just one component ;-)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Martin O'Mahony, this bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? If so, could you please test for this with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ .

If it remains an issue, could you please provide the information following https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingKernelBoot ?

Thank you for your understanding.

Helpful bug reporting tips:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for linux (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]