The bundled nvidia-361 driver in Mint 18 crashes on GTX 980 Ti

[juj]

STR:

1. On a system with GTX 980 Ti graphics card (Asus Strix GTX 980 TI DC3OC to be exact), perform a clean install of Linux Mint 18.
2. Open up 'Update Manager' tool
3. Choose 'Optimize stability and security'
4. Choose 'Install Updates' at the top
5. After installations have finished, reboot the computer
6. Open up Update Manager again.
7. Install the two remaining packages:
'linux 4.4.0-34.53'
'linux-kernel 4.4.0-34.53'
8. After installation, reboot the computer

At this point, the system is still running in software rendering mode.

9. Go to Driver Manager
10. Change the GPU driver from the active "xserver-xorg-video-nouveau (open-source)" to the only offered option "nvidia-361 (recommended)" and choose Apply Changes
11. Restart the computer as suggested by the Driver Manager

Observed:

When the desktop boots back up, it shows a dialog "Cinnamon just crashed. You are currently running in Fallback Mode. Do you want to restart Cinnamon?"

Choosing Yes will deterministically crash again.

Continuing the STR:

12. In terminal, type
sudo apt-get purge nvidia*
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers
sudo apt-get update

and open Driver Manager again. More driver options have appeared.

Observed:

Trying out the driver nvidia-367 still crashes. However the driver nvidia-358 looks like a good version and choosing that works ok without crashing.

[juj (jujjyl)]

Also occurs when attempting to install Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

[juj (jujjyl)]

I've further noticed that the nvidia-358 drivers are not stable after all. They do work, but there is a quirk that the system hangs on a black screen with text cursor blinking at top left when booting up via a cold boot.

Curiously, inserting Linux Mint 18 installer USB disk, booting to it, and then choosing Reboot in the live USB menu, removing the USB disk to boot to Linux Mint 18 does work, and the system does not hang at booting up to desktop. After that, it is possible to reboot the system as many times as one wants and it seems to boot up to Mint 18 desktop properly, but shutting down all power and booting up will hang, and I need to "jumpstart" the boot again by entering the live environment and rebooting from there.

Note that this is not related to bootloaders or similar, since after uninstalling nvidia-358 and falling back to nouveau software drivers, i.e. typing

sudo apt-get purge nvidia*

in Terminal, the system is able to do cold boots properly.

(Also the graphics card is not faulty, the same system dual boots to Windows where it works correctly)

[juj (jujjyl)]

Tried out nomodeset GRUB boot, and removed quiet and splash from the boot, but that does not help, and I was not able to see any error messages in the boot log that might be relevant.

[juj (jujjyl)]

There is a new nvidia-370 driver that came just out recently. That does no longer crash Cinnamon (yay!), but the cold boot issue persists.

Curiously, booting up to a failed boot and pressing reset to reboot when it hangs (to hope it's a warm boot the second time) doesn't work, and the second boot won't start up either.

Booting up the cold boot to Linux Mint 18 USB stick, and rebooting from there does work, and the reboot gets to desktop with 3D acceleration working properly (stress tested via Phoronix test suite, which gets good scores).

Uninstalling nvidia drivers with "sudo apt-get purge nvidia-*" does fix the system to be able do cold boots to desktop without problems.

[juj (jujjyl)]

Phew, after a lot of reinstalling and testing out random things, managed to get this to work. Things that turned out to be critical:

1. Installed nvidia-370 driver that just recently came out.
2. In GRUB boot, replaced "quiet splash" with "nomodeset" (detailed instructions here: http://askubuntu.com/a/38782)
3. In motherboard BIOS (SuperMicro X10DAX), disabled Intel I/O Acceleration Technology (ftp://supermicro.com/CDR-INTC-Q_1.01_for_Intel_quad_platform/Intel/LAN/v12.2/PRO1000/DOCS/SERVER/ioat.htm). This idea came to me based on reading 'dmesg' logs which had some failure prints regarding "ioatdma" driver and googling had led me to http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/linux/kernel/1638783

I am not perfectly sure if 2) was necessary, but did that since it was mentioned in several sources.

Now, I'm able to get 3D acceleration with nvidia-370 and the system is able to do cold boots to desktop properly. Closing this as resolved.

[juj (jujjyl)]

"Fix Released" since nvidia-370 drivers worked for me, with the above steps.

[Henryque (fusionnitroquantic)]

Hello good morning, good afternoon, good evening or good sun-up.
In Ubuntu 16.04 lts you have install Nvidia 370.23 beta driver.

case try install nvidia, you have write in terminal

sudo apt-get remove nvidia*
sudo apt-get autoremove

Download Nvidia 370.23 or higth in nvidia site: http://www.nvidia.com.br/Download/index.aspx
Save in Downloads folder

Now without Nvidia Driver you have install headers

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install dkms build-essential linux-headers-generic

next unistall nouveau

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf

and add the following lines:

blacklist nouveau
blacklist lbm-nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0
alias nouveau off
alias lbm-nouveau off

Save!!!

now write in terminal

echo options nouveau modeset=0 | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/nouveau-kms.conf

for block nouveau

sudo update-initramfs -u

for update kernel

reboot your computer

Enter with ctrl+alt+F1 in comand line

write

cd /Downloads/

chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.23.run

Stop the GUI

for ubuntu:

sudo service lightdm stop

for linux mint:

sudo service mdm stop

other:

sudo service gdm stop

install

sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.23.run

case don't open

write:

cd /NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.23/

sudo ./nvidia-installer

install driver follow instruction for beautiful interface :D

next

write "ls" for look folder you are

if you are in NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.23 folder

write

sudo nvidia-xconfig

else

cd /NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-370.23/
sudo nvidia-xconfig

reboot your computer

now your driver are install

source:

http://www.allaboutlinux.eu/remove-nouveau-and-install-nvidia-driver-in-ubuntu-15-04/

it's works in ubuntu 16.04 lts but it need install nvidia 370