Geforce 5200 drivers screwing up

[Detailedghost]

I have a Dimension 2350 and I put in a Nvidia GeForce 5200. The effects where working before I put in the graphics card at "normal" but when I enabled the graphics card, the auto detect resolution feature messes up and I have to manually fix it. But that's not my problem. My problem is that after I fix my resolution on the graphics card, I cannot apply the appearance settings to "extra" or "normal". When I try to, Ubuntu says, "Ubuntu cannot enable this settings" or something like that. So I'm forced to put my effects to none. Can you please help me? I highly appreciate it.

P.S. I'm using Ubuntu Gnome 8.04

[C. Reis (reic)]

Thx for reporting the bug.
Please attach some information:
1: the output from lspci -nn | grep VGA
2: your /var/log/Xorg.0.log
3: your /etc/X11/xorg.conf
4. the output of sudo ddcprobe
5. the output of xrandr

[Detailedghost (dantemaster214)]

Ok this is such a noob question but should I enable it? I have all these settings on my "normal" settings with my Intel Internal graphics card that I would like to save those settings if I can. Thanks.

[C. Reis (reic)]

I'm afraid I don't know, where the visual settings are stored in Hardy Heron. Probably the files in ~/.compiz or ~/.config/compiz - but that's just a guess.
Since your card should be supported well in 8.04, I suggest you should upload the logfiles I mentioned above.
Did you manually turn off your internal graphics card in BIOS? Have you enabled the proprietary driver in jockey or did you use another way to enable the nvidia - driver?

[Detailedghost (dantemaster214)]

Sorry about the late message. I've been a tad busy. Here's the stuff:

dantemaster214@Fluffy:~$ lspci -nn | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device [8086:2562] (rev 03)
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: nVidia Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5200] [10de:0322] (rev a1)
dantemaster214@Fluffy:~$ /var/log/Xorg.o.log
bash: /var/log/Xorg.o.log: No such file or directory
dantemaster214@Fluffy:~$ /etc/X11/xorg.conf
bash: /etc/X11/xorg.conf: Permission denied
dantemaster214@Fluffy:~$ sudo /etc/X11/xorg.conf
[sudo] password for dantemaster214:
sudo: /etc/X11/xorg.conf: command not found
dantemaster214@Fluffy:~$ sudo force /etc/X11/xorg.conf
sudo: force: command not found
dantemaster214@Fluffy:~$ sudo ddcprobe
sudo: ddcprobe: command not found
dantemaster214@Fluffy:~$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 640 x 480, current 1024 x 768, maximum 1024 x 768
default connected 1024x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right) 0mm x 0mm
   1024x768 60.0*
   800x600 60.0
   640x480 60.0
dantemaster214@Fluffy:~$

[C. Reis (reic)]

Thank you.
To get a little closer to your problem, please use the "Attachment" tool you'll find under the box you can type in a comment to load up your files.
Simply click the button next to the "Attachment" option and choose the file, just like you'd attach a file to an email.

The following files are of interest:
/var/log/Xorg.o.log
/etc/X11/xorg.conf

[C. Reis (reic)]

Also, please provide information whether and how you've installed a nvidia driver, if you can.

[Detailedghost (dantemaster214)]

Ok I installed the drivers by going to System>Hardware Drivers and enabling my Nvidia card. Once I did that, it downloaded and installed the drivers and request me to restart. I did. Then I could access my effects. There should be a picture to show you what it looks like.

As for the log files, I have no idea how to get them. Do I use a force command or what? Thanks

[C. Reis (reic)]

Nope, simply use the attachment field under the box where you can type your comment in here on this page, found unter "add a comment/attachment" and chose those files from your filesystem.

[Detailedghost (dantemaster214)]

ok here you go! Thanks :)

[Detailedghost (dantemaster214)]

Here's the other 2.

[C. Reis (reic)]

Thank you for uploading those files, now we can work on it.
First of all, I'm not exactly "pro" with this stuff, I got my experience from dealing with problems with my own hardware.

To make sure this is a bug here, we should get your configurations straight.
I see two problems here:
1.) Your xorg.conf is pretty stuffed, I'm not sure whether we get your system to run with this one.
2.) You seem to have installed the nvidia - driver for your Geforce, but to me it seems like the card used for your graphigs server is still the internal Intel graphics card.

I'd suggest the following things:

- Check in with buddies of you using Ubuntu or Linux, maybe they can help you with your problem
- Check in with your local Ubuntu forum, wiki or IRC. There are loads of nice people that can help you. Wiki articles that might be of interest for you are about building a xorg.conf, the nvidia drivers, etc. You can always upload your Xorg.0.log and xorg.conf to show them the relevant information about your graphics server.

Furthermore, you could try this (without quotation marks): "sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.mybackup" to make a working backup if your X server won't start. If anything goes wrong, you can restore it to what it was by "sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf.mybackup /etc/X11/xorg.conf".
Now open your xorg.conf with "sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf" and change in Section "screen" # the value "device1" to "Configured Video Device" (note that you'll need the quotation marks this time) to get your nvidia - card with the nvidia driver to work in your graphic server.

Save the file, reboot your system. Maybe this'll do the trick.
I have to warn you though, this could make your graphic interface stop working, and I even don't know if your problem can be fixed that easy with a xorg.conf stuffed like yours.

You can always try to disable your internal Intel card via Bios (Check your manual how to do it) and give a fresh install of Hardy a try.

[Detailedghost (dantemaster214)]

Ya I switched the bios and it turns out Ubuntu was corrupt. So i did a fresh reinstall and when I launch Ubuntu, it gets stuck a little before the third bar fills up. :(

[C. Reis (reic)]

Could you please provide detailled information on what you did? What did you set your BIOS settings to?
Did you boot to ubuntu (i.e. to where you can try out the system before installing it on the HDD) or did you install it directly? What version of the install disk did you use?

Where there any error messages, beeps from the internal speaker, etc.?

[Detailedghost (dantemaster214)]

Well the BIOS was set to onboard video so I just switched it to AUTO. Then I did a clean reinstall with an alternate Ubuntu 8.10 cd(which installed perfectly by the way). Now I have an xp part and a ubuntu part. The XP part works fine, if not better than when i first got it. The Ubuntu though doesn't work, even when I change the BIOS to its originally settings. What happens is I boot ubuntu and the loader screen comes up. The little bar begins to fill up then stops when it fills 2 3/4 of the bar. (not the whole bar by the way. It's 2 sections and 3/4 of a section. Sections being the "mini-bars" that divide the whole bar.) There are no beeps, it justs freezes there. Not moving at all. The hardware seems to be fine but it seems the GRUB is messing up (or thats what I think). Thanks for all your help so far, I know it's tough for you guys. You got probably 50 problems and I may just have something as simple as a digit off. Thanks for everything so far. :)

[C. Reis (reic)]

You're welcome!

Is there an explicit reason why you used the alternate install CD? You could try the standard live disk to see whether the same problem occurs.
Maybe there's a possibility in your BIOS to set your video device explicitely to the Geforce device, I'd give it a shot.
You could try the following: Press 'Escape' key at the 3 second pause by Grub bootloader. Then press 'e' (edit) on the buggy kernel entry, followed by 'e' again on the kernel line. Then remove the splash and quiet keywords and press 'b' to boot.
This will temporarely disable the boot - splash - screen (i.e. the one with the 'little bars') so you could read possible errormessages. If you do so, please post them here.

[Detailedghost (dantemaster214)]

Actually yes. Before I used the alternate cd, the live would freeze the exact same way the boot bar does. So I used the alternate and it worked great. As for the BIOS, I can only set it on AUTO or ONBOARD. I can't explicitly set it on the NVIDIA. But AUTO seems to always choose the NVIDIA over the ONBOARD setting. Now as for the thing you just suggested let me try that now and I'll post if it worked.

[Detailedghost (dantemaster214)]

ok I just turned off the quiet and splash and it was working then it stopped and said:

init: rc-default main process (4447) killed by SEGV signal

Hope that helps.

[C. Reis (reic)]

just to get this straight: the same BIOS - configuration works fine if you boot to windows?

[Detailedghost (dantemaster214)]

yes

[C. Reis (reic)]

Phew.... well, since I'm currently studying for a test, and I only got some clues on what's wrong here but no definete idea, I gotta leave you here until the weekend, sry for that.
I've read on changing from onboard to external graphics device that it is important to change the busid of the device in use in the xorg.conf. Maybe you can get some info in wikis or board on your problem, or I'd recommend to talk to the guys on the Ubuntu IRC https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InternetRelayChat

Good luck for now!