Hardware Drivers error for nvidia in hardy (2.6.24.19)

[kevingillan]

Very low resolution screen after enabling nvidia driver in System->Admin->Hardware Drivers
This happened after clean install and all updates on 25/07/08.

X now displays at 640x480 x 50hz - the only other resolution available through System->Preferences->Screen Resolution is 320x240 (ouch!). I'd like to get 1440x900 with 3d acceleration.

According to System->Administration->Hardware Drivers the appropriate driver is enabled and in use.

Poss relevant system info:
Asus P5B-MK motherboard with on-board intel graphics chip (946GZ) that has previously worked fine with both gutsy and hardy;
Intel core 2 duo processor;
NVidia 8500GT graphics card.

cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.24-19-generic (buildd@king) (gcc version 4.2.3 (Ubuntu 4.2.3-2ubuntu7)) #1 SMP Fri Jul 11 21:01:46 UTC 2008

From synaptic the version of nvidia-glx-new that I'm using is 169.12+2.6.24.13-19.45.

lspci output includes
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 8500 GT (rev a1)

dmesg | grep -i nvidia:
[ 40.955527] nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
[ 41.232071] NVRM: loading NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module 169.12 Thu Feb 14 17:51:09 PST 2008

Similar to bugs #251644 and/or #232012? I'm not sure, but I've attached outputs that were relevant to them, i.e.
/etc/X11/xorg.conf
/var/log/Xorg.0.log
dpkg -l linux-* > linux.log

Many thanks in advance for any help.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This bug did not have a package associated with it, which is important for ensuring that it gets looked at by the proper developers. You can learn more about finding the right package at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. I have classified this bug as a bug in linux-restricted-modules.

For future reference you might be interested to know that a lot of applications have bug reporting functionality built in to them. This can be accessed via the Report a Problem option in the Help menu for the application with which you are having an issue. You can learn more about this feature at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs.

[kevingillan (kev-aktivix)]

Further info (=problem with uninstalling restricted drivers)

29-07-08 - software updates installed, mostly firefox related; restarted X; no change

Used 'hardware drivers' to disable nvidia driver. Received error message: 'E: nvidia-glx-new: subprocess post-removal script returned error exit status 2'

Details from synaptic GUI 'details' section:
dpkg-divert: error checking '/usr/lib32/libGL.so.1': No such file or directory
dpkg: error processing nvidia-glx-new (--remove):
  subprocess post-removal script returned error exit status 2
Errors were encountered while processing:
  nvidia-glx-new
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
A package failed to install. Trying to recover:

After reboot I'm back to situation on fresh installation, i.e. resolution 1280*768; but no higher options and the screen doesn't quite 'fit', some of lower panel missing to bottom and left of monitor. Hardware drivers GUI says nvidia driver disabled and not in use. xorg.conf is now identical to the absolutely minimal one created on installation of ubuntu.

[kevingillan (kev-aktivix)]

After reading other various bits of advice I've tried:
sudo mkdir /usr/lib32
sudo touch /usr/lib32/libGL.so.1
sudo apt-get remove nvidia-glx-new

(which seemed to work)

And:
sudo apt-get install envyng-core
envyng -t
(select 1 and follow instructions)

Reboot led monitor to produce an 'input not supported' message. I looked at xorg.conf and commented out the line:
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
This got me a display but it was back to the very low resolution one.
System->Administration->NVidia XServer Settings installed and works but utterly unusable in very low resolution offered (e.g. clicking one area highlights a different area), but resetting xorg.conf to working basic settings means the nvidia settings just throws up information that the nvidia driver isn't being used and suggests nvidia-xconfig. (Running that, needless to say, leads to an unusably low resolution.)

Have also tried manually editing xorg.conf, but not getting beyond the low resolution problem despite explicit modelines - example file attached.

[kevingillan (kev-aktivix)]

Another fresh install of Hardy, downloaded all updates 18/08/08 and used restricted drivers manager to add nvidia driver. Same problems occurring, but this time I followed advice at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FixVideoResolutionHowto and have improved screen resolution issues.

Specifically:
- added Horizsync and Vertrefresh ranges to xorg.conf
- added modelines (generated from http://xtiming.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/xtiming.pl) to Monitor section
- added Display subsection within Screen to specify modes

Still can't get 1440x900@60, which is supposed to be native resolution of monitor. When this is operational the screen is misaligned on the monitor (shifted to the right and down) and the colours are very wrong, with everything in shades of green. Simply changing to 1280x800 through System->Preferences works though, although problems persist with login screen.

3D hardware acceleration appears to work - i.e. desktop effects and 3D games seem to run very well. Not sure how to do any more comprehensive tests of the card though.

Xorg.conf attached.

[kevingillan (kev-aktivix)]

Sorted, I think...

Used
$ sudo gtf 1440 900 60
$ sudo gtf 1280 800 60
to generate modelines instead of the website referenced above. Figures were different so I changed xorg.conf to include:

 Modeline "1440x900_60.00" 106.47 1440 1520 1672 1904 900 901 904 932 -HSync +Vsync
 Modeline "1280x800_60.00" 83.46 1280 1344 1480 1680 800 801 804 828 -HSync +Vsync

and updated the relevant entries in the display subsection of the screen section, just because the generated labels were different.

Login screen and gnome now seem to display fine in 1440x900.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hi kev-aktivix,

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue for you? Can you try with the latest development release of Ubuntu? (ISOs are available from cdimage.ubuntu.com)

If it remains an issue, could you also attach a new /var/log/Xorg.0.log?
Thanks in advance.

The output of lspci -vvnn would also be worth having.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

We're closing this bug since it is has been some time with no response from the original reporter. However, if the issue still exists please feel free to reopen with the requested information. Also, if you could, please test against the latest development version of Ubuntu, since this confirms the bug is one we may be able to pass upstream for help.

[kevingillan (kev-aktivix)]

Problem found on newer version, requested info now attached.

[kevingillan (kev-aktivix)]

Okay, thanks for responses on this so far. I've just done a clean install of 8.10, plus updates as of 31-12-08.

Using driver 173 (selected through restricted drivers dialogue) creates identical problem of very low resolution indeed.

The dialogue now offers, and recommends, driver version 177. This is definitely better and achieves a resolution of 1024x768. But that's the wrong aspect ratio for the monitor. The auto generated xorg.conf and the outputs suggested above are attached.

Cheers.

[kevingillan (kev-aktivix)]

Tried solving this through the method used above with limited success. New xorg.conf attached.
- I can now get the resolution 1280x1024 working okay, although its wrong for the monitor so some text appears a little fuzzy.
- But 1440x900 and 1280x800 are not offered in the screen resolution dialogue. This seems weird because they are clearly and, as far as I can tell, correctly specified in the xorg.conf. The new file is identical to the one which previously worked for identical hardware running 8.04.
- The GDM login screen appears to be working at the correct resolution, i.e. 1440x900.

Plus, an interesting oddity: when I changed the resolution at one point the theme immediately changed. Title bars became blue and differently shaped and the icon set changed to the one where the logout button is a green man symbol. I closed the screen resolution dialogue and that theme stayed, but changed it back to the default when I opened the dialogue once more, even though I didn't change anything this time. Something's clearly up.

Would be happy to test a development version if something's been changed - please point me in the right direction.

[bugbot (bugbot)]

This bug report was filed against an old version of Ubuntu.
Can you confirm whether this is still an issue in natty?

If you don't mind, it would be very helpful if you could update the bug
report in launchpad to 'Fix Released' if it is no longer an issue for
you, or if it is still occurring under natty, please tag the bug 'natty'
so it's easier for us to track.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for nvidia-graphics-drivers-173 (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]