Edgy and Feisty don't work with nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS and 8800 GTX

[Ari Torhamo]

Summary:
- installing Edgy and Feisty fails with GeForce 8800 graphics card
- live CD won't boot
- install from alternate CD fails
- works with Fedora live CD and Windows
- No problems with GeForce 7900 GTO
- CDs tested for defects, Memtest OK, hard disks OK

I've been using Feisty for some time without much problems until I recently changed my graphics card from GeForce 7900 GTO to Leadtek GeForce 8800 GTS. After the change certain things like moving around windows with the mouse or scrolling a window with arrow keys became extreamly slow. Things moved like waves in slow motion. In Windows both 2D and 3D worked fine.

Because of this I decided to do a fresh install. The Feisty daily live CD didn't boot to the desktop at all. It was the same with Edgy. Alternate CD finished the installation, but reported problems with GDM (Fatal server error: no screens found). It also said that there's no x-server present. Installing nvidia-glx didn't help.

The only way I could get the graphical environment to work was to install the Nvidia proprietary driver, which I downloaded from their web site. That's were I'm now and the system still has some serious problems that didn't exist before I changed the graphics card. Large part of the boots fail completly and the system hangs. Other times fsck is run automatically (it fails, exit status 8) and I end up to the root login. Some times I manage to boot to the desktop and then things seemingly work normally.

Edgy live CD behaved like Feisty - the boot failed. Then I tried Fedora live CD 6.91 and it didn't seem to have any problems with the card (I just tried the live CD, didn't install).

I'm aware that the information I gave here is propably not enough - sorry. I'm willing to do more, I just need to know what to do.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Could you please add the output of 'lspci -vv' and 'lspci -vvn' as attachments to your bug report? Thanks in advance.

[Ari Torhamo (ari-torhamo)]

I'm glad if I can help :-)

Here are the outputs you asked for. I used sudo - I hope it's ok. Without it some information seemed to be left out.

[Svein Harald Soleim (sveinh)]

I think the problem is that the "nv" driver does not support the 8800 series. (I have the same problem), although the vesa driver does. The vesa drivers do some funny things like some crashes and lockups. Also it don't support high resolutions, eg 1680x1050 like my screen

Currently there is _none_ drivers that works with 8800 in any ubuntu packages. Both nvidia drivers 9746 and 9755 works with these cards, but are not yet in repos (edgy or feisty)

[Svein Harald Soleim (sveinh)]

Just forgot that I found out that the livecd for dapper works, so I installed that and upgraded to edgy and later to feisty from there.

[Ari Torhamo (ari-torhamo)]

I just tried Dapper 6.06.1 Live and it didn't work for me. The boot process stopped at "loading hardware drivers" (I forgot the exact words, but close to that).

I'm worried about this. After Nvidia recently brought the relatively cheap 8800 GTS 320MB to the market, 8800 series is soon going to be common. I don't know how many owners of a 8800 card have this problem, but it may already have turned people away.

I'm once more going to try install from the latest daily CD. If it doesn't work, I'll move to Fedora for the time being (I'm using Windows now). So far I have manged to boot to the desktop in Feisty by first booting into recovery mode and then restarting, but now even this has stopped working (no wonder concidering all the error messages I've been getting).

[.nu (bruce83)]

eVGA 8800GTX here. Same exact problem.
Had to install with vesa....which is very glitchy, and X crashes if you restart it.
Waiting impatiently for this problem to be fixed :)

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

The current nv-driver does not support G80 devices. There is a 2.0rc1 released, but without special attention and it won't have time to get in Feisty.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

"... and permission..."

The vesa-issue is worrisome, but I think I found the reason for that. The previous version of discover-data didn't have the card listed, but the new one has. Could you try with an uptodate feisty to run 'dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg'?

[Ari Torhamo (ari-torhamo)]

I succesfully booted and installed from Feisty live CD of 16.3. When the installation was finished, fsck was run automatically and it reported similar errors I mentioned in my first post. I don't know if they are related to the graphics card, but they started when I installed it (I installed Feisty a couple of times before I changed the card and didn't get any fsck errors). I can't find those errors in any logs (they are not in /var/log/fsck/checkfs)

The driver used for the graphics card is vesa. This is a problem, because the maximum refresh rate available is 60Hz. I tried to allow higher horizontal and vertical refresh rates, but that only caused the system to freeze during boot. I suppose there's no use to try to install the nv driver, when GeForce 8800 isn't supported in it (yet).

[Thomas Hotz (thotz-deactivatedaccount)]

Why can't we get a patch for that? We have many users. Many reported problems on the forums. I think this would be really nice to see support for g80 in Feisty with the nv driver.

> Currently there is _none_ drivers that works with 8800 in any ubuntu packages. Both nvidia drivers 9746 and 9755 works with these cards, but are not yet in repos (edgy or feisty)

That's the next problem. Timo, we need at least then a working nVidia 3D driver in our repos. Would this be a huge problem to update the driver just to guarantee that our users can get a good hardware support?

[Thomas Hotz (thotz-deactivatedaccount)]

Here's a list which nvidia 3d driver supports which graphics card.

http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/1.0-9755/README/appendix-a.html

[Ari Torhamo (ari-torhamo)]

It's somewhat confusing that on the main paige of the same driver (1.0-9755) one of the release highlights for it is said to be "Added initial support for NVIDIA SLI with GeForce 8800...".

http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_ia32_1.0-9755.html

If GeForce 8800 isn't supported, why would anyone need SLI to work with it? I think that quite a many people will be mislead by this to think that their 8800 card is supported by 1.0-9755.

Even stranger it gets when you look at the description of the previous driver version (1.0-9746): "Release highlights: Added support for GeForce 8800 GTS and GeForce 8800 GTX boards".

http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_ia32_1.0-9755.html

 But the 8800 cards are not on the Supported Products List.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_18897.html

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

current version of the proprietary driver (9755) does support both 8800 GTS and GTX:

http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/1.0-9755/README/appendix-a.html

[redabour (andre-mondri-freenet)]

So will it be fixed at next Beta ?

There is still no Way to get this Driver if you cant start LiveCD or Installation. ;-)

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

I asked for a freeze exception, so it could make it in Feisty.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

The new driver (2.0) has been uploaded in feisty, so please test it!

We still need to patch discover-data to recognize the devices and to use nv with them.

[Brian Derr (bderrly)]

The new driver is in feisty, but is it in one of the isos? I can't test the new driver if I can't even get ubuntu installed.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Fixed by this upload, which means that installations should use the nv driver now!

 discover-data (2.2007.02.02ubuntu1) feisty; urgency=low
 .
   * Update HW mappings for PCI devices:
       10de0191, 10de0193, 10de019d, 10de019e: The new nv X driver
        supports G80 chips.
       102b0522: mga X driver
   * Changed the Maintainer address.

[redabour (andre-mondri-freenet)]

Does still not work !

Tested the Version from yesterday and today : http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/daily/current/

[redabour (andre-mondri-freenet)]

Low urgency? Is this a Joke?? This is a "Blocker".

[Ari Torhamo (ari-torhamo)]

Nv driver works for me now and installation is fine. Have you redabour tried to install from alternate CD? That way you propably would be able to get a working system with the command line and see the installation logs. I'm not sure which logs would be the most helpfull, but no doubt others here would be able to tell.

My problem now is the nvidia-glx driver, which doesn't work for me. I made a separate bug report about it:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/103545

[redabour (andre-mondri-freenet)]

Yes i did - still the same Problem. Anyone get it started ?

[redabour (andre-mondri-freenet)]

Works now for me after choosing Resolution in the Bootscreenmenu of the LiveCD manually!

[redabour (andre-mondri-freenet)]

But after HD Install the Problem resists. Why isnt Ubuntu LiveCD saving the Resolution to the HD-Install like Knoppix does ????

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

There is a new version, could you try that:

http://users.tkk.fi/~tjaalton/dpkg/xserver-xorg-video-nv_2.0.2-1ubuntu0_i386.deb

[redabour (andre-mondri-freenet)]

Sorry but i dont have to try it in the next few Days. Anyone else?

[redabour (andre-mondri-freenet)]

Sorry i mean : time to try ... :-)

[redabour (andre-mondri-freenet)]

I cant test it - wrong Architecture i386 - i have a DualCore 6600 (64bit)

[ap90033 (robmcsa-gmail)]

Hey for an idiot like me thata has the CD from the main site and it doesnt work where can I get an updated one???

Good grief, seems like this would be working from the get go... I mean HELLO Nvidia??? 8800??? Uh yeah maybe one or two people have one. (more like a few million)...

[redabour (andre-mondri-freenet)]

This works : http://www.albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html

[ap90033 (robmcsa-gmail)]

"This works : http://www.albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html"

How does this help when I cant get the install to work??? Nothing but blank screen...

[redabour (andre-mondri-freenet)]

Just choose 1024*768 as Bootresolution at LiveCD Menu before Booting

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

This should be fixed in Gutsy:

 xserver-xorg-video-nv (1:2.0.2-1ubuntu1) gutsy; urgency=low
 .
   * New upstream release.
   * Merge from debian unstable. Remaining changes:
     - debian/control:
       + Added Conflicts:, Replaces: xserver-xorg-driver-nv
       + Change Maintainer address.
       + Add quilt to Build-Depends
     - debian/patches:
       100_dac_tweak_only_known.diff
     - debian/rules:
       + enable quilt-patchsystem.