Black screen with geforce gtx 680

[sigyn]

Hello,
I was forced to install openSUSE for now, because Kubuntu didn't seem to like my new graphic card, but I really really want it back.
I was using: Kubuntu 12.10 with newest KDE and it was my only OS.

My PC:
-desktop,
-Intel 64bit ( I was using 32bit Kubuntu)
-Nvidia GeForce gtx 680
-RAM 8GB
-1 SATA drive
-No optical drives

After mounting my GPU and turning on a PC everything works fine until Kubuntu is starting to boot. Than screen goes black. If I unplug HDMI cable, connected to display, from GPU and plug it in to a Motherboard, usual screen appears and I can see that Kubuntu booted just fine, so the only problem is this black screen.
I've tried an option with first installing drivers and than mounting GPU, but this doesn't work at all. Kubuntu don't even want to boot, I just get black screen with underline in top left corner.
I also tried installing Kubuntu 10.04 once again, with GPU already mounted and (without installed drivers yet) everything works great until I update it to 11.10 or 12.10. than I get black screen again.

Does anyone know what causes the problem?
I will appreciate any help.

Regards

[Dutchman]

From your description it sounds like you have two video outputs, the one on the motherboard and the nVidia one. Chances are the motherboard one is being recognized first, and drivers are being loaded for it and not the nVidia. The reason it works with 10.04 and not the new versions is due to changes in the kernel and how it handles video.

First thing I would recommend is seeing if you can disable the on-board (motherboard) card in the system bios. That will keep the kernel from trying to load drivers for it. There should be an option in the bios set-up for that.

If you can't disable the on-board video, you can try to work around it, but that will involve editing your grub bootloader configuration. You'll need to open the file '/etc/default/grub' in a text editor, as the root user. Look for this line:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

Change it to this:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="nomodeset"

Once you've made the change, open a terminal and issue this command to have it written to the boot script as default:

sudo update-grub

That will keep it from loading a framebuffer driver early on in the boot process, and should give the nVidia driver a chance to load. I had the same problem with the computer I'm writing this on, it's an old Dell server, and I couldn't disable the on-board. Dell - for whatever reason - didn't put an option in bios to do that with their servers. The changes I show above is how I worked around it, and it's been working fine since. I don't get the fancy splash screen during boot-up anymore, instead I see all the kernel messages, but I seldom shut this machine down so I really don't care. My nVidia card works flawlessly and that's all that matters. But I would strongly recommend that if you can disable the on-board in bios, do that.

[vinnywright]

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

Change it to this:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="nomodeset"

Once you've made the change, open a terminal and issue this command to have it written to the boot script as default:

sudo update-grub

TThe changes I show above is how I worked around it, and it's been working fine since. I don't get the fancy splash screen during boot-up anymore, instead I see all the kernel messages, but I seldom shut this machine down so I really don't care. My nVidia card works flawlessly and that's all that matters. But I would strongly recommend that if you can disable the on-board in bios, do that.

if you leave the "quiet splash" and add the "nomodeset" you will get the same efect and still get the fancy splash screen during boot-up

VINNY

[Dutchman]

I know Vinny, but the fancy splash requires a framebuffer driver, which on my system made the on-board ATI (the first video the kernel sees) load one (radeonfb) before the nVidia card got a chance. By doing away with any need for a framebuffer, the kernel stays in console mode until it loads modules for X, and then loads the nVidia kernel module. That drove me crazy for a while, I couldn't seem to keep the on-board from initializing no matter what I did with the grub config, until someone pointed out the fact that the splash requires a graphics driver (vesafb, radeonfb or nouveaufb), and would override whatever was on the grub boot line. Doing away with the splash screen finally fixed it. But then I have a bit of an odd machine here, using an older server for a desktop. Most modern computers will have an option to disable the on-board video in a bios setting, which should eliminate the need to set anything in grub.

Rob

[sigyn]

Thank you so much for replying.
I do have an option to disable the on-board video in bios and I tried it. For whatever reason it didn't work.
I'll try the grub editing option you suggested.

Regards
Sigyn

[Dutchman]

I found this thread sigyn, it's probably related. Seems there's a bug with the way 12.10 does nVidia. Here's the link so you can see the fix for it.

Rob

[sigyn]

Thank you so much Rob, you're the best.
I'm just writing from my freshly installed Kubuntu and everything works perfect.

Grub modification didn't change anything, but the thread you found was most helpfull.

Regards
Sigyn

[Dutchman]

Glad it worked Sigyn. Have fun!