13.04 Video Problems - NVIDIA GeForce GT 630

[danix803]

I was using version 12.10 and it was working GREAT!!!
One day, I got a notice that 13.04 was out... I went ahead and did it... and even with the problems that I'm facing, I'm still glad that I did... even though I've had to reload it twice... That's right, this is the third installation... I'm persistent... I'm not gonna' give up... LOL...

Anyway, to the problem... I have an NVidia GeForce GT 630 video card installed... It is a great card... and has worked wonderfully under version 12... and it even works great when I first load version 13 of Kubuntu... however, after loading I get a little ticker in the bottom right hand corner by the clock... the update notification ticker... so, blindly, the first two times I clicked it... and let it update everything... I've done this so many times in the past and never had a problem... However, this time... I reboot to black screens... I have a dual monitor setup (a DELL 21" flat screen and a VIZIO 42" smart display)... they have always worked wonderfully together...

Anyway, more information about the problem... I'm using one monitor now... the DELL 21"... when, I rebooted the black screens... I turned the power off and booted to safe mode... I tested everything, the file systems, ect... updated the grub menu... ect... and finally booted to a single monitor... I started researching... and discovered that for some reason this crazy update is updating my NVidia video card to a generic Mesa driver... maybe, that's the safe mode thing... so, I used the 'additional drivers' gui to pick the latest greatest NVidia driver... and now I have a GREAT single disply...

That's some background... The actual problem is that in 'System Settings' under "Display and Monitor" in "Display Configuration" is shows both monitors... The DELL VGA in the center and the Vizio HDMI (Eeeekkk!!! GREYED OUT !!!) in the upper right hand corner...

Used to, I could mess with X 'til somethin' started workin'... Now, everything has changed and I don't know how to manually modify any of those settings anymore... So, I'm a new old guy and don't how to fix this...
I could try to 'Kill X', download, and install the latest greatest NVidia driver specifically for my card... but, that's not allowed anymore... It takes an act of GOD to actually kill X... everytime I try it takes me back to the login screen... > I'm gonna' try it again and see if that part has changed in 13.04... will report back...

Any constructive help will be greatly appreciated...

[danix803]

Okay... I've solved the problem... even though it isn't to my complete satisfaction... booo... hissss...

Anyway, the answer was on this page (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1433955)

I also read the how to install the NVidia driver faq again... that was useless... because, you have to kill X and I can't figure out how to do that anymore, since the ctrl-alt-bkspc keys don't work anymore...

Basically, I went to the 'Muon Software Center' and installed 'Sysinfo'... like the thread says to do... then, at the bottom of the 'Sysinfo' gui there is a link to 'NVIDIA X Server Settings'... that opens the 'NVIDIA X Server Settings' gui and you can actually manipulate your NVidia video cards settings with this gui... it's incredible... I thank U from the bottom of my heart (BTW, which is 2 sizes too small)... to the person who made this NVIDIA gui... a lot of work went into it... it looks GREAT...

[oshunluvr]

...or you can go to a terminal and kill X there. Since X is launched from the display manager, the command would be sudo lightdm stop unless you switched to KDM.

Honestly, the only time I'm interested in killing and restarting X is when I'm experimenting with new settings in my xorg.conf file. I always do that from the terminal so I can see error messages so I've never actually needed CRTL-ALT-BACKSPC.

[danix803]

sudo lightdm stop doesn't work anymore... it kills that terminal and takes me back to ctrl-alt-F7 the graphical interface of X...