Author Topic: Blank screen after installation  (Read 5572 times)

Byob555

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Blank screen after installation
« on: January 31, 2008, 11:32:51 am »
Hi, I'm new to linux and MCE so please bear with me. This has probably been discussed here before, if so, I apologize for the redundancy.
Anyways, heres my situation; I'm dual booting with Vista ultimate and Kubuntu (7.04)Feisty. On the clean install of Feisty I used Envy to get my display drivers installed, didn't do a single thing other than that. I proceeded to use the 2 CD installation of Linux MCE. I get through the installation process and then it reboots, it didn't ask me to install the display drivers so it must've known that I already had them in there. I go through GRUB, select ubuntu, it goes through the kubuntu loading screen, then it goes black, I see absolutley nothing. I was able to boot into kubuntu just fine after installing the display drivers prior to installing MCE.
As a side note, I also tried letting the MCE installer do the display drivers for me and i had the same result - black screen after the kubuntu loading screen. (Clean install as well)

I know you're not supposed to do anything, and install mce with a clean kubuntu installation, but I wanted to get the drivers on before. Is this where I went wrong?

Here's my specs:
Asus P5N32-E SLI Plus
Intel Core 2 Duo e6700
2gb Corsair XMS DDR2 800
BFG 8800GTX 768mb Gfx card ( I assume the problem is with this? ) Note: theres only one card atm, no SLI.
2x Samsung 200gb Hard drives (1st drive has both OS on it, 2nd is for storage)
Samsung SyncMaster 932BW monitor ( DVI connection )

I'd greatly appreciate any help, I really want to get this to work correctly.
« Last Edit: January 31, 2008, 12:11:19 pm by Byob555 »

colinjones

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Re: Blank screen after installation
« Reply #1 on: January 31, 2008, 12:59:14 pm »
Sorry, not familiar with your graphics system, however it would be better at least to allow the process continue before you install the drivers you have got. Almost certainly you will need them at some point, but at least get a baseline - for this purpose I would highly recommend using the DVD install on a separate drive until you understand the nature of your graphics system. NB: the DVD install will destroy everything on your drive, not just partition! I don't recommend this because it is more compatible, it isn't, its less - but it gives you a chance to play with the settings a then rebuild LMCE everytime you need to in 20mins rather than the CDs which take at least 3 hours!

When you feel you understand what drivers and xorg.conf settings you need, then you can do a full build with the CDs. That's just my suggestion.

Onto your issue - assuming that you have got to the AV Wizard, X (the windowing system) is trying to start up and take over from the text based command line interface. If it tries to use settings that are not compatible with your video subsystem or monitor/TV, or worse, not even outputting on the right output connector, then you will get a black screen.

Most likely it is outputting to the wrong connector or at a resolution/refresh rate your TV/Monitor cannot handle - the default is to use the VGA port at 640x480 at 60Hz. You say you are using DVI, so this is a good candidate to start with.

The Wiki (and many forum posts, if you search for them) detail the shortcuts. But from memory, you want to hit "1" on the keyboard after the screen has settled down. This selects the DVI/HDMI output you need. 2-5 progressively choose other outputs. From the description of your monitor, it sounds like it will be able to handle a wide range of resolutions and refreshes. However some cannot handle the very low or very high resolutions - usually refresh rates are not too challenging for most screens. You can use 6-0 on the keyboard to change the resolution until you see something. From there you can use the wizard to set the real resolution you want.

Remember, each time you press one of these number keys, X has to shutdown, switch back to text mode, reconfigure itself, process the xorg.conf file, and switch back into graphics mode and your display has to adjust and settle down. So give it at least 10-15 seconds to do this - you should notice HDD activity and probably screen changes/flickering as this goes on. After all that, you can try another setting. I would try hit <1>, wait 15 seconds, then hit <6> or <7> and wait another 15 seconds.

In terms of fine tuning the detail - especially on a digital output, the wizard won't help much. If you get your screen misplaced, or even more, if you find that the "virtual desktop" size is larger than the physical screen size so that you have to scroll/pan around your desktop using the mouse, then you definitely need to edit your xorg.conf file.

Option "UseEDID" "true" can be helpful here, at least in troubleshooting - let X start, then read the log file in /var/log/Xorg.0.log - this will probably tell you what is going wrong and how to correct it. Its an art :)

Remember when you are in a "graphics" mode, even if it isn't working properly, you should be able to hit CTRL-ALT-F2 to get a text console you can login at and perform these changes/checks. There is a Wiki article describing how to login under all circumstances, as there are for many of the things I have described above.

Hope this helps. Keep us updated.

Col


dan g

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Re: Blank screen after installation
« Reply #2 on: January 31, 2008, 01:57:47 pm »
btw, did you read this?
http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=3931.0

what type of video connector did you use?

totallymaxed

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Re: Blank screen after installation
« Reply #3 on: January 31, 2008, 03:36:13 pm »
Hi, I'm new to linux and MCE so please bear with me. This has probably been discussed here before, if so, I apologize for the redundancy.
Anyways, heres my situation; I'm dual booting with Vista ultimate and Kubuntu (7.04)Feisty. On the clean install of Feisty I used Envy to get my display drivers installed, didn't do a single thing other than that. I proceeded to use the 2 CD installation of Linux MCE. I get through the installation process and then it reboots, it didn't ask me to install the display drivers so it must've known that I already had them in there. I go through GRUB, select ubuntu, it goes through the kubuntu loading screen, then it goes black, I see absolutley nothing. I was able to boot into kubuntu just fine after installing the display drivers prior to installing MCE.
As a side note, I also tried letting the MCE installer do the display drivers for me and i had the same result - black screen after the kubuntu loading screen. (Clean install as well)

I know you're not supposed to do anything, and install mce with a clean kubuntu installation, but I wanted to get the drivers on before. Is this where I went wrong?

Here's my specs:
Asus P5N32-E SLI Plus
Intel Core 2 Duo e6700
2gb Corsair XMS DDR2 800
BFG 8800GTX 768mb Gfx card ( I assume the problem is with this? ) Note: theres only one card atm, no SLI.
2x Samsung 200gb Hard drives (1st drive has both OS on it, 2nd is for storage)
Samsung SyncMaster 932BW monitor ( DVI connection )

I'd greatly appreciate any help, I really want to get this to work correctly.


Hi there,

Your nVidia 8800 will need updated drivers for sure (search for other threads here on that) but the bigger issue is making sure you follow to the letter the install procedure... otherwise you will waste hours of frustrated time fighting this kind of problem. Installing updated nVidia drivers is best left to after LinuxMCE is installed ;-)
Andy Herron,
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Byob555

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Re: Blank screen after installation
« Reply #4 on: January 31, 2008, 10:31:25 pm »
Thanks for the responses. I probably should have mentioned this, but I posted at 5am after staying up working on this :) . But anyways, I did read the wiki about pressing 1 and the other combinations of buttons to try and get the AVwizard to display something. However it doesn't even seem like it gets that far after the kubuntu loading screen. The monitor doesn't flicker, it doesn't turn off and on, it doesn't do anything at all, the screen is simply just black. I tried waiting a while and pressing 1 but there was no response at all, nor HD activity.

Edit: I'm also not hearing the beeps within the system that indicate that the AVwizard is running or trying to run. I tried holding shift during the loading screen as the wiki said but there was no effect. With further observation, i noticed that after the screen stays blank for a while, I see the kubuntu loading screen again very briefly, but there is nothing moving in the loading bar, then it goes blank again with the flashing  _  indicating a text prompt? but there is no response from pressing 1 or the other keys that are supposed to change the settings in AV wizard.

The 8800 series cards dont have any VGA outputs, or at least mine doesnt, just 2 DVI outputs, so I cant try to just plug the monitor into a VGA. I have a DVI cord straight from the monitor to the video card, no adapters or anything like that.

One more question, does it always try to go into AVwizard after the installation reboot, even if you use the "mostly as a PC" option that sets it to boot the KDE desktop first, then MCE when you want? And after it's been rebooted multiple times? I have not actually gotten to the AVwizard after a CD install yet, so I wouldn't know.

I don't really want to use the quick install DVD and wipe either of my hard drives right now, but if it comes down to it, I can try it. The CD install doesn't take all that long for me, but its definitely not the 20 mins the quick install does. What about using the recovery mode?
« Last Edit: January 31, 2008, 11:22:22 pm by Byob555 »

colinjones

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Re: Blank screen after installation
« Reply #5 on: February 01, 2008, 11:05:22 am »
Have you tried hitting CTRL-ALT-F2 (or F1-6, 8, 9, etc!) This should drop you back to text mode so you can at least see somethig. But it does sound like you have a bigger issue if you are not seeing any flickering or changing...

Out of my depth!

Byob555

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Re: Blank screen after installation
« Reply #6 on: February 02, 2008, 12:31:53 am »
I guess I'll re-install and get the drivers in after everything is finished, but I'm expecting the same thing to happen again. Ill post again once I've tried it. But refuse to just use the crappy default drivers and be stuck in UI1 when my system is more than capable of running UI2 with blending.

Byob555

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Re: Blank screen after installation
« Reply #7 on: February 02, 2008, 02:31:15 am »
Same crap, didnt even install any display drivers this time! I've about had it with this. Im going to format my linux partition, and toss my linux CD's. Maybe I'll have better luck with the offical 7.10 release.

Thanks for your attempts to help me, but I'm done with this.

finsdown

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Re: Blank screen after installation
« Reply #8 on: February 03, 2008, 04:25:24 am »
I had the same problem. I changed the driver from "Nvidia" back to  "vesa" in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, saved it, and rebooted. This time X started in graphics mode and I was able to continue installing MCE.  So far so good.

-finsdown

Zaerc

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Re: Blank screen after installation
« Reply #9 on: February 03, 2008, 03:26:50 pm »
The trick is often to install the latest drivers after the installation is complete, and to configure them properly.  See also: http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Display_Drivers
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totallymaxed

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Re: Blank screen after installation
« Reply #10 on: February 03, 2008, 03:28:41 pm »
Same crap, didnt even install any display drivers this time! I've about had it with this. Im going to format my linux partition, and toss my linux CD's. Maybe I'll have better luck with the offical 7.10 release.

Thanks for your attempts to help me, but I'm done with this.

Well I can understand your frustration. But I would suggest that by far the best way forwards is to just buy a nVidia 6200 card with DVI out (they are only $30 or so even here in the UK!) this will solve most if not all your problems and is really more than enough display hardware for LinuxMCE.
Andy Herron,
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