[SOLVED] Black screen after reboot

[templar]

Hi All,

This post is one that I was going to write because I could not solve my problem....but just before I pressed post I was able to figure something out!!! Therefore this post is for people to read over in case they have a problem.

I have been reading different posts for quite some time now and nothing is really quite like the problem that I have. Also many instructions say how to fix things but I cannot follow them because I cant get to certain steps.

My hardware is:

AMD Athlon 4400+ 64 X2 AM2
2GB Ram
Asus M2N-MX SE
XFX Nvidia 8600GT 256mb
Sata 320GB
Sata Asus DVD/CD Burner
Dvico FusionHDTV Lite Edition
17" LCD monitor plugged in via DVI

This is what I did first:

1. Install Kubuntu 7.04
2. Install LinuxMCE installer
3. Install LinuxMCE using 2CD installer including the NVidia driver it wanted
4. Reboot

At this point I heard the descending beeps (but no ascending beeps) and the Kubuntu loading screen is on the monitor. After that finishes the monitor goes black and after a while goes to standby. I remember at one point I removed slash and quiet from the grub menu.lst file and I saw that it stopped somewhere after "reloading smb.conf" or something like that but it kept flicking back and forth between a black screen and the boot messages screen. Every 3 seconds it would switch back and forth back and forth. I could still use the console and everything but everytime it goes to the black screen i would have to wait and then quickly type what I want before it goes back again. No AVWizard or such thing ever came up.

If I type "sudo telinit 1" it stops stuff and then the screens stop flickering back and forth. Obviously it must be the avwizard trying to do stuff....

Another time I tried this:

1. Install Kubuntu 7.04
2. Install LinuxMCE installer
3. Install LinuxMCE using 2CD installer THIS TIME WITHOUT the NVidia driver
4. Reboot

This time the monitor went straight to standby mode after the kubuntu loading screen finished.

I held down shift one time before the descending beeps, then heard one more beep. I then tried some combinations of numbers but nothing happened. The monitor remained on standby. I tried all the ports on the graphics card, still no response. Ctrl-Alt-F1 or F2 does nothing as well. I know that the computer hasnt "frozen" because when i press Ctrl-Alt-Del it actually restarts after a while (meaning that although the monitor is off the system is still running ok).

Now what I did is I booted up in recovery mode and followed the instructions for installing new nvidia drivers because apparently only the newest one actually supports my 8800GT chip. So the version I installed was 169.07 which at the time of writing was the newest one. Once again, no luck. Just now I also tried a program called Envy ... but once again no luck.

The question now is ... what can I do? I have so far been tinkering with the xorg.conf file to see if I can get anywhere but so far no luck. I know that the nvidia driver works because I had Kubuntu running by itself a few weeks ago.

I just noticed something else... I had the box running for about 30 minutes even though nothing works and now the Num-Lock LED on the keyboard is flashing every two seconds. The screen still shows nothing.

The web-based access page works with no problems, so the webserver is obviously running.

What I did to finally get the AVWizard to show up is the following:

1. install Kubuntu
2. install linuxmce without nvidia drivers
3. start kubuntu in verbose mode by editing the grub menu.lst file and removing the "quiet splash" options
4. the screen now flickers back and forth
5. quickly log in to console number 2 (Ctrl-Alt-Del) and type "sudo telinit 1". this will stop the flickering
6. install envy (see http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=3368.0)
7. after reboot you should hear some beeps as usual but then there should be some more beeps and that means the avwizard has started.
8. i had to plug my monitor cable into the other DVI port now and it worked after i rebooted again

My new problem is now "Orbiter failed to setup the transparency. Please check if the transparency manager is running!"

So until i figure this one out i guess ill have to stay with UI1...

Good luck...

[totallymaxed]

Hi All,

This post is one that I was going to write because I could not solve my problem....but just before I pressed post I was able to figure something out!!! Therefore this post is for people to read over in case they have a problem.

I have been reading different posts for quite some time now and nothing is really quite like the problem that I have. Also many instructions say how to fix things but I cannot follow them because I cant get to certain steps.

My hardware is:

AMD Athlon 4400+ 64 X2 AM2
2GB Ram
Asus M2N-MX SE
XFX Nvidia 8600GT 256mb
Sata 320GB
Sata Asus DVD/CD Burner
Dvico FusionHDTV Lite Edition
17" LCD monitor plugged in via DVI

This is what I did first:

1. Install Kubuntu 7.04
2. Install LinuxMCE installer
3. Install LinuxMCE using 2CD installer including the NVidia driver it wanted
4. Reboot

At this point I heard the descending beeps (but no ascending beeps) and the Kubuntu loading screen is on the monitor. After that finishes the monitor goes black and after a while goes to standby. I remember at one point I removed slash and quiet from the grub menu.lst file and I saw that it stopped somewhere after "reloading smb.conf" or something like that but it kept flicking back and forth between a black screen and the boot messages screen. Every 3 seconds it would switch back and forth back and forth. I could still use the console and everything but everytime it goes to the black screen i would have to wait and then quickly type what I want before it goes back again. No AVWizard or such thing ever came up.

If I type "sudo telinit 1" it stops stuff and then the screens stop flickering back and forth. Obviously it must be the avwizard trying to do stuff....

Another time I tried this:

1. Install Kubuntu 7.04
2. Install LinuxMCE installer
3. Install LinuxMCE using 2CD installer THIS TIME WITHOUT the NVidia driver
4. Reboot

This time the monitor went straight to standby mode after the kubuntu loading screen finished.

I held down shift one time before the descending beeps, then heard one more beep. I then tried some combinations of numbers but nothing happened. The monitor remained on standby. I tried all the ports on the graphics card, still no response. Ctrl-Alt-F1 or F2 does nothing as well. I know that the computer hasnt "frozen" because when i press Ctrl-Alt-Del it actually restarts after a while (meaning that although the monitor is off the system is still running ok).

Now what I did is I booted up in recovery mode and followed the instructions for installing new nvidia drivers because apparently only the newest one actually supports my 8800GT chip. So the version I installed was 169.07 which at the time of writing was the newest one. Once again, no luck. Just now I also tried a program called Envy ... but once again no luck.

The question now is ... what can I do? I have so far been tinkering with the xorg.conf file to see if I can get anywhere but so far no luck. I know that the nvidia driver works because I had Kubuntu running by itself a few weeks ago.

I just noticed something else... I had the box running for about 30 minutes even though nothing works and now the Num-Lock LED on the keyboard is flashing every two seconds. The screen still shows nothing.

The web-based access page works with no problems, so the webserver is obviously running.

What I did to finally get the AVWizard to show up is the following:

1. install Kubuntu
2. install linuxmce without nvidia drivers
3. start kubuntu in verbose mode by editing the grub menu.lst file and removing the "quiet splash" options
4. the screen now flickers back and forth
5. quickly log in to console number 2 (Ctrl-Alt-Del) and type "sudo telinit 1". this will stop the flickering
6. install envy (see http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=3368.0)
7. after reboot you should hear some beeps as usual but then there should be some more beeps and that means the avwizard has started.
8. i had to plug my monitor cable into the other DVI port now and it worked after i rebooted again

My new problem is now "Orbiter failed to setup the transparency. Please check if the transparency manager is running!"

So until i figure this one out i guess ill have to stay with UI1...

Good luck...

Check this wiki page out for info on the Avwizard and using the number keys to select the output connector and the resolution http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/AVWizard

Also the nVidia drivers shipped with LinuxMCE-0704 are not compatible with your 8600 card. Search the forum for 'nVidia 8600' or 'nVidia drivers' and you will find a solution ;-)

[templar]

Yeh I know thats why I installed the latest drivers...but are you saying that the latest version 169.07 does not work either?

I have a different problem now...whenever the AVWizard starts it overwrites my Xorg.conf file and replaces "nividia" with "vesa"...

No wonder it doesnt like to work with UI2!!

[Zaerc]

Try setting up your display drivers properly: http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Display_Drivers

[templar]

Yeh i tried that when i first started messing around with it but didn't get very far.

In the end I fixed it all using Envy. I also had to make sure that AVWizard and linuxmce don't overwrite my xorg.conf file every single time. For some reason they always reverted back to VESA, but its not doing that anymore.

Im now trying to figure out how to enable UI2 without using the AVWizard. I know that you can do it through the website admin interface but the UI drop down box seems to be disabled for some reason. Is there some way to manually edit some config file to set it to UI2?

[templar]

Ok here is another update.

I ran the AVWizard again and this time it didnt seem to mess around too much with my Xorg.conf, everything was still working. This time I set it to UI2...but once again I get the message "Orbiter failed to setup the transparency. Please check if the transparency manager is running!".

Previously it was obvious why it did not work:

1. I had the wrong driver OR
2. It automatically selected VESA instead of nVidia without me knowing.

This time I checked the Xorg.0.log file and everything seems to be ok, so I dont understand why it is still saying it cannot setup transparency...

Here are some exerpts from Xorg.0.log:

Code: [Select]

(II) Setting vga for screen 0.
(**) NVIDIA(0): Depth 16, (--) framebuffer bpp 16
(==) NVIDIA(0): RGB weight 565
(==) NVIDIA(0): Default visual if TrueColor
(==) NVIDIA(0): Using gamma correction (1.0,1.0,1.0)
(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "NoLogo" "true"
(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "UseEDID" "false"
(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "TVStandard" "PAL-B"
(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "RenderAccel" "true"
(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "NoBandWidthTest" "true"
(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "XvMCUsesTextures" "true"
(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"
(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "true"
(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "true"
(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "ModeValidation" "NoDFPNativeResolutionCheck, NoEdidMaxPClkCheck, NoMaxPClkCheck, AllowInterlacedModes, AllowNon60HzDFPModes"
(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "DynamicTwinView" "false"
(==) NVIDIA(0): Using HW cursor
(**) NVIDIA(0): Enabling RENDER acceleration
(==) NVIDIA(0): Video key set to default value of 0x83e
(**) NVIDIA(0): TV Standard string: "PAL-B"
(**) NVIDIA(0): Ignoring EDIDs
(II) NVIDIA(0): Support for GLX with the Damage and Composite X extensions is
(II) NVIDIA(0): enabled.
(II) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Not probing EDID on CRT-0.
(II) NVIDIA(0): NVIDIA GPU GeForce 8600 GT (G84) at PCI:2:0:0 (GPU-0)
(--) NVIDIA(0): Memory: 262144 kBytes

etcetc...

(II) NVIDIA(0): Bus detected as PCI Express
(II) NVIDIA(0): Detected PCI Express Link width: 8X

etcetc...

(II) Initializing extension GLX
Could it be that the transparency manager is infact not running? How do I tell?

I can run the display/video diagnostics programs with no problems.

Thanks

[templar]

Ok now i know why it didnt work...

BECAUSE I HAD MY COLOURS AT 16 BIT INSTEAD OF 24 BIT ... AARRRGGGHHH!!

...


Make sure you Xorg.conf is at 24bit!! 

[negus]

i had the same problem with my geforce 7050pv.
The problem is the card doesn't work with the ncvidia-glx driver which is installed from the
kubuntu sources. lmce checks if they are installed and installs them if they aren't.

i solved this problem by reinstalling the nvidia driver (sh Nvidia....sh) aftere lmc was installed.

Then i run into the problem that modprobe nvidia didn't work. So i messed around with the
modprobe config files. The probmlem was in /etc/modprobe.d/lrm-video.
There is a entry like "install nvidia: lrm-video nvidia".
so i tried lrm-video nvidia and nothing worked. seems like lrm-video only works with the nvidia driver
of the kubuntu sources. I commented this line by adding a # at the beginning and the nvidia was loaded
and the xserver started without probs.

but u are right the flickering is really annoying. bad that i didn't realised that "sudo telinit 1" will stop it.
but killall xinit also did fine