NVIDIA 4496 + Xfree86 = Blank Screen / White (SOLVED!!!)

skatrek · Last edited by skatrek on Fri Mar 26, 2004 8:14 pm; edited 2 times in total

Hello all... I'm a big fan of Gentoo, and there was a point when everything on the system that I wanted to work did work... I have a problem with the NVIDIA drivers, though, as many people have noted. startx gives either a blank screen that doesn't go away after waiting and I have to do a hard shutdown (and I can't do an Alt+Fn or Ctrl+Fn), or this latest antic is some strange white pattern that grows on the screen, and eventually takes it over... I only let it go for about 2 seconds since I was afraid it would kill my monitor. Another strange thing is that, on reboot, when I go to read the XFree86.0.log file or the /etc/X11/XF86Config file, sometimes it's filled with strange parts of other files... I can't make heads or tails of it!

Here are my specs:
Dell Inspiron 8500 Laptop
nVidia GeForce4 Ti 4200 Go 64MB
15.4" UXGA screen

MrStaticVoid · Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 6:58 am Post subject:

I am having the same issue as you. I upgraded to 2.6.5-rc1-mm1 and the nVidia drivers crash Xfree. My issue only differs in that Xfree crashes only when I try to try to kill it (ctl+alt+bksp). I just get white lines across the screen and a nice hard lockup. I try to look at the logs, but it garbles the screen and contain parts of other files...in fact, it looks *exactly* like yours. I've tried a couple of versions of the drivers and many kernel versions. I've even recompiled Xfree to no avail. Why would it work before 2.6.5-rc1-mm1 but not after, even when reverting to an older kernel?

EDIT: I also did a revdep-rebuild hoping there was a missing library but everything was good there.

skatrek · Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 2:43 pm Post subject:

Yeah, it's an exceptionally strange problem... and I just reinstalled from Stage 3 yesterday afternoon, a few hours before I posted, so I'm almost positive there's nothing missing or wrong with my system... unless portage is universally messed up!

Twix · Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 3:11 pm Post subject:

Same problem here, but with mm-sources-2.6.5-rc2-mm1 (copied the ebuild). I patched my kernel with bootsplash, vesafb-refresh-rate and hid-poll-interval; those 3 patches worked flawlessly in 2.6.4-gentoo-r1, and this mm seems to boot fine with them too.

Only, when I start x I get a nice black screen and nothing responds. I have to hard-reboot.

Glad to not be the only one with this trouble

skatrek · Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 4:09 pm Post subject:

Here's my 2.6.5-rc1-mm1 /usr/src/linux/.config, if anyone's interested. EDIT: Uploaded file to cut down on post size

Twix · Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 5:01 pm Post subject:

Maybe found a solution here:

(snip)

CONFIG_4KSTACKS is the likely suspect, minion.de says it's not compatible with the driver and the latest kernels have that enabled.

(/snip)

I'll try that right now, and post if I get some success.

Twix · Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 5:31 pm Post subject:

After scratching my head a bit to really disable 4KSTACKS from .config, I rebooted, re-installed the nvidia kernel and here I am, using nvidia-kernel with mm-sources-2.6.5-rc2-mm1

skatrek · Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 6:12 pm Post subject:

I recompiled, manually editing .config to comment out the 4KSTACKS option, but when I restart (and recompile nvidia-kernel and modify the XF86Config file, of course), I have the same problem... could you post your XF86Config, your .config, and your lsmod output, please?

Twix · Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 9:15 pm Post subject:

The thing is, when you disable 4KSTACKS in .config, as soon as you do "make bzImage", it gets enabled again... You'll have to edit /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/Kconfig and change the 4KSTACKS entry to look like this:

skatrek · Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 9:40 pm Post subject:

Aha... yes, I found that problem... since then I tried the mm-sources-2.6.5_rc2-r2 hoping the 4KSTACKS patch would be removed, but it wasn't, so I'm using 2.6.4-rc1 now... and it's fine by me! Just for the record, here is my kernel .config, here is my /etc/X11/XF86Config, and this is the output of my lsmod:

klerck · n00b Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 4