Video card upgrade questions (RESOLVED)

Message

Dr Evil · Post by **Dr Evil** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 8:59 pm

Hello everyone!

I just bought an Chaintech GeForce FX5700 LE to replace the GeForce2 MX400 I have already. I did a quick search and didn't really find the answer to my question(s), so I'm asking here:

- Do the drivers I already have installed for the MX400 work with the FX5700 LE?
- If the answer to the first question is no, do I need to recompile a different set of drivers?
- Anything specifically that I need to be aware of with regards to upgrading to this new video card?

I've never done a video card upgrade in Linux before, only Windows, so this is something new to me. Any assistance would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

massimo · Post by **massimo** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:10 pm

Since both are built with Nvidia chips, you won't even need to recompile (reemerge) the nvidia-kernel package if you use it. I switched from a Geforce2 to a Geforce4Ti without any problems and without recompiling anything. You could modify the /etc/X11/XF86Config - change the name and other options (e.g. Videoram) - if needed.

HydroSan · Post by **HydroSan** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:36 pm

Just plug it in and it should work flawlessly without any needed configuration. If you've set the Video Ram in your XF86Config or xorg.conf, than you may need to change that, but otherwise it should be good.

If you haven't already, consider getting the very latest drivers (5336 IIRC) from Portage with:

Code: Select all

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge nvidia-glx nvidia-kernel

You'll notice a huge speed increase.

Dr Evil · Post by **Dr Evil** » Thu Jun 24, 2004 12:52 am

Okay, I've tried all of that, and I'm having problems.

What's happening is that it appears to want to load X fine, but after that, the screen just goes completely garbled with flashing ASCII/ANSI graphics. Seems to lock the system up completely too.

Any ideas?

Also, I'm running the 2.6.5-gentoo kernel.

Thanks!

HydroSan · Post by **HydroSan** » Thu Jun 24, 2004 3:07 am

Dr Evil wrote:Okay, I've tried all of that, and I'm having problems.

What's happening is that it appears to want to load X fine, but after that, the screen just goes completely garbled with flashing ASCII/ANSI graphics. Seems to lock the system up completely too.

Any ideas?

Also, I'm running the 2.6.5-gentoo kernel.

Thanks!

This is due to the old nVidia drivers. Update them to the latest Unstable drivers with:

Code: Select all

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge nvidia-glx nvidia-kernel

Dr Evil · Post by **Dr Evil** » Thu Jun 24, 2004 6:29 pm

It was definitely the drivers. Towards the end I was getting a version conflict with the kernel and something else though (nvidia kernel, not linux). Not real sure what happened. But, somewhere along the lines I screwed something up bad, and decided just to wipe the system clean. I am glad though that my /home is it's own partition, as it sped up the rebuild process quite a bit...all I had to do was just reinstall the apps.

Anyway, definitely a hell of an improvement. An upgrade that was definitely worth it, even though it did cause some headaches.

Thanks for all the help!