NVIDIA Driver Install Then Reboot Causes Blank Screen (Newish User)

Support & Help Requests Hardware
#1

Hello, I’m running Ubuntu MATE 14.04 (eta x64) and an NVIDIA GeForce 660. I’ve tried three drivers, and each time resulted in the boot splash showing up at low resolution, but then the login screen failing to appear altogether. tty works (ctrl+alt+f2); getting out of tty (ctrl+alt+f7) renders the same blank screen. My proper resolution is 2560x1440. The screen is a Shimian QH270.

I’ve tried various drivers, from both suggestions in the Additional Drivers tool (304 and 331), and PPAs. The only driver I have not tried yet is using the current driver from the nvidia site, NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-346.59.run, because it tells me I have to disable the x server I am running for it to install (xorg/Nouveau, right?).

Adjusting the screen resolution with xrandr -s 2560x1440 gets me “Can’t open display.” Just tried changing the horizontal and vertical frequencies using sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf. The info I’m using is from Post #5 on this thread.

A few other tips from BinaryDriversHowTo/Nvidia include installing startupmanager, linux-headers-316 and linux-restricted-modules-316; what repositories did I forget to add to make this possible? It says “Unable to locate package.” I got the kernel number right, right? 3.16.

Worse comes to worse, the default xorg driver works, just not as optimally as I’d hoped (and I may have to freshly install to make it work; it seems like every time I change a driver and reboot this happens).

#2

Hi,

start your PC in recovery mode and activate “Netwrok” (a network cable is required for this to work!) and then go to “root” and type the following command:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -f

Once done, restart with Ctrl + Alt + Del, do not click on resume!.

If that doesn’t help, do the same thing again but this time type:

sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

And once again; do a restart with Ctrl + Alt + Del, do not click on resume!.

And If that doesn’t help, do the same thing again but this time type:

sudo apt-get install -f

And once again; do a restart with Ctrl + Alt + Del, do not click on resume!.

I hope it helps!.

#3

Hello, no it didn’t. Also after using the install for a bit of web browsing I realize that Nouveau isn’t so stable, either. I vaguely remember not being able to get my previous computer stable on Ubuntu 14.04 a year ago, and I went back to 12.04. Will try installing MATE 15.04 and might to back to 12.04 with Unity. Sorry for the wait; I think I tried too many things and burnt myself out before starting this thread.

#4

Hi,

what have you tried in the meantime?. :smiley: