NVIDIA with woody 2.4.20 doesn't work correctly

[johannes]

Hello Sirs,

when my X-Server starts i just see lots of charakters like

"####%$ #?!A###aaa # # $ ###" (not exactly but just to explain that there are lots of charakters without any meanings..) on the whole screen and the computer crashes.

However, the installation of the NVIDIA-Driver worked well and I didn't find any ERROR-Messages during the installation.

Maybe anyone has the same experiences and can help me whats wrong ....

here is my environment:

OS: Debian 3.0
Kernel: 2.4.20
grafic card: GeForce4 - 8x Ti4200
Driver used: the sources from NVIDIA
NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-4191.tar.gz
NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-4191.tar.gz

I installed exactly how it is described in the readme:

$ tar xvzf NVIDIA_kernel.tar.gz
$ tar xvzf NVIDIA_GLX.tar.gz
$ cd NVIDIA_kernel
$ make install
$ cd ../NVIDIA_GLX
$ make install

..... in the attachment nvidia.zip:

XF86Config-4 .... the Configuration-File for the X-Server
XFree86.0.log.20030203 ..... the log File created when i executed the x-Server with the command:

$ startx -- -verbose 5 -logverbose 5


i hope someone could help me!!

thanx in advance,
with kind regards,

Johannes Kleinlercher

[Erik]

This may help you as I just tracked down this problem and it may be related to your problem:

Problem description:
When starting X after installing the drivers the screen is distorted/scrambled with seemingly random characters and you cannot do anything to fix this.

Custom compiled kernel on Debian 3.0:
Kernel 2.4.20 from kernel.org

Card:
Geforce4MX 440, AGP, NV17

Problem solution;
After many trials and errors by recompiling the kernel with different options I discovered that the problem was caused by enabling the following options:
Processor type and features -- >
Local APIC support on uniprocessors
IO-APIC support on uniprocessors

By not using theses options in my compile, the server works fine. So the problem is related to the APIC support and can be eliminated by compiling without these options.

[johannes]

thanx - that was the SOLUTION!

and the cool thing about that is - now my network interface is also working (also because of disabling the IO-APIC !!!)


thanx very much!

[Erik]

Yes, and according to Nvidia if you have a MP system, i.e multiprocessor system you can currently do the following:

APIC can be disabled on smp kernels with the "noapic" kernel boot option;
this forces interrupt processing to legacy PIC mode which limits interrupt
processing to the first CPU.

BTW, I wrote a HOWTO about installing the card on Debian 3.0 found here:

http://medlem.spray.se/erikwelander/nvidia-debian3.0-howto.htm

-- Best Regards from Erik, Sthlm, Sweden

erikwelander@hotmail.com