Red Hat 7.3, tarred 2960 download, NVdriver failed to initialize
 

The card in this case is a GeForce2 MX200 and I am running dual monitors. The kernel is 2.4.18-10

The compile of the two packages, in the right order, went ahead without errors. According to the README, the only changes I needed to make to my XF86Config-4 file was to change drivers from "nv" to "nvidia". When I boot up, I can't make the AGP nVidia card primary, it doesn't come up at all, only the secondary PCI card. Looking at my XFree86.0.log file, I find:

(EE) NVIDIA: Failed to initialize the NVdriver kernel module

In /log/messages I find:

<host> kernel: nvidia: Can't find an IRQ for your NVIDIA card!
<host> kernel: nvidia: Please check your BIOS settings.
<host> kernel: nvidia: [Plug & Play OS ] should be set to NO
<host> kernel: nvidia: [Assign IRQ to VGA] should be set to YES
<host> kernel: nvidia: loading NVIDIA NVdriver Kernel Module

Using lsmod, I am finding that the module is being loaded OK

Does anyone have any idea what is going wrong?

(Looking at the /var/log/messages one last time, I see [Assign IRQ to VGA should be set to YES]. I'm going to post this anyway, but check this out in my BIOS too.)

That was it. Changing the BIOS setting fixed it. Strange, because it was not a problem with the old "nv" driver.

PROBLEM SOLVED

Did you forget to comment out the
GLcore and the dri drivers per the
instruction in the README?

No, I did that. Please note the problem is solved. It was a BIOS problem, but why it was a problem for the nvidia driver and not the nv driver, who can say? I'm not worried about it.

Hi,

Can I get some details about your rebuild of the
2.4.18-10 kernel for NVidia. I attempted to do
this but ran into a confusion because when
I tried to install the kernel headers they collided
with the glibc-headers. Did you have these
problems?

This was basically to upgrade the 2.4.18-3 kernel
that comes with RH 7.3 to the 2.4.18-10 one
after you do a RHN upgrade.

Thanks,
Henry

I didn't change the kernel at all for purposes of installing the nVidia drivers. All I did was unpack and compile the nVidia drivers as specified in the README. You shouldn't have to change your kernel unless it is not configured for modules at all, in which case changing that is all you should have to do.

My -10 kernel was a Red Hat upgrade too and all you should have to do is upack the two tarred packages and 'make' them in the right order as explained in the README that comes with one or both of the tarred packages.

I didn't change the kernel at all for purposes of installing the nVidia drivers. All I did was unpack and compile the nVidia drivers as specified in the README. You shouldn't have to change your kernel unless it is not configured for modules at all, in which case changing that is all you should have to do.

My -10 kernel was a Red Hat upgrade too and all you should have to do is upack the two tarred packages and 'make' them in the right order as explained in the README that comes with one or both of the tarred packages.

I didn't change the kernel at all for purposes of installing the nVidia drivers. All I did was unpack and compile the nVidia drivers as specified in the README. You shouldn't have to change your kernel unless it is not configured for modules at all, in which case changing that is all you should have to do.

My -10 kernel was a Red Hat upgrade too and all you should have to do is upack the two tarred packages and 'make' them in the right order as explained in the README that comes with one or both of the tarred packages.