08-13-12, 09:18 PM
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#1 | |
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Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 7
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Restarted my machine, now suddenly NOTHING works with my GTX670?
After about 2.5 hours of frustration so far, I consult the assistance of all you geniuses.
Running Mint 13 MATE edition, using an MSi NVidia GTX670 with four monitors. Using the nvidia-current drivers available from Mint's repository, configured by the nvidia-settings applet. The way it was running, each monitor was a separate x screen. It took a lot of blood sweat and tears to make everything work the way it's supposed to in the first place (so much that I even came close to giving up and going to Windows... getting the nvidia drivers to work alongside compiz was the really fun part), but it's been running like a top for a good six or seven weeks now. Until today. For some reason, my machine froze. Couldn't get it to do anything. So I powered it off and back on again. Suddenly, it wouldn't boot. Tried a few times, but the furthest I'd get was a blinking line. I noticed that when I tried to boot through recovery, it was getting hung up on something involving PCI, so I pulled the graphics card, plugged into the onboard card, and sure enough it decided to boot into the OS. From there I re-installed the nvidia-current drivers from my terminal, turned off the machine, plugged the GTX670 back into the board, and turned on the machine again with all the monitors connected. At this point, it got past the blinking line and did boot into the OS (I think), but I got no video output. The monitors were on, meaning they were receiving signal, but only displayed blank screens. So I shut the machine off, unplugged all but one monitor from the GTX670, and turned it back on again. This time I got video, so I went into nvidia-settings to find out what may be wrong. Didn't notice anything odd, so I plugged in another monitor, hit 'detect displays', and it showed me that there was another monitor connected. So I enabled that monitor, set the resolution, and hit apply. No dice. It gives me an error message that says not all the settings can be applied because of various reasons, one of which includes 'an x screen has been added'. Saving my configuration to the xorg.conf file via the nvidia-settings applet makes no difference, because no matter how many times I hit apply, nothing changes. Additionally, if I try to restart the x server manually using ctrl+alt+backspace, nothing happens. Some research into this led me to try ctrl+alt+f7, and that does something, but all I end up with is a big red screen and another reason to reset my machine. Suspecting there might be something wrong with my xorg.conf file, I opened the file with gedit to see if I could make any changes as per online recommendations. But when I open xorg.conf, it's completely blank. This leads me to believe something has become FUBAR for no evident reason, but maybe someone can pull me out of this mess and get everything back the way it was? Only thing I've installed recently that might have something to do with this is pulseaudio-equalizer. Please help! |
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08-14-12, 09:22 AM
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#2 | |
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Registered User
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 92
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Re: Restarted my machine, now suddenly NOTHING works with my GTX670?
Do you have a backup of the xorg.conf you can use? Sometimes a backup copy is made.
Check the /var/log/Xorg.*.log logs. If a screen doesn't come up, it should explain why in there. Also check the kernel log in the same directory for any messages containing "NVRM". |
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08-14-12, 12:51 PM
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#3 | |||
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Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 7
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Re: Restarted my machine, now suddenly NOTHING works with my GTX670?
Quote:
For reference, here is my working xorg.conf file: Quote:
When in TwinView mode, executing the compiz --replace command results in these errors: Quote:
Can someone help me with this? |
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08-14-12, 01:02 PM
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#4 | |
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Registered User
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 92
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Re: Restarted my machine, now suddenly NOTHING works with my GTX670?
Well at the bottom of your xorg.conf you have an option to disable the composite extension. I think this happens when Xinerama is enabled. I don't think Xinerama works with compositing.
Also, what driver version are you using? I'm not sure if this is what you want to do or not, but you should be able to use TwinView with all of your monitors... but you might need a 30x-series driver. Separate X screens are probably workable (though I have no experience with them), but I think Xinerama is universally scorned upon these days, if not in practice deprecated. |
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08-14-12, 01:10 PM
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#5 |
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Registered User
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 92
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Re: Restarted my machine, now suddenly NOTHING works with my GTX670?
Ok looking at your xorg.conf a little better, Xinerama is disabled (good), you have three displays configured for TwinView (that's good for them). You should be able to just comment out that line at the end that disables compositing. Then log out, log back in and try running compiz.
You should be able to add the fourth monitor to your TwinView setup. |
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08-14-12, 01:13 PM
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#6 |
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Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 7
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Re: Restarted my machine, now suddenly NOTHING works with my GTX670?
Man, you're quick. Thanks for being so helpful.
 nvidia-settings tells me I'm on NVIDIA Driver Verson 295.40. I got it from my distro's repository simply by inputting the command 'sudo apt-get install nvidia-current'. Is there a newer driver I should be using? Also, you mentioned that at the end of my xorg.conf there is an option to enable or disable composite, and I see that indeed there is, and from the way it appears it is disabled. Should I use gedit to change this value to 'enabled'? Also, what are these '#removed option' sections? Quote:
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08-14-12, 01:30 PM
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#7 |
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Registered User
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 92
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Re: Restarted my machine, now suddenly NOTHING works with my GTX670?
- First make a backup copy of your xorg.conf.
- Comment out the composite disable option. You don't need to uncomment the enable option; it's enabled by default. - The "# Removed" options are the things that get changed when you apply new settings through the GUI. It comments out the previous values. It looks like Xinerama was enabled at one point (which probably inserted the Composite Disable option). You can get rid of those if you want. - Get the setup working first then work on upgrading the drivers if you want. I think (but I'm not sure)... that Linux Mint uses the same PPAs as Ubuntu. So to get the latest video drivers, you can add the Ubuntu X-swat PPA: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates sudo apt-get update Then go into the Update Manager and there should be a driver update available. (Note: The latest version, 304.something, should be posted within a couple days.) After the update completes, you'll have to reboot for the new driver to take affect. Don't be surprised if it doesn't reboot though. Sometimes people have problems updating the drivers from the repository. If it boots into a black screen, or hangs on the splash screen, just reboot again and it should work. (Not to scare you... I just wanted to mention that sometimes the driver updates are hokey.) |
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08-14-12, 01:53 PM
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#8 | |
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Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 7
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Re: Restarted my machine, now suddenly NOTHING works with my GTX670?
 I did exactly that and now it appears everything is working. Thanks so much for your help. Still haven't updated the NV driver, but I see no point in doing so if everything is working as it should. Hopefully nothing like this happens to me again, but if it does, I've got several backup xorg.conf files that I can use should the need arise. For anyone who's interested to see my xorg.conf file for their own troubleshooting purposes, here it is. Quote:
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08-14-12, 02:07 PM
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#9 |
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Registered User
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 92
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Re: Restarted my machine, now suddenly NOTHING works with my GTX670?
Cool! Glad to hear it's working.
Do you have 3 monitors or 4? |
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