Text corruption & buttons dissappear

NightWindow · 08-21-08, 09:18 AM

Hi,

I am using an nvidia Geforce 6150 Go on my HP Pavilion (AMD 64 bit). I am running Fedora core 6 , and I am having trouble using the nvidia driver. I can see the nvidia logo at startup but after I am logging into GNOME, some text buttons disappear or turn into straight lines. The menus on firefox also appear as straight lines, but one I hover on them with the mouse they suddenly reappear. The situation is even worse in KDE where all the icons are corrupted.

None of these problems appear when using the vesa driver.

I have attached a copy of my xorg.conf and would appreciate any help,

Thanks.

memeyou · 08-21-08, 11:17 AM

output of nvidia-bug-report.sh?

NightWindow · 08-21-08, 12:06 PM

When trying to upload nvidia-bu-report.log I received the message "Your file of 275.9 KB bytes exceeds the forum's limit of 146.9 KB for this filetype" .

So I have gzipped the report and uploaded the result.

memeyou · 08-21-08, 02:25 PM

This could be a problem with nvidia figuring out the correct DPI. The readme of the driver covers troubleshooting those issues.

I do notice a lot of crashing in the kernel log, though. I can't actually see it but if it looks like framebuffer corruption... I'm not sure if this still applies to these drivers but try Option "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "TV" in your screen section of xorg.conf. Other users of the Go found they needed to have vga=normal and no video= set in the kernel options. These have been known to cause framebuffer corruption.

If those fail, you can try troubleshooting for general stability. There is a sticky for this. You can try pci=nommconf as a kernel option (recommended in stability sticky for multi-core cpus that have "PCI: Using MMCONFIG". - hopefully it's not something hardware related.

Finally - you may want to try an OS that is still supported and see if you still get these problems. Fedora Core 6/7 reached it's EOL one month after the release of Fedora 8/9, respectively. "Live" versions of these OSs are available to try.

memeyou · 08-21-08, 11:39 PM

the new updated driver, 177.68, may help fix this (?)

Quote:

Fixed a RENDER corruption bug on GeForce 6 and 7 GPUs.

NightWindow · 08-22-08, 05:59 AM

Thank you for the reply.

I have downloaded the updated beta driver 177.68 but the probelm remains.

I have read the section on DPI in the README. When I am using the vesa driver (where no corruption occurs) and run "xdpyinfo | grep -B1 dot" I get the following output:

dimensions: 1280x800 pixels (433x271 millimeters)
resolution: 75x75 dots per inch

Using the nvidia driver I get:

dimensions: 1280x800 pixels (332x212 millimeters)
resolution: 98x96 dots per inch

After adding Option "UseEdidDpi" "FALSE" to xorg.conf I get the same output as the vesa driver, but the corruption problem presists.

I have tried adding Option "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "TV" to the screen section of Xorg.conf but still the corruption remains (possibly even increased).

Adding the options "vga=normal" , no "video=" , "pci=nommconf", in the kernel didn't help either.

May add something I forgot before. I am using a new laptop motherboard. HP had a defect in my laptop series and I was called to return my laptop in order to replace the motherboard. Before doing so, the nvidia driver worked fine. Can this information help in anyway?

memeyou · 08-22-08, 06:37 AM

other users are reporting missing blocks of text and fiddling with the settings mentioned in the performance sticky (re: pixmap).

NightWindow · 08-24-08, 03:45 AM

I think I "fixed" it. I added the following line to xorg.conf , and now I can work with the nvidia driver instead of the vesa driver.

Option "RenderAccel" "FALSE"

What does it mean?

Big P · 08-24-08, 06:20 AM

Have you tried other InitialPixmapPlacement options? Do you get the corruption with InitialPixmapPlacement=0 or 1, or do you only get with IPP=2?

Does your onboard card use AGP? Try the patch here against the latest BETA driver if it does as some people seemed to get corruption with it off.

Turning RenderAccel off should be the equivalent of using software rendering (ie. your CPU) for the RENDER extension. I think the performance problems arise due to the driver falling back to software when a certain feature isn't optimized in hardware. You don't notice that fallback if RenderAccel is disabled, however you're increasing your overall CPU usage. Keep an eye out for the next BETA release also, should be released shortly and seems to have a good few fixes in it too.

08-21-08, 11:17 AM	#2
memeyou Registered User Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 74	Re: Text corruption & buttons dissappear output of nvidia-bug-report.sh?

08-21-08, 02:25 PM	#4
memeyou Registered User Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 74	Re: Text corruption & buttons dissappear This could be a problem with nvidia figuring out the correct DPI. The readme of the driver covers troubleshooting those issues. I do notice a lot of crashing in the kernel log, though. I can't actually see it but if it looks like framebuffer corruption... I'm not sure if this still applies to these drivers but try Option "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "TV" in your screen section of xorg.conf. Other users of the Go found they needed to have vga=normal and no video= set in the kernel options. These have been known to cause framebuffer corruption. If those fail, you can try troubleshooting for general stability. There is a sticky for this. You can try pci=nommconf as a kernel option (recommended in stability sticky for multi-core cpus that have "PCI: Using MMCONFIG". - hopefully it's not something hardware related. Finally - you may want to try an OS that is still supported and see if you still get these problems. Fedora Core 6/7 reached it's EOL one month after the release of Fedora 8/9, respectively. "Live" versions of these OSs are available to try.

08-22-08, 05:59 AM	#6
NightWindow Registered User Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 8	Re: Text corruption & buttons dissappear Thank you for the reply. I have downloaded the updated beta driver 177.68 but the probelm remains. I have read the section on DPI in the README. When I am using the vesa driver (where no corruption occurs) and run "xdpyinfo \| grep -B1 dot" I get the following output: dimensions: 1280x800 pixels (433x271 millimeters) resolution: 75x75 dots per inch Using the nvidia driver I get: dimensions: 1280x800 pixels (332x212 millimeters) resolution: 98x96 dots per inch After adding Option "UseEdidDpi" "FALSE" to xorg.conf I get the same output as the vesa driver, but the corruption problem presists. I have tried adding Option "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "TV" to the screen section of Xorg.conf but still the corruption remains (possibly even increased). Adding the options "vga=normal" , no "video=" , "pci=nommconf", in the kernel didn't help either. May add something I forgot before. I am using a new laptop motherboard. HP had a defect in my laptop series and I was called to return my laptop in order to replace the motherboard. Before doing so, the nvidia driver worked fine. Can this information help in anyway?

08-22-08, 06:37 AM	#7
memeyou Registered User Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 74	Re: Text corruption & buttons dissappear other users are reporting missing blocks of text and fiddling with the settings mentioned in the performance sticky (re: pixmap).

08-24-08, 03:45 AM	#8
NightWindow Registered User Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 8	Re: Text corruption & buttons dissappear I think I "fixed" it. I added the following line to xorg.conf , and now I can work with the nvidia driver instead of the vesa driver. Option "RenderAccel" "FALSE" What does it mean?

08-24-08, 06:20 AM	#9
Big P Registered User Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 180	Re: Text corruption & buttons dissappear Have you tried other InitialPixmapPlacement options? Do you get the corruption with InitialPixmapPlacement=0 or 1, or do you only get with IPP=2? Does your onboard card use AGP? Try the patch here against the latest BETA driver if it does as some people seemed to get corruption with it off. Turning RenderAccel off should be the equivalent of using software rendering (ie. your CPU) for the RENDER extension. I think the performance problems arise due to the driver falling back to software when a certain feature isn't optimized in hardware. You don't notice that fallback if RenderAccel is disabled, however you're increasing your overall CPU usage. Keep an eye out for the next BETA release also, should be released shortly and seems to have a good few fixes in it too.