nVidia Linux Driver support for mobile video cards (Geforce* Go)...

[kanu]

Originally Posted by louxy.luck

.....
urpme nvidia nvidia-kernel-2.6.8.1-12mdk
....
install one of 6629 or 7167 but startx make a blank screen
So i have to stay with 6111 from mandrake

Okay it sounds like you are in the same place as the rest of us from what i gather, 2.6.8.1 kernel as the highest one with a 6111 video driver..

[koala]

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-313705.html

Maybe this will help someone?

[takis]

I'm having a problem very similar to yours. I'm using a Dell Inspiron 2650 with an NVIDIA Geforce2 Go (rev b2). With both the 1.0-6629 and the 1.0-7167, X locks up and I can hear the fan spinrate go up. The only solution is to turn the machin e off by holding the power-button for 5 seconds. Painful. Shameful.

I find it shocking to see this thread existing for a long time now, without any solution or even a reply from NVIDIA people.

The only fixes I can see in their changelogs are 3D performance related. Yes, good for the gamers. But all the business systems seem to be ignored. I just want a solid 2D video card. NO lockups. Great 2D performance and not to bad 3D performance for some nice eye-candy. Apparantly, NVIDIA can't deliver this. (No, I won't run the Ad/Virus/Trojan/Spyware-OS).

[AlxMAX]

takis: This thread is not the oldest. There is another one here, started by louxy.luck. I started this one hoping to gather more people having problems on any laptop with any of the GeForce Go cards, not only Dell Inspiron with Geforce 2 Go. Anyway, louxy.luck said he has managed to make his laptop work with the 6111 drivers and a BIOS downgrade to A02.

koala: I have tried to use options nvidia NVreg_SoftEDIDs=0 NVreg_Mobile=1 (1 is for Dell laptops) in /etc/modprobe.conf without any luck.

All: Allthough I have written some notices about a possible bug of the nVIDIA drivers which don't seem to like the LCD Mode or Simul Mode values for the Video Display Device setting in the BIOS setup and although I have written one more post just to remember them about those notices, I have not a single reaction from any of the nVIDIA people. I suppose that they took to me for a big mouth which speaks without anything to say .

[draconas]

...thirdly, my dell 8600 running a 5200 runs perfectly fine.

CM: I running Mandrake 10.1 on a Dell 8600 / GeForceFX5200. I am getting HORRIBLE 3D performance. Any advice you could give a noobie to Linux ?

[AlxMAX]

draconas: As stated in the sticky thread dedicated to 7167 drivers for Linux x86, these drivers seem to have some issues with the agpgart module. Another cause may be the xorg.conf file. In the Module section you must have this line Load "glx" and to comment the line Load "dri" (add a # before Load).

[louxy.luck]

Hello everyone,
the system mandrake 10.1 + 6111 + bios AO2 + xorg.conf(alxMax) work but
now i installed a gentoo
and gentoo + kernel-2.6.9 + 6111-jp1 + bios AO2 + xorg.conf(alxMax) work too
i hope it will give you some idea for your laptop

[AlxMAX]

louxy.luck Have you tried the following combination?

kernel-2.6.10 + 6111-jp3 + bios AO2 + xorg.conf

Do you remember what the BIOS version was when you have received your laptop?

[draconas]

Originally Posted by AlxMAX

draconas: As stated in the sticky thread dedicated to 7167 drivers for Linux x86, these drivers seem to have some issues with the agpgart module. Another cause may be the xorg.conf file. In the Module section you must have this line Load "glx" and to comment the line Load "dri" (add a # before Load).

Thanks Alx. I have the glx command in there is no line for "dri"...Here are cuts from the 2 sections:

Section "Module"
Load "dbe" # Double-Buffering Extension
Load "v4l" # Video for Linux
Load "extmod"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx" # 3D layer
EndSection
.
.
.
Section "Device"
Identifier "device1"
VendorName "nVidia"
BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce FX (generic)"
Driver "nv"
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

[bck]

I'm somewhat surprised you haven't managed to get a response from an expert, especially someone from nvidia. I have a GeForce FX GO5200 with a wide aspect lcd display on a Dell Latitude D800. I'm not expert, but I've had no trouble getting nvidia drivers working with at most a few false starts, on this or other laptops, other nvidia cards on workstations, ... First of all, start in runlevel 3 so you can try "startx -- -logverbose 5" - this way when it doesn't work the way you expect, you can read the xorg.log in /var/log and figure out what happened.

There are a variety of wierd things that can go wrong. But even if the display never appears and you have to return to a virtual terminal to read the log, or even hard reboot, you should get something. If the display freezes, try ctrl-alt-F, or ctrl-alt-backspace.

Sometimes the problem is that you have loaded modules used by the nv driver, even if you are not in X when you install the new software driver. Try lsmod as root to see what might be interfering. Try "modprobe nvidia" before startx, ... Read the README and set up the xorg or XF86Config file correctly. For the laptop lcd, with logverbose 5, you can get the preferred modeline for the lcd screen from the log. I have SuSE9.2, no problems with acpi, ...

[AlxMAX]

draconas: In the Device section you should replace Driver "nv" with Driver "nvidia" to use the nVIDIA drivers. By the way, after installing the accelerated drivers, how were you able to run 3D apps with that xorg.conf (I mean with nv instead of nvidia)? My system complains about unresolved symbols when using such a configuration.

bck: I have posted several replies in the threads about Linux x86 drivers (both 6629 and 7167), where I was telling about problems I had with these drivers, but I cannot oblige people of nVIDIA to post aswers for me. For my laptop, I tried various things: increasing the frequency domains both for horisontal sync and for vertical sync, disabling some of the autodetection routines, loading the nvidia kernel module before startx, ripping a modeline from the logfile and writing it in the Monitor section of xorg.conf (a modeline from the log file generated with nv driver and a modeline from the logfile generated with nvidia 6111 driver), etc. I have even downgraded the BIOS setup to A08 (it includes the same video BIOS as A05, which came with the laptop), but I haven't gone further in that way like louxy.luck. Beyond this kind of options, I do not know what to change, but I am sure the problem is in the way the drivers are coping with the LCD parameter detection. The log file generated when starting the X server doesn't help me too much (excepting those modelines), even when I start the server with startx -- -logverbose 5. All I can see is the drivers are trying a bunch of frequencies (when the server doesn't hang). The only time the laptop worked was when I attached en external CRT monitor, I have set in the BIOS so that the laptop used only the external monitor when it booted and I have configured the X server for Twinview. For that configuration, the X server started without problem, it has activated the LCD panel without locking and I was able to see the face of WindowMaker! In the rest of the time, when using the LCD panel as primary device, the laptop locks either when unloading the X server (when it changes to the console; this is the case of 6111 drivers) or when loading the X server (this is the case of 6629 and 7167 drivers).

I know someone too having a Dell Latitude with a nVIDIA card and the accelerated drivers working without problem (and he uses quite a high resolution). The things that make me go mad are my laptop used to work in the past with Red Hat Linux 9 (or the equivalent from Mandrake), 2.4.x kernels and the accelerated drivers at that time but not with the XFree86 nv driver and now my laptop works with the Xorg nv driver, but not with the accelerated drivers. One more thing: someone (I guess zander) said that Linux drivers and Windows drivers shared at least 85 % of the code. The Windows drivers (both Dell drivers and 67.03 unofficial tweaked drivers) work just fine....

[okfineilldoit]

hi all, exact same problem here. Almost the same hardware as AlxMAX inspiron 2650, P4M 1.7, gforce2go 32 meg, same freeze on the lasst 2 driver releases. I am running the a13 bios and have had no luck with any of the drivers... They work fine on the desktop, but the laptop just doesn't seem to work. Having seen so many dells with this problem i would think it was the hardware... but When I was running mandrake 9.2 the drivers worked fine, now I am on 10.1 with a 2.6.8 kernel and having no luck at all.