Frustrated: Nvidia Drives and RH8

[jjsimas]

"startx" fails saying that monitors were found but that none have a usable configuration. their configuration is exactly the same that works with vesa driver. my refresh rates are correct: HorizSync 30-110
VertRefresh 48-170
i made sure pnp os was disabled in my bios, but couldn't find a setting for assigning an IRQ to VGA... any help would be appreciated. here is my latest config file. my monitors are dual sony g410's. and my card is an MSI GF4 Ti 4200 AGP Twin View.

Section "Files"
RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
FontPath "unix/:7100"
EndSection
Section "ServerFlags"
AllowMouseOpenFail
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard1"
Driver "Keyboard"
Option "AutoRepeat" "250 30"
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "glx"
Load "extmod"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "MyMonitor"
VendorName "Mitsubisi"
ModelName "Diamond Plus 120u"
HorizSync 30-110
VertRefresh 48-170
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "NV AGP TwinView"
VendorName "nvidia"
Driver "nvidia"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Option "TwinView"
Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" "30-110"
Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" "48-170"
Option "TwinViewOrientation" "RightOf"
Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024,1280x1024; 1024x768,1024x768"
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "crt,crt"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen AGP TwinView"
Device "NV AGP TwinView"
Monitor "MyMonitor"
DefaultColorDepth 24
Subsection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x400"
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubsection
EndSection
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "AGPTwinView"
Screen "Screen AGP TwinView"
InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

[bwkaz]

Hmmm... I don't see anything immediately obvious in the config file (although it is a little hard to read without the indentation -- add [c*de] and [/c*de] (but change the * to an o) around the file next time, and that should help that).

I think the log file would give a hint for where to look, though. Can you attach it?

[jjsimas]

here is the log file.

[bwkaz]

(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA kernel module!
(EE) NVIDIA(0): *** Aborting ***

Is there anything in dmesg or /var/log/messages that may be relevant?

[jjsimas]

dmesg tells me that the agp card is sharing irq 11 with the motherboards ide controller i think.

[jjsimas]

i checked out /var/log/messages and couldn't find anything unusual. only think unusual about my system is that when redhat is booting, it takes like one minute to get bast the "checking for new hardware" screen. perhaps there is a hardware issue to resolve. i have amd 266a chipset. and sometimes amd stuff doesn't work well... works fine on windows though. perhaps i should upgrade to intel this summer.

[bwkaz]

IRQ 11 shouldn't be a problem (mine's on the same IRQ), but the fact that it's sharing it with the IDE controller might be. Are you sure the IDE controller wasn't using 14 or 15? My ide0 is on IRQ 14, and ide1 is on 15, and that's the way it's been on most systems I've seen...

Try looking at /proc/interrupts to see what's sharing what. If possible, load the modules for all the hardware other than the nVidia driver first, then load the nVidia one, to hopefully make it take its own IRQ. If that doesn't work, try loading the nVidia module first, and the others later.

[jjsimas]

Here's the output from /proc/interrupts, looks like
no IRQ is assigned to my vid card?


CPU0
0: 142093 XT-PIC timer
1: 411 XT-PIC keyboard
2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
3: 141 XT-PIC ide2, usb-uhci, usb-uhci, usb-uhci
4: 402 XT-PIC eth0
8: 1 XT-PIC rtc
10: 0 XT-PIC cmpci
12: 8496 XT-PIC PS/2 Mouse
14: 8783 XT-PIC ide0
15: 230 XT-PIC ide1
NMI: 0
ERR: 0

[bwkaz]

Was the module loaded when you looked at /proc/interrupts? I should have said something about that... it has to be.

If the module was in fact loaded, then the problem is the "assign irq to vga" setting that you said you couldn't find. Talk to your motherboard manufacturer (or system mfr. if you bought this all as a package) and get them to tell you how to get the BIOS to assign an IRQ to the video card. If they say you don't need to do that, tell them they're wrong.

[jjsimas]

sorry i don't know how to determine wether the module was loaded / or in what order it was loaded.

[SubTexel]

insmod nvidia

Should tell you if its loaded or not, (if it's not it will load it, if it is loaded it'll tell you its been installed already..

[jjsimas]

insmod says no module by that name found. so it doesn't load it.