Geforce4 T1 4200 + mandrake 8.1 fault

[icmac1]

I recently intalled a Verto Geforce4 T1 4200 card on a mandrake 8.1, kernel 2.4.8-26. I have downloaded the tar.gz kernel and
glx files, made and installed (no problems). However I keep getting x server re-spawns. I have tried to use the standard vga drivers, same problem. i have edited the Xfree86-4 config file
to load glx and use nvidia as the driver.

I used the NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-3123 and NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-3123 source files.

My log files show the NVdriver is loaded.
I have attached my Xfree86 log file

Ps I used to use a riva TNT2 34M card, my new card works on win98

[bwkaz]

From your log file:

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

If you are positive that NVdriver is loaded (if it's listed in /proc/modules, it is loaded), then check either /var/log/messages or dmesg (near the end of either) after a failed attempt for a reason your system isn't able to initialize the NVdriver module.

9 times out of 10, the "failed to initialize" message is because the kernel module isn't loaded, and in that one case where that isn't the problem, the problem 90% of the time is that the card can't get an IRQ because "Assign IRQ to VGA" is turned off in your BIOS. If that's the problem, you will see a message to that effect in one of those logs (dmesg is the direct kernel log; /var/log/messages is generally the concatenated kernel logs of every time the system has been up).

[icmac1]

Hi, in your reply you said the fault 90% was the kernel module not loaded, I assume if NVdriver is listed using lsmod then that
is the kernel module?

I will re-check dmesg, however my bios does not have the choice to assign the irq to vga

[bwkaz]

Yeah, lsmod is a nicely-formatted version of the /proc/modules file. So if it's in lsmod, it'll be in /proc/modules as well, and it'll be loaded.

[icmac1]

Hi Bwkaz, thanks for replying, I have just run the nv_check.sh
script which did find that my/dev/nvidia1 --3 did not exist, I have
created them and now nv_check.sh reports my system should be ok, however I am still getting the same fault. I have checked the
dmesg for any references to IRQ and nvidia or the geforce card
but nothing is reported.


I am going to check the /etc/modules.conf, I seem to remember
something about the alias has to be changed

[icmac1]

I have re-checked using a modified nv_check.sh and it reports
no faults. NVdriver is listed in lsmod, the alias in /etc/module.conf
appears to be correct as I am running devfs,i.e

/dev/nvidia* NVdriver

I am still getting the same Xserver output, i.e kernel module failed to intialise

Absolutely stumped

[bwkaz]

So was there anything in the logs? Attach the output of dmesg, after you've run startx.

[icmac1]

Hi Bwkaz, I have attached the output of dmesg, XFree86.0.log and a copy of my Xfree86-4 config file as a zip file

[bwkaz]

Well, I don't see anything -- how about /var/log/messages? Do a tail -f 350 /var/log/messages >log.txt or something -- I'll hopefully only need the last 350 lines. The full file is going to be too much.

Other than that, I'm not sure -- do you have a "PnP OS" setting in your BIOS? Is it set to yes? If so, it should be set to no.

[icmac1]

Hi, yes i set the PNP os to no, I will post the last 300 lines of messages tomorrow, thanks for helping

[icmac1]

Hi I have attached the results of a tail -n 350 on /var/log/messages

[bwkaz]

I must have missed this the first time around:

Jan 19 10:01:58 icmac1 kernel: NVRM: loading NVIDIA kernel module version 1.0-1512

That version very likely predates GeForce4 series cards, which is why the next line says "unsupported PCI ID".

Install 3123 or 4191 again, but delete /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/video/NVdriver first, so that you're sure it installs.