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MSI N210 graphics card causes boot failure

December 31st, 2011 - 10:20 am ET by Dean Allen Provins, P. Geoph. | Report spam
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Hello:

My nVidia GeForce 6600 GT card started to act up, so I purchased an
inexpensive MSI N210 card (which uses the 210 nVidia chipset).
The salesman said I'd be happier with it!

Sadly, after the the initial boot sequence lines of text (in regular
VGA font) appear, the screen goes blank, and the disc stops working.
It appears that the "fine print" boot messages are lost at that time.
Is it possible the card does not support alternative VGA text formats?

I should add that the keyboard, mouse and network are all dead at that
time, which suggests that the boot sequence was incomplete.

The MSI box indicates that a PCI Express or PCI Express 2.0 slot are all
that is required. The mother board provides the former (it is an ASUS
A8N-E board purchased with the original graphics card in '06 or
so). "lsmod" shows a "nouveau" driver being loaded with the old
card, but I doubt it gets that far with the new card.

Does anyone know why this happens, or what if any incompatibilities there
are between the current Debian release and this card? Any suggestions
for an alternative card would also be welcome (high "gaming" performance
is not needed).

Thanks,

Dean

Dean Provins, P. Geoph.
dprovins@alumni.ucalgary.ca
http://www.telusplanet.net/~provinsd
KeyID at at pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371: 0x9643AE65
Fingerprint: 9B79 75FB 5C2B 22D0 6C8C 5A87 D579 9BE5 9643 AE65


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#1 Camale
December 31st, 2011 - 10:40 am ET | Report spam
On Sat, 31 Dec 2011 07:30:30 -0700, Dean Allen Provins, P. Geoph. wrote:

My nVidia GeForce 6600 GT card started to act up, so I purchased an
inexpensive MSI N210 card (which uses the 210 nVidia chipset). The
salesman said I'd be happier with it!

Sadly, after the the initial boot sequence lines of text (in regular VGA
font) appear, the screen goes blank, and the disc stops working. It
appears that the "fine print" boot messages are lost at that time. Is it
possible the card does not support alternative VGA text formats?



(...)

Does anyone know why this happens, or what if any incompatibilities
there are between the current Debian release and this card? Any
suggestions for an alternative card would also be welcome (high "gaming"
performance is not needed).



Before anything, I would try these steps:

1/ Rename any current "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" file (if any) and let Xorg to
auto-configure the card.

2/ Boot with KMS disabled (append "nouveau.modeset=0" at boot's kernel
line).

There is also the closed source nvidia driver which usually works quite
well but the first to do is making the system boots :-)

Greetings,

Camaleón


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#2 Sven Joachim
December 31st, 2011 - 10:50 am ET | Report spam
On 2011-12-31 16:31 +0100, Camaleón wrote:

On Sat, 31 Dec 2011 07:30:30 -0700, Dean Allen Provins, P. Geoph. wrote:

My nVidia GeForce 6600 GT card started to act up, so I purchased an
inexpensive MSI N210 card (which uses the 210 nVidia chipset). The
salesman said I'd be happier with it!

Sadly, after the the initial boot sequence lines of text (in regular VGA
font) appear, the screen goes blank, and the disc stops working. It
appears that the "fine print" boot messages are lost at that time. Is it
possible the card does not support alternative VGA text formats?





Hardly, I dare say.

Does anyone know why this happens, or what if any incompatibilities
there are between the current Debian release and this card? Any
suggestions for an alternative card would also be welcome (high "gaming"
performance is not needed).



Before anything, I would try these steps:

1/ Rename any current "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" file (if any) and let Xorg to
auto-configure the card.



This will not help, since there is a problem with the kernel module.

2/ Boot with KMS disabled (append "nouveau.modeset=0" at boot's kernel
line).



That should work around the problem. If possible, use a second machine
to log in via ssh and run "rmmod nouveau; modprobe nouveau modeset=1"
then.

Sven


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#3 Dean Allen Provins, P. Geoph.
December 31st, 2011 - 04:00 pm ET | Report spam
Sven and Camaleón:

Thankyou for the replies and suggestions. I have made some
progress. See below.

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 04:41:11PM +0100, Sven Joachim wrote:
On 2011-12-31 16:31 +0100, Camaleón wrote:

> On Sat, 31 Dec 2011 07:30:30 -0700, Dean Allen Provins, P. Geoph. wrote:
>
>> My nVidia GeForce 6600 GT card started to act up, so I purchased an
>> inexpensive MSI N210 card (which uses the 210 nVidia chipset). The
>> salesman said I'd be happier with it!
>>
>> Sadly, after the the initial boot sequence lines of text (in regular VGA
>> font) appear, the screen goes blank, and the disc stops working. It
>> appears that the "fine print" boot messages are lost at that time. Is it
>> possible the card does not support alternative VGA text formats?

Hardly, I dare say.

>> Does anyone know why this happens, or what if any incompatibilities
>> there are between the current Debian release and this card? Any
>> suggestions for an alternative card would also be welcome (high "gaming"
>> performance is not needed).
>
> Before anything, I would try these steps:
>
> 1/ Rename any current "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" file (if any) and let Xorg to
> auto-configure the card.

This will not help, since there is a problem with the kernel module.

> 2/ Boot with KMS disabled (append "nouveau.modeset=0" at boot's kernel
> line).

That should work around the problem. If possible, use a second machine
to log in via ssh and run "rmmod nouveau; modprobe nouveau modeset=1"
then.



Apending "nouveau.modeset=0" at boot time allowed the boot to proceed
normally. "gdm" popped up a graphical screen as expected, BUT, the
resolution was 800X600.

As "root", I then executed "rmmod nouveau; modprobe nouveau modeset=1"
which caused a loss of X (screen went black) and a loss of the mouse.
The keyboard continued to function allowing me to "halt" the system.
I was unable to bring up one of the 6 text screens, and had to work
blindly.

I examined the /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old (new MSI card) and compared it to
the /var/log/Xorg.0.log (old 6600 card). It appears that the "nouveau"
module may not have been used. The "VESA" module seems to be the module
of choice and all the higher resolutions were disabled.

Sven



It seems that the "nouveau" modeset=1 does not function as expected.
To your knowledge, are there alternative settings that one might use;
or do you recommend the binary nVidia driver?

Thanks,

Dean

Dean Provins, P. Geoph.

http://www.telusplanet.net/~provinsd
KeyID at at pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371: 0x9643AE65
Fingerprint: 9B79 75FB 5C2B 22D0 6C8C 5A87 D579 9BE5 9643 AE65


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#4 Sven Joachim
January 01st, 2012 - 05:40 am ET | Report spam
On 2011-12-31 21:41 +0100, Dean Allen Provins, P. Geoph. wrote:

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 04:41:11PM +0100, Sven Joachim wrote:

That should work around the problem. If possible, use a second machine
to log in via ssh and run "rmmod nouveau; modprobe nouveau modeset=1"
then.



Apending "nouveau.modeset=0" at boot time allowed the boot to proceed
normally. "gdm" popped up a graphical screen as expected, BUT, the
resolution was 800X600.

As "root", I then executed "rmmod nouveau; modprobe nouveau modeset=1"
which caused a loss of X (screen went black) and a loss of the mouse.
The keyboard continued to function allowing me to "halt" the system.
I was unable to bring up one of the 6 text screens, and had to work
blindly.



That's why I suggested to log in from a second computer via ssh. It's
hard to do anything with a blank screen.

I examined the /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old (new MSI card) and compared it to
the /var/log/Xorg.0.log (old 6600 card). It appears that the "nouveau"
module may not have been used. The "VESA" module seems to be the module
of choice and all the higher resolutions were disabled.



This is expected, the nouveau X driver needs kernel modesetting to work.

It seems that the "nouveau" modeset=1 does not function as expected.



It is essential to find out why it does not work. You might want to try
my suggestion to to log in via ssh and then run "dmesg" after re-loading
the nouveau module. Boot with "drm.debug=0x04" to obtain additional
information. Also, try a 3.2.0-rc7 kernel from experimental.

To your knowledge, are there alternative settings that one might use;
or do you recommend the binary nVidia driver?



The only available alternative in wheezy/sid is the vesa driver which is
probably not going to suite you.

Sven


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#5 Camale
January 01st, 2012 - 09:40 am ET | Report spam
On Sun, 01 Jan 2012 11:29:51 +0100, Sven Joachim wrote:

On 2011-12-31 21:41 +0100, Dean Allen Provins, P. Geoph. wrote:

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 04:41:11PM +0100, Sven Joachim wrote:

That should work around the problem. If possible, use a second
machine to log in via ssh and run "rmmod nouveau; modprobe nouveau
modeset=1" then.



Apending "nouveau.modeset=0" at boot time allowed the boot to proceed
normally. "gdm" popped up a graphical screen as expected, BUT, the
resolution was 800X600.

As "root", I then executed "rmmod nouveau; modprobe nouveau modeset=1"
which caused a loss of X (screen went black) and a loss of the mouse.
The keyboard continued to function allowing me to "halt" the system. I
was unable to bring up one of the 6 text screens, and had to work
blindly.



That's why I suggested to log in from a second computer via ssh. It's
hard to do anything with a blank screen.



I guess blacklisting nouveau module should have be done from "init 1"
with no running X session at all.

I examined the /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old (new MSI card) and compared it
to the /var/log/Xorg.0.log (old 6600 card). It appears that the
"nouveau" module may not have been used. The "VESA" module seems to be
the module of choice and all the higher resolutions were disabled.





(...)

That's why you were able to boot, because the system loaded the VESA
driver :-)

To your knowledge, are there alternative settings that one might use;
or do you recommend the binary nVidia driver?





Before ditching "nuvó" I would try to find out if the card/chipset
(geforce 210) is supported within the open source driver. If the card is
unsupported, I would try installing Debian's stock nvidia closed source
driver. If neither works, your last chance is compiling the nvidia driver
from their site.

Greetings,

Camaleón


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