Blank screen after installing nvidia restricted driver

Question

I've installed the current nvidia restricted driver and rebooted my machine and now I get a black or blank screen.

How can I fix this?

Answer 1

Remove any Drivers that may be causing the issue, open the terminal and type ( open it from the dash, using the ubuntu icon on the left corner)

  sudo apt-get --purge remove nvidia

or

  sudo apt-get --purge remove nvidia-current

(Depending on which one you have installed) or deactivate them from the restricted driver settings.

reboot.

then on a terminal type this:

  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install nvidia-current nvidia-settings

reboot.

Answer 2

Remove everything to do with the Nvidia proprietary drivers.

1. sudo nvidia-settings --uninstall
2. sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia*

Start from scratch.

1. sudo apt-get remove --purge xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv

Reinstall all the things!

1. sudo apt-get install nvidia-common
2. sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-nouveau
3. sudo apt-get install --reinstall libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri xserver-xorg-core

Reconfigure the X server.

1. sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Source: Ubuntu Wiki

Answer 3

Maybe Ubuntu IT'S working but using another card output. For me, my nVidia GeForce 7300 has 2 output, a VGA and a DVI. It seems like the default output when you install the drivers is to DVI but I don't have a DVI monitor so I managed to get to Recovery Mode (available in GRUB when you boot) and type this:

nvidia-xconfig --twinview --twinview-orientation="Clone"

Now Reboot.

This command directs the same graphics to both outputs. From there on, you can keep experimenting with this nVidia utility until you get what you want. For more information type:

nvidia-xconfig -A | less

Hope that helps.

Answer 4

I agree with Wolf above. Have you tried the open source drivers? And how did you install the restricted driver? I just installed a new Nvidia card similar to yours and installed the restricted driver by following this tutorial and everything worked out great. This page shows to methods, one using a GUI and the other via terminal but with only three needed commands. Install Proprietary/Restricted Drivers

Answer 5

Regarding the topic title: What is the current restricted nvidia driver version used in Ubuntu natty?

You can find anything about releases, versions, bugs, requested features on Launchpad. To understand what it is about you can take their tour.

The question about the latest version of the nVidia driver can be found on “nvidia-current” binary package in Ubuntu Natty i386. So as of 2011-04-20 the latest version is 270.41.06-0ubuntu1. But that is not necessarily the recommended one. The latest one for me always seems buggy (like 'tearing' etc).

Answer 6

Does that thread on Ubuntu Forums help you?

In short, it seems that the linux-header packages for some of the kernels (notably the PAE kernels) are not properly installed, and the nvidia driver compilation fails silently when installing the nvidia packages.

Answer 7

Instead of using nvidia-current you should really try to use an older nvidia driver e.g. the 173.xx. This solved the problem for me. Just start jockey-gtk and chose the 173.xx driver. Than reboot your system.

Answer 8

Try in /etc/default/grub:

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
#GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""
GRUB_GFXMODE=1680x1050x32

Replace "1680x1050x32| with your native resolution (to get it run vbeinfo in the grub console when booting).

Then in /etc/grub.d/00_header:

set gfxmode=${GRUB_GFXMODE} <-- FIND THIS LINE
set gfxpayload=keep <-- ADD THIS LINE DIRECTLY BENEATH

Update grub:

sudo update-grub

Might work...

Answer 9

Try acpi=off. That solved my booting into blank screen issue for Ubuntu 11.10.

Answer 10

I got a blank screen as well, but this was on a laptop with and nVidia optimus card 4200m. Optimus does not seem to be supported well on Ubuntu. I had to disable optimus from the bios and then reinstall the nividia driver. More here if you want to read http://developerslog.org/?p=69

Answer 11

Press Alt+Ctrl+F1 to get to tty1 (terminal), then run this:

sudo apt-get --purge remove nvidia*

That will remove any nvidia driver packages. If that still doesn't work, try this also:

sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.mybak

That will remove a corrupted xorg configuration file if it exists. You will need to reboot after finishing these commands. (Ctrl+Alt+del)

PS. If you have an nvidia optimus card, do not install the x-swat or any other nvidia drivers. The best working drivers for nvidia optimus cards come from the bumblebee project.

Answer 12

This happened to me when running an AMD cpu: Learned it was an IOMMU/AMD -v Bug = Incompatible with Nvidia. Disabling Virtualization bios settings fixed this.

Answer 13

In my case it was a problem with the monitor giving my Nvidia GPU a bad EDID

To debug your error, you can add this line to the screen section in the the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file

Option         "ModeDebug" "true"

Now check your /var/log/Xorg.0.log file.

If you find an error like this:

NVIDIA(0): Unable to get display device DFP-0's EDID; cannot compute DPI

Then you can resolve it by adding this line to the device section

Option         "IgnoreEDIDChecksum" "DFP"

Answer 14

I was getting a black screen when booting. I have a NVIDIA 6200 graphics card. Renaming xorg.config and rebooting worked for me. The xorg.config file created by nvidia-xconfig: version 304.51 (buildmeister@swio-display-x86-rhel47-06.nvidia.com) was causing the problem.