[plug] My new PC - a little disappointed...

[Paul Antoine]

Hi Blake,

Sorry to hear of your trials and tribulations!

Have you tried deleting the xorg.conf file in /etc/X11?  I ask because I 
find it frequently gets very messed up when switching between drivers, 
especially in those first post-install boots where you're trying to 
configure X drivers, screen and resolutions for newer video cards 
requiring restricted drivers.

Deleting the file will still let X start with some default values, at 
which point you can use Screens and Graphics to fix things up.  You need 
to re-enable the Screens and Graphics applet in your menus though, using 
this sequence:

i)    Right-click over Applications in the tool bar and select Edit Menus
ii)   Click on Other (it will probably be shown in italics)
iii)   Enable the Screens and Graphics applet
iv)   Close the menu editor

Screens and Graphics will let you alter monitor settings, screen 
resolutions etc.  This is especially important for anyone with a 
widescreen monitor.

Anyway, hope some of this helps,
Paul Antoine in sunny but cold Perth

Blake Munro wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Well my tax refund came in and it's been about 4 and a half years 
> since I spent any money on my poor old desktop PC, so I headed down to 
> my local PC store and got all the parts I wanted to build myself a 
> nice new machine. The specs are:
>
> Gigabyte M750SLI-DS4 mainboard (with Nvidia chipset)
> AMD 64 AM2 dual core 6000+ (3000mhz)
> 4gb Corsair DDR2 1066mhz (these babies have their own heatsinks and 
> fan cooling system attached!
> ASUS Nvidia 9600 GT 512mb DDR3 PCIe video card
> 36gb WD Raptor 10,000rpm (system boot)
> 2x 500gb WD 7200rpm (planned to set up in a RAID mirror)
> Thermaltake Case with 430w PSU
> ASUS Dual layer DVD writer
> TP-Link USB Wireless G adapter (Ralink chipset)
>
> So, I get home on Friday after a long day at work and spend a couple 
> of hours carefully building the box.
>
> My nightmare started after a smooth installation of Ubuntu Hardy 
> 8.04.1, 32bit x86 edition.
>
> Firstly, the mainboard has a Realtek ALC889A sound chip on board. The 
> audio was extremely distorted and crackly, thus rendering it as 
> useless as an ashtray on a motorbike. Ok, so this appears to be a 
> known bug. Some may call it a bug, others may call it "brand new 
> hardware, give it time for us to build in support! (see 
> https://bugtrack.alsa-project.org/alsa-bug/view.php?id=3765). A mate 
> of mine had a surplus Creative Audigy 7.1 PCI laying around which he 
> gave me, great - audio problem solved!
>
> Now, the biggest issue of all - and the only thing stopping me from 
> being a happy person right now is that for the life of me I can not 
> get my Nvidia 9600 GT to work. After a fresh Ubuntu install, it uses 
> the VESA driver and gives me a good resolution, but I can not make use 
> of any of the 3D features due to driver problems.
>
> Firstly, I tried the restricted drivers package by enabling the 
> nvidia-glx-new package from System > Administration > Hardware drivers.
> After a reboot, I get a blank screen. Google confirms that Ubuntu is 
> using an older Nvidia driver and there is no support for my card.
>
> Next step, I tried EnvyNG. Envy does not detect the card straight off 
> the bat and suggests that I may manually force the install at my own 
> risk, just to see if it works or not. Well, I can assure you that it 
> does not work :(
>
> Final step, and I thought I was seeing some light at the end of the 
> tunnel with this one, was to download the binary package from 
> nvidia.com <http://nvidia.com> and manually install the driver, get it 
> to compile a module etc and all would be sweet. Not so. The Nvidia 
> package says that my card is supported, others on various forums I 
> have googled have had some success with this method, but I still keep 
> running in to dead ends, like a lot of other people it seems. The 
> module compiles and installs, but same as step 1, when I reboot, I get 
> a blank screen and Gnome does not start.
>
> This is all making me quite frustrated at the moment, i've spent about 
> the last 48 hours at home like a hermit with about 40 firefox tabs 
> open at any one time, reading forums from all around the globe trying 
> to get this damn graphics card to work.
>
> So my question to fellow pluggers - does anyone have one of these 
> cards, and did you get it to work with the correct driver? If so, 
> could you please give me some advice?
>
> I have since also found out that my mainboard only has fake raid, and 
> have not even attempted using dmraid or any of those tools to set that 
> up, i'm just taking it one step at a time.
>
> It appears to have bitten me in the ass by going out and buying brand 
> new hardware. I tried to stick with good, popular brands but it 
> appears that Ubuntu is still a little bit behind in terms of bleeding 
> edge hardware.
>
> Any help would be very appreciated.
>
> -- 
> Regards,
>
> Blake Munro
> +61 8 6363 5680
> blake.munro at gmail.com <mailto:blake.munro at gmail.com>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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